The latest in the Galaxy S series was announced last Monday night to be the Samsung Continuum. Adding a second smaller screen they call a “ticker” to handle notifications, news, and updates from friends without having to drain the battery having to run the screen every twenty minutes. This along with some other exclusives have some great potential, that is till they decided to keep developers OUT of the loop.
You see, the “ticker” and pressure sensors will not be made available to developers at launch. This leads to some real disadvantages for end consumers. While the “ticker” and pressure sensors will work with all the pre-loaded software, like VZ-Navigator, none of your favorite apps from the market will. This means while VZ-Navigator can use the “ticker” to show directions, Google Nav in Google Maps can not.
Will developers ever be allowed access to the Continuum’s APIs? Samsung isn’t letting too much out. When pressed about this at their release event they only confirmed that no APIs will be available at launch and gave a simple “maybe” when asked about the future. I’m not sure why, but I have a feeling Verizon has a lot to do with this decision. How long can an Android device live without developer support? I guess we will have to keep an eye on the Continuum to find out.