If you’ve ever bought Nokia, you would have come to accept that you’re not going to hear much from Nokia about the bad software improving over time. The only promises made are new phones that bring more unpolished features. Nokia is still in the market because people haven’t graduated to using smart phones. They aren’t willing to move away from their Nokia devices because continuing to stick with them keeps them in the false bubble that is their comfort zone.

When Samsung promised something fresh with Bada OS, what they really did was intermix what they liked and what their developers thought were feasible from iOS and Android. If their idea of fresh meant the best of both worlds, you’ll see confused reviews from people who have used either extensively because Bada isn’t like either of them.

Right from the beginning though, I’ve seen that nobody talks about Bada. Even the people who write about phones and other gadgetry for a living don’t talk about Bada devices the way they talk about their iPhones and Android devices. They never put them in a scenario where they would use them daily. Samsung’s sold millions of these Bada devices around the world. These are smart phones targeted at the crap-phone market. Advertised the same way they would advertise their feature phones, they don’t really give users an impression of how superior the software on these phones are. And that’s the real problem. Smart phones are all about the software. If you don’t talk about the software, the people who buy these phones are not going to invest in the platform. They will ready to switch to something else in the future. And that’s not what you want, do you Samsung? Given that they think Android is more capable to power their own tablet, we really don’t have any idea what Samsung is thinking at the moment.

Representatives aren’t talking about progress, leaked firmware is. Right now I have Bada OS 1.2 on my phone. The software is much smoother to use; it has made my phone so much more usable. The official Bada OS 1.2 firmware isn’t out yet and you cannot update your phone using Samsung Kies, which is for Bada OS what iTunes is for iOS, except that it is Windows-only. When you go out to buy a Bada device today, what you will get is a beautiful device with the best hardware but software that comes nowhere close to utilizing the potential of that hardware. The biggest disappointment though, has been the apps. I see about 200 odd Samsung Apps that I could download, but I don’t see what I could ever be looking for: No apps that do VOIP, none that identify songs with missing tags, and none that Samsung could use on TV spots. This is a huge void that somehow needs to be filled. Samsung needs to help. There are clauses in the developer agreement that prevent certain apps from being developed. VOIP apps, for example are something developers are waiting to work on. They can’t because Samsung doesn’t allow them.

Somehow though, I don’t feel a lot of optimism in the air. I think Samsung is giving a lot more love to Android. Till the next firmware leak, I wont know what is going on with Bada. Is it okay to end with - What is up, Samsung?