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[[Image:Nokiae71.jpg|thumb|The [[Nokia E71]] smartphone running [[S60 (software platform)|S60]] 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1 [[User interface|UI]] on the [[Symbian OS]] v9.2]]
[[Image:Nokiae71.jpg|thumb|The [[Nokia E71]] smartphone running [[S60 (software platform)|S60]] 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1 [[User interface|UI]] on the [[Symbian OS]] v9.2]]
A '''mobile operating system''', also known as a mobile OS, a mobile platform, or a handheld operating system, is the [[operating system]] that controls a [[mobile device]]—similar in principle to an operating system such as [[Mac OS]], [[Linux]] or [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]] that controls a [[desktop computer]] or [[laptop]]. However, they are currently somewhat simpler, and deal more with the wireless versions of broadband and local connectivity, mobile multimedia formats, and different input methods.
A '''mobile operating system''', also known as a mobile OS, a mobile platform, or a handheld operating system, is the [[operating system]] that controls a [[mobile device]]—similar in principle to an operating system such as [[Mac OS]], [[Linux]] or [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]] that controls a [[desktop computer]] or [[laptop]]. However, they are currently somewhat simpler, and deal more with the wireless versions of broadband and local connectivity, mobile multimedia formats, and different input methods.

Revision as of 07:45, 27 August 2010

The Nokia E71 smartphone running S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1 UI on the Symbian OS v9.2

A mobile operating system, also known as a mobile OS, a mobile platform, or a handheld operating system, is the operating system that controls a mobile device—similar in principle to an operating system such as Mac OS, Linux or Windows that controls a desktop computer or laptop. However, they are currently somewhat simpler, and deal more with the wireless versions of broadband and local connectivity, mobile multimedia formats, and different input methods.

History

The increasing importance of mobile devices has triggered intense competition among technology giants, like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Nokia in a bid to capture the bigger market share pre-emptively.[1] Palm, Research In Motion and Ericsson are also significant firms in the mobile platform sector. In November 2007, Google formed a Linux-based open source alliance to make inroads into this mobile platform market, raising consumer awareness of the growing mobile platform frenzy.[2]

Market description

Mobile platforms are in the nascent stage, and any projection regarding the market growth is hard to make at the present time. It is noteworthy that Intel is taking the initiative to focus on portable devices other than mobile phones. They are Mobile Internet Devices (MID) and Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC). Meantime, Palm abandoned its plan to develop Foleo, which was to be a companion device for a smartphone.

Mobile navigation

Canalys has estimated that in 2009 the installed base of smartphones with integrated GPS was 163 million units worldwide, of which Nokia accounted for more than half (51%) having shipped cumulatively 83 million GPS devices. On January 22 2010, Nokia released a free version of Ovi Maps which is expected to double user amount.

Operating systems

Table showing most of the current mobile operating systems for smartphones, PDAs and netbooks in 2010
Share of Smartphone sales by operating systems in Q2/2009 by Canalys.[3] (data does not include Palm WebOS, which was introduced in June, 2009)

Operating systems that can be found on smartphones like Nokia's Symbian OS, Apple's IOS, RIM's BlackBerry OS, Microsoft's Windows Phone OS, Linux, Palm WebOS, Google's Android, Samsung's Bada (operating system) and Nokia's Maemo. Android, Bada, WebOS and Maemo are in turn built on top of Linux, and the iPhone OS is derived from the BSD and NeXTSTEP operating systems, which all are related to Unix.

The most common operating systems (OS) used in smartphones by Q2 2009 sales are:

Symbian OS from the Symbian Foundation (50.3% Market Share Sales Q2 2009)[3] (open public license)
Symbian has the largest share in most markets worldwide, but lags behind other companies in the relatively small but highly visible North American market.[4] This matches the success of its largest shareholder[5] and customer, Nokia, in all markets except Japan. Nokia itself enjoys 52.9% of the smartphone market.[6] In Japan Symbian is strong due to a relationship with NTT DoCoMo, with only one of the 44 Symbian handsets released in Japan coming from Nokia.[7] It has been used by many major handset manufacturers, including BenQ, Fujitsu, LG, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony Ericsson. Current Symbian-based devices are being made by Fujitsu, Nokia, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony Ericsson. Prior to 2009 Symbian supported multiple user interfaces, i.e. UIQ from UIQ Technologies, S60 from Nokia, and MOAP from NTT DOCOMO. As part of the formation of the Symbian platform in 2009 these three UIs were merged into a single platform which is now fully open source.
RIM BlackBerry OS (20.9% Market Share Sales Q2 2009)[3] (closed source, proprietary)
This OS is focused on easy operation and was originally designed for business. Recently it has seen a surge in third-party applications and has been improved to offer full multimedia support.
iOS from Apple Inc. (13.7% Market Share Sales Q2 2009)[3] (closed source, proprietary)
The iPhone uses an operating system called iOS, which is derived from Mac OS X. Third party applications were not officially supported until the release of iOS 2.0 on July 11th 2008. Before this, "jailbreaking" allowed third party applications to be installed, and this method is still available.
Windows Phone from Microsoft (9% Market Share Sales Q2 2009)[3][8] (closed source, proprietary)
The Windows CE operating system and Windows Mobile middleware are widely spread in Asia. The two improved variants of this operating system, Windows Mobile 6 Professional (for touch screen devices) and Windows Mobile 6 Standard, were unveiled in February 2007. It has been criticized for having a user interface which is not optimized for touch input by fingers; instead, it is more usable with a stylus. However, unlike iPhone OS, it does support both touch screen and physical keyboard configurations.
On February 15th, 2010 Microsoft unveiled its next-generation mobile OS, Windows Phone 7. The new mobile OS includes a completely new over-hauled UI called "Metro". It includes full integration of Microsoft services such as Zune, Xbox Live and Bing. The new OS platform has received very positive reception from the technology press.[9][10][11]
Android from Google Inc. (2.8% Market Share Sales Q2 2009)[3] (open source, GPL)
Android was developed by Google Inc.. Android is an open source, Linux-derived platform backed by Google, along with major hardware and software developers (such as Intel, HTC, ARM, and eBay, to name a few), that form the Open Handset Alliance.[12] This OS is new, though has a following among programmers.[13]
Linux operating system (open source, GPL)
Linux is strongest in China where it is used by Motorola, and in Japan, used by DoCoMo.[14][15] Rather than being a platform in its own right, Linux is used as a basis for a number of different platforms developed by several vendors, including Android, LiMo, Maemo, Openmoko and Qt Extended, which are mostly incompatible.[16][17] PalmSource (now Access) is moving towards an interface running on Linux.[18] Another platform based on Linux is being developed by Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic, Samsung, and Vodafone.[19]
Palm webOS from Palm Inc. and Palm OS/Garnet OS from Access Co. (closed source, proprietary)
Palm webOS is Palm's next generation operating system. PalmSource traditionally used its own platform developed by Palm Inc. Access Linux Platform (ALP) is an improvement that was planned to be launched in the first half of 2007. It will use technical specifications from the Linux Phone Standards Forum. The Access Linux Platform will include an emulation layer to support applications developed for Palm-based devices.
bada from Samsung Electronics (closed source, proprietary)
The bada mobile phone operating system is still in development, and Samsung expects handsets to be available in the second half of 2010.[20] The first device to run bada is called 'Wave' and was unveiled to the public at Mobile World Congress 2010, Wave is a fully touchscreen phone running the new mobile operating system.
MeeGo from Nokia and Intel (open source, GPL)
At the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Nokia and Intel both unveiled 'MeeGo' a brand new mobile operating system which would combine the best of Moblin and the best of Maemo to create a truly open-sourced experience for users across all devices.
Maemo from Nokia (open source, GPL)
Maemo is a software platform developed by Nokia for smartphones and Internet Tablets. It is based on the Debian operating system.
Maemo is mostly based on open source code, and has been developed by Maemo Devices within Nokia in collaboration with many open source projects such as the Linux kernel, Debian and GNOME.
Maemo is based on Debian GNU/Linux and draws much of its GUI, frameworks and libraries from the GNOME project. It uses the Matchbox window manager and the GTK-based Hildon as its GUI and application framework.
Limo

Feature phone operating systems

Common operating systems for feature phones include Nokia's S30 and S40. [21] S40 offers APIs for Java ME.[21]

Operating systems feature comparison

Feature iOS Android webOS Windows Mobile Windows Phone 7 BlackBerry OS Symbian MeeGo Bada Maemo
Company Apple Open Handset Alliance(Google) HP/Palm Microsoft Microsoft RIM Symbian Foundation Intel and Nokia Samsung Nokia
Current Version 4.0.2 2.2 1.4.5 6.5.3 Not yet released 6.0.0 9.5 1.99 5.0 5.0
OS Family Mac OS X/Unix-like Linux Linux Windows CE 5.2 Windows CE 7 Mobile OS Mobile OS Linux Mobile OS Linux
Supported CPU Architecture ARM ARM, MIPS, Power Architecture, x86 ARM ARM ARM ARM ARM, x86 ARM, x86 ARM ARM
Programmed in C, C++, Objective C C, C++, Java C C++ C++ Java C++ C++ C/C++
License Proprietary EULA except for open source components Free and open source except closed source components Free and open source except closed source modules Proprietary Proprietary Proprietary Eclipse Public License Free and open source Free and open source
Package manager ? ? ? ? ? ? ? rpm+yum ? dpkg+apt-get
Default Web Browser/Engine Webkit Webkit Webkit Internet Explorer Mobile Internet Explorer Mobile Webkit Webkit Webkit Gecko
3rd Party Application Store App Store Android Marketplace App Catalog Windows Marketplace for Mobile Windows Phone Marketplace App World Symbian Horizon Samsung App maemo.org
Email Sync protocols supported POP3, IMAP, MAPI, POP3, IMAP, MAPI, POP3, IMAP, MAPI, POP3, IMAP, MAPI, POP3, IMAP, MAPI POP3, IMAP POP3, IMAP POP3, IMAP
Push Notifications Example Example Example Example Example
Voice Recognition Example Example Example Example Example
Tethering Bluetooth, USB (carrier dependent), Wifi (with 3rd party software and "jail break") Wifi, USB, Bluetooth Wifi USB, Bluetooth, Wifi (with 3rd party software) USB, Bluetooth, Wifi (with 3rd party software microUSB, Bluetooth, Wifi
Audio Playback AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), HE-AAC, MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Apple Lossless, AIFF, WAV AAC LC/LTP 3GPP, HE-AACv1 (AAC+), HE-AACv2 (enhanced AAC+), AMR-NB, AMR-WB, MP3 (Mono/Stereo 8-320Kbps constant or variable bit-rate, MIDI (MIDI Type 0 and 1. DLS Version 1 and 2., Ogg Vorbis, PCM/WAVE (8- and 16-bit linear PCM (rates up to limit of hardware), WAVE MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR, QCELP, WAV All (some require optional debian packages)
Video Playback H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format H.263, H.264 AVC, MPEG-4 SP MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 All (some require optional debian packages)
Turn-by-turn GPS 3rd Party software Google Navigation 3rd Party Software 3rd Party Software 3rd Party Software 3rd Party Software, manufacturers software free global Nokia Ovi Maps
Video out 1024 by 768 pixels with Dock Connector to VGA Adapter; 576p and 480p with Apple Component AV Cable; 576i and 480i with Apple Composite AV Cable 720p on select devices None Device depending Nokia AV Out (PAL/NTSC)
True multitasking iOS4 only Yes ? Yes Yes ? Yes Yes ? Yes
Support for hardware keyboard Yes[citation needed] Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes Yes ? Yes
Videoconference front video camera Currently iPhone 4 only Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes Yes ? Yes
Can share images via Bluetooth with all mobile No Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes Yes ? Yes
Skype Yes Yes[22] ? ? ? ? Yes[23] ? ? Yes
Facebook IM chat ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Yes
ssh ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Yes
OpenVPN ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Yes
Remote Frame Buffer ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Yes
Official SDK plattform(s) Mac OS X Multiplattform[24] Multiplattform Windows Windows Windows Windows GNU/Linux Windows GNU/Linux[25]
Feature iOS Android webOS Windows Mobile Windows Phone 7 BlackBerry OS Symbian MeeGo Bada Maemo

References

  1. ^ Can Mac OS X succeed as a mobile platform? 2007-01-22
  2. ^ Google Enters the Wireless World
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Canalys: iPhone outsold all Windows Mobile phones in Q2 2009". AppleInsider. 21 August 2009. Retrieved 21 September 2009.
  4. ^ North American Market
  5. ^ Symbian Shareholders
  6. ^ "Highlights from the Canalys Q3 2008 research". Canalys. 2008-02-05. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |lastdate= ignored (help)
  7. ^ Symbian Facts
  8. ^ "CEO Ballmer Reportedly Says Microsoft 'Screwed Up' with Windows Mobile". eWeek. 28 September 2009.
  9. ^ http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7-series-is-official-and-microsoft-is-playing-to/
  10. ^ http://gizmodo.com/5471805/windows-phone-7-series-everything-is-different-now
  11. ^ http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/02/15/windows-phone-7-series-our-take/
  12. ^ http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/oha_members.html
  13. ^ http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/146450/developers_praise_android_at_google_io.html?tk=rl_noinform
  14. ^ Shipping Linux-based Phones at Technology News Daily
  15. ^ Microsoft Excluded from DoCoMo at The Register
  16. ^ Incompatibility in Mobile Linux at OS News
  17. ^ Search Mobile Computing
  18. ^ Running on Linux
  19. ^ Motorola Press Release on Partnership on Linux Platform
  20. ^ "Samsung launches bada open mobile OS". Electonista. 9 November 2009.
  21. ^ a b http://www.forum.nokia.com/Technology_Topics/Device_Platforms/Series_40/
  22. ^ http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/on-your-mobile/skype-mobile/android/
  23. ^ http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/on-your-mobile/?cm_mmc=m102
  24. ^ http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
  25. ^ http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/Maemo_5_Final_SDK_Installation#Installing_Maemo_5_SDK_using_GUI_Installer

See also

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