Samsung to shutter its WatchON service December 31st

The end of 2014 will spell the death of an important piece of Samsung software. As a hint, it first came with the Galaxy S4.

For weeks now there have been rumors that Samsung’s sliding profits are a sign of some major upheavals at the Korean conglomerate, but there was nothing concrete to be gleaned. In the past 24-hours however, we have learned that several key figures in the Mobile division will step down from their positions of power, and now the company itself has informed the world that the WatchON platform will be put to pasture:

[quote qtext=”On December 31st, 2014, Samsung WatchON will discontinue full service in all markets, except the United States and Korea. We would like to assure customers that content previously purchased through Samsung WatchON will not be affected and will remain accessible through the relevant content provider’s application. We ask all customers with questions or concerns to please contact our customer support team by visiting the following website: http://help.content.samsung.com.” qperson=”” qsource=”” qposition=”center”]

WatchON never managed to really catch on unfortunately, perhaps because it had an inane number of required system permissions and hardware resource requirements, perhaps because there were better options out there, most of which work without the need of a Galaxy device. Still, there are obviously enough users who are making use of it, less Samsung would be terminating its support globally.

The next question perhaps, is when the ChatON app will meet its maker, if ever. The messaging service was also rumored to be on the chopping block, though in its case Samsung explicitly denied it.