Getting WhatsApp for Your Samsung Tizen Phone

WhatsApp has become one of the biggest messaging apps around the world, with around one billion users as of February 2016. Its popularity isn’t really surprising since the app allows users to text and call their friends and family members and exchange pictures and videos no matter where they are in the world. The best thing about the app is that it’s completely free; it used to cost $0.99 per year, but the company scrapped this pricing structure so users no longer need to pay a monthly or yearly fee to use the app.

WhatsApp is available for a wide range of phones, and these include Samsung’s budget cheap phones like the Z1 and Z3, both of which run on the Tizen OS. If you have one of these phones and would like to enjoy WhatsApp, you’ll need to take several steps to download and install it in your phone.

If you have a Samsung Z1, for instance, you can download the app from the Tizen Store. If it’s your first time to download applications from the store, you’ll need to create an account and download an app called “ACL for Tizen” (which is short for Application Compatibility Layer). After installing and enabling the app, go to the Tizen Store and search for WhatsApp. Follow the instructions on the screen to download and install the app on your phone and start using it.

If you already have WhatsApp on your Samsung budget phone, you’ll want to watch out for updates and download the latest version of the app ASAP. Doing this is important so you can enjoy the latest features that WhatsApp would release while ensuring that any bugs in the app would be fixed.

As of the moment, the latest version is WhatsApp 2.12.17, which you can download from the Tizen Store. The update is said to install security features in the app, improve the design for browsing photos and videos, and provide solid colors as background for chats. It also allows you to zoom in on videos while they’re playing, save incoming media for certain chats, and pull down in-app notifications so you can easily reply to messages.

WhatsApp 2.12.17 doesn’t yet allow Tizen phones to make Voice Calls. If you had signed up for the WhatsApp Call Beta, you’ll lose the capability to make voice calls on WhatsApp when you download the latest update. This can be depressing and may tempt you not to update the app, but upgrading to 2.12.17 is recommended since it provides you with additional security.

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Facebook’s React Native gains Windows and Tizen support

Facebook’s original intention when designing React Native was to give its developers a way to build single-page apps using the React platform. They could then build native mobile apps for Android and iOS using React.

During the F8 developer conference, Facebook announced that React Native has already been used by over 500 companies and developers to publish apps on Apple’s App store and by over 200 companies and developers to publish apps on Google’s Play store.

Due to the success of the platform on both iOS and Android, Microsoft and Samsung have also decided to bring React Native to Windows 10 and to Samsung’s Tizen OS. Now, developers will be able to use the framework to create apps for the Universal Windows Platform which means their apps will be able to run on desktops, laptops and on Windows 10 mobile. Samsung’s Smart TVs and smartwatches run its Tizen OS so developers be able to reach even more markets by building their apps using Facebook’s React Native platform.

The Facebook SDK will also be added to React Native as well. Apps built using the framework will now have access to many standard Facebook features such as Sharing, App Analytics and Facebook’s Graph API.

At the F8 conference last year Facebook decided to make React Native and open source project. As a result of this, over 600 developers have added code to the framework’s codebase over the last year. According to Facebook more than 250,000 developers have the React tools which make up the basis of React Native currently installed on their systems.

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Samsung Gear S2 Receives Yet Another Tizen OS Update

At this point in time, the Samsung Gear S2 is among the most popular smartwatches on the market, which is quite a feat considering the fact that the wearable in question runs on Tizen OS as opposed to the more popular Android Wear operating system developed by Google. Nevertheless, Samsung’s proprietary Tizen OS for the Gear S2 continues to improve at a steady rate, and after receiving a hefty software update earlier this month, Samsung’s smartwatch is now queued up for yet another update, which is reportedly already available in several regions.

The new software update for the Samsung Gear S2 weighs 20.39 MB and, as usual, it’s available for download on the smartwatch through the Samsung Gear application, which may have to be updated separately in order to accommodate the new OS version. Oddly enough, however, the latest software update for the Samsung Gear S2 doesn’t have a changelog, or more precisely, the changelog remains unchanged from the previous major software release, which was sized at roughly 82 MB. With that being said, as yet there’s no easy way to tell what the new update is all about, but it might be a complementary update for the previous release, fixing potential stability issues and bugs that may have slipped by Samsung before launch. Otherwise, the new software package could also be a precursor for a larger, future update that might add more functionality to the watch.

Whatever the case may be, Samsung Gear S2 owners willing to take the new update out on a test drive can either wait for the update notification to arrive or can try triggering the software upgrade process through the Samsung Gear application’s settings menu. Either way, Gear S2 wearers should be aware that their smartwatch will not be usable during the updating process. Furthermore, the watch’s settings might be restored to default values once the update is applied, so you may want to take note of your current setup before proceeding with the download. And for readers who might not be up to date with other recent happenings in the Samsung Gear S2 camp, it should be noted that the smartwatch might receive compatibility with iOS devices soon, and Samsung could also release the long-awaited Band Adapter accessory, recently spotted in a series of leaked images.

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