Samsung Partners With Nokia And Nike For New Smartwatch Adventure

By Sarah Price - 01 Sep '14 12:23PM

Samsung has partnered with two new companies, Nokia and Nike, to integrate HERE Maps and fitness tracking in Gear S smartwatch.

Samsung, the world's largest smartphone company, is making new friends to expand its wearable presence. The Korean tech giant announced Thursday that the all-new Gear S smartwatch based on its own Tizen OS instead of Google's Android Wear platform. To make its new OS independent from Google, the company has branched out to Nokia for HERE maps and Nike for fitness tracking service.

The new smartwatch brings top phone makers and a renowned sport shoe brand together. With its new partnership with Nokia, Samsung exclusively features HERE Maps in Samsung's Tizen based smartwatches as well as Android phones. In an official blog post, Nokia confirmed its mapping service will be available on select Samsung phones and paired wearables.

Some of the highlights of the HERE Maps include offline navigation function, which can be extremely useful when connection is intermittent. HERE Maps also sports Glympse, a feature that allows users to instantly share a location with a friend for a set period of time.

Samsung's partnership with Nike brings Nike+ Running App for Gear S users. With the device's built-in 3G and Bluetooth, wearers can "track their runs and stay motivated while on the move, without their smartphone," Samsung said in a press release, last week.

"Nike+ Running has changed the way people experience sports. It motivates runners to run further, faster and more often by tracking their activity, celebrating their progress, enlisting personalized coaching, challenging their friends and sharing runs with their entire social network," Adam Roth, Vice President of Nike Global Running Brand Marketing, said in a separate statement, Friday. "The integration with the Samsung Gear S allows more runners to join the Nike+ community and enjoy the benefits of this great service."

As for the Gear S specs, the new smartwatch features a curved 2-inch Super AMOLED display with 480x360 pixel resolution, a 1GHz dual-core processor, backed by 512MB RAM and 4GB internal storage. Sensors like barometer, GPS, compass, pulse rate reader and a UV monitor are integrated into the Gear S for better fitness tracking. The device is expected to hit the stores in October.