[Samsung Galaxy Gear] BarryH_GEG:
Mods: I'm hoping you'll let this thread stay. The one dedicated Tizen thread is a combination of how to install/uninstall, personal views of the change, and discussion of actual changes and features. It's really hard to follow and at the speed Samsung's pushing out Tizen (all the EU's already done) it's going to be a large share of this forum's discussion that'll be difficult to contain to one thread.

You're both right. It depends on what your view of the GG1's purpose is and what you bought it for.

If you bought it as a garage hobby to tinker with, sideload apps for larger displays, and to run it stand-alone and type and watch movies on a tiny display just because you can Samsung's abandonment of Android for the Gear family is a bummer. I've admired the things people like this have done but other than the sport of it I don't (personally) get it.

For people that bought a Gear (or any wearable) for the productivity benefits Samsung moving the GG1 to Tizen is great. Look at it this way, with the move away from Android with the GG2's the GG1 was an orphan. No one was developing apps for it even before the move and Samsung would have stopped providing updates for it also. So it would have suffered death by neglect. Samsung's sold (or shipped) an estimated 1M GG1's so add that user base to the ongoing Samsung/Tizen mix and you have the largest wearable audience out there and at least a chance of gaining some developer interest.

My thoughts after using Tizen for a few days...

The "ugly"

The lack of apps available is a big deal. Some people with GG2's have said they have more apps available in Samsung Apps than we do for the GG1 so hopefully what's missing is just Samsung having issues getting the GG1 configured in their App store. Some of the apps I used heavily and liked are gone: TripIt, Glympse, CNN, Vivino, and Peel Remote for example. I doubt some will be back so I'm kind of bummed.

The "bad"

I miss the ability to swipe down to access the Camera and swipe up to access settings (my upward swipeable app of choice). It's kind of strange that something so simple couldn't have been replicated in Tizen. The solution is to use the App clock which gets you access just as quickly. I'd rather have the weather showing but c'est la vie.

The "good"

So far, there's not a single stock app or feature I've found that's not better in Tizen than Android. Some examples.

Gear Manager

It's cleaner, faster, and better organized. The Home screen styler provides nice customizations without having to install battery-draining third party apps to stylize the watch face. The amount of discussion in this forum dedicated to watch faces kind of boggles my mind. So for the watch face obsessed the new customizations should be welcome. Before, if your phone lost its connection to the Gear, Gear Manager closed. Now, it stays open and displays a warning in the notification panel that the connection's been lost. There are settings now that allow you to receive notifications on your Gear while the phone's display is on and to receive notifications on your Gear without illuminating the display. Pretty nifty.

Connectivity

Way better. I can be about 15' further from my phone before my Gear loses its connection compared to Android. The phone/Gear also maintain their connection better and re-connect faster when it's lost. I like the audible notification when the connection is gained and lost too. Smart relay and Auto lock are a lot faster and more reliable too. Weather updates reliably for me every hour which was pretty random before. When a third BT device was thrown in the mix the Gear and my phone would fight for the connection. For example when I was in my car using BT audio. Everyone plays nice now.

UI

I -hate- the default Tizen interface display which is small icons flanking the clock. I liked the former jumbo icons because when running through an airport or walking on a street they are a lot easier to hit when moving. The new UI is highly customizable and there are now two home screen display options. The large clock/small icons default and the former jumbo icons. I was bummed when I first saw that "favorites" and "re-ordering" apps was gone from Gear Manager. It isn't gone it's now on the Gear itself and on steroids. Long pressing an app in the Apps panel allows it to be moved to the home screen. You can even re-order apps within the app panel by dragging and dropping them. The home screen works the same way. The clock is the default home page. You can re-order apps around it by dragging and dropping them. Long-pressing something on the home screen allows it to be deleted. Other than the loss of drag up/down app access from the clock screen I can't see how anyone can say the new Tizen UI approach isn't more customizable, flexible, and better overall.

Here's a quick vid of the Gear set up with jumbo icons as before...

[YOUTUBE]kpghhl5G8Ms[/YOUTUBE]

Notifications

Hallelujah. What a mess the Android notification apps/management process was. Call logs getting stuck with no way to remove them, CNN staying in notifications permanently after the first notification was received, e-mail being treated separately, just to name a few. Every notification is now treated as a peer. While on the Notifications main screen you can now drag down and "delete all" appears so all your notifications can be deleted at once. The same exists for all individual notification categories too.

Mail

Gear Manager now lets you specify what e-mail accounts you want displayed on your Gear. In addition, you can now keep scrolling and read 100% of a received e-mail. If you're in the dedicated e-mail app you can now swipe left or right to delete a single e-mail. Maybe the old Android e-mail app did that too, I never tried it.

Messaging

There's now a dedicated messaging app. Messages now display with accompanying received pictures too. If you're in the app and swipe down a "send message" option's available that allows you to scroll your contacts with mobile numbers and originate a message from a template or using S voice. Speaking of which you now set either as a default across the device to manage how you reply. You can also now send an emoticon (only) as a message or reply.

Contacts

Way faster scrolling. Swipe right to call and left to message works the same but the latter now actually works. In Android it would stumble over +1 or "(XXX)" around an area code. Contacts with pictures now have their pictures show up reliably wherever the Gear's able to display them.

S voice/Speaker/Mic

Wow, what a difference. S voice is twice as fast and the speaker/mic both louder/clearer. I've tested calls with some friends and they said I sounded fine where before I faded in and out and sounded like I was underwater.

Camera

Way faster and now includes geo-tagging. Voice now actually works consistently (EG: "shoot") which is a lot easier than trying to hit the display and allows you to look at your subject and not just your wrist when setting up a picture. The video limit is 15 seconds. Transfer speeds to the host device are now a lot faster too.

Music Player

Kind of cool. I used it with BT ear buds when mowing the lawn and it was surprisingly strong. Kind of a neat feature to have when you don't want to schlep your phone around to listen to music. I have a N3 so not schlepping it around is a bigger benefit than to someone with a S4 mini.

Fitness with Gear app/Health

I never used S Health on my phone but with the changes made to the Gear's health reporting and syncing apps I'll probably start. I've only browsed the apps/functions available but what they track seems interesting to capture and monitor to improve your health-related habits or routines.

So, for those that use their Gear for the out-of-the-box features the upside's pretty strong to move to Tizen. The biggest downside is the limited number of apps and the potential loss of those you may have used previously. The swipe up/down loss is a bummer but by using the Apps clock certainly livable. For those that bought the Gear as a "franken-watch" to play with you're obviously better off skipping Tizen.

If I've gotten anything wrong or if someone wants to add something to the list to keep it current just let me know.