Student Dmytro Kolinchuk
Dnipropetrovsk National
Mining University, Ukraine
Mobile
operating systems comparison
Introduction.
While the size, features, and price determine what mobile device or smartphone
users opt for, the operating system remains a very important factor that the
mobile device user must consider before making a purchase. There are numerous
types of mobile operating systems. The top ones are Palm, Google Android,
Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Phone 7 series, and the iPhone OS.
Analysis of recent research. Android is the second most popular smartphone platform. Nowadays this
operating system runs almost on all popular smartphones from famous companies
like Samsung, HTC, LG and others. Android was originally manufactured by a
company called Android Corporation which Google bought in July 2005.
iPhone OS, manufactured by Apple Inc., is the mobile
phone version of Mac OSX. One unique feature that makes iPhone OS stand out is
that all the interaction with the phone can be conducted through the touch
screen. iPhone OS comes with several applications, both third party and
included applications.
Palm OS (also known as Garnet
OS) is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for
personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS is designed for ease of use
with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite
of basic applications for personal information management.
Blackberry is no doubt the
most popular smartphone of the corporate world. Like some other mobile OS's, it
has popular features that include a built-in keyboard and a thumbwheel control
that is easy to use. It can synchronize well with your PC. One drawback is that
it limits one to viewing MS Office documents only.
Symbian is a mobile OS that is
very popular outside the United States. Symbian is an operating system for
smartphones and mobile devices designed by Symbian Ltd. Nokia acquired Symbian
Software Limited in 2008. Symbian OS was made available in 2010 as open source
software. Devices running on Symbian OS make up the largest percentage of
smartphone sales worldwide.
On February
15th, 2010, Microsoft unveiled its next-generation mobile OS, Windows
Phone. The new mobile OS includes a completely new over-hauled UI inspired by
Microsoft's "Metro Design Language". It includes full integration of
Microsoft services such as Windows Live, Zune, Xbox
Live and Bing. However, no current Windows Mobile software can run on
Windows Phone 7. The new software platform has received some positive reception
from the technology press.
Conclusions. Mobile platforms are in the nascent stage. Presently, it is hard to
predict how this market will grow. However, a clear trend is the surging growth
of mobile operating systems which are developed for smart devices, rather than
for feature phones. Since February 2011, Nokia has announced a partnership with
Microsoft which effectively ends the development of Symbian OS, the most
popular feature phone OS in favor of Windows Phone.
Picture 1. Smartphone operating
systems' market share.
References
1. Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Modern Operating Systems (3rd Edition) – 2007.
2. Majeed Ahmad, Smartphone: Mobile Revolution at the Crossroads of
Communications, Computing and Consumer Electronics – 2011.