Wednesday, 27 January 2016

Specifications of Smartphones - The Platform (OS)

Platform (The Operating System)


Every mobile device runs an Operating System. 
The most popular OS's for mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) are:
  • Apple's iOS
  • Google's Android


Down the ranks there are:
  • RIM's BlackBerry OS
  • Microsoft's Windows Phone.
  • Symbian



Symbian held its top position for years but its market share has been slowly fading away ever since touch-operated smartphones became the norm and Symbian failed to deliver an intuitive touch UI (User Interface).



Almost ten years ago, Microsoft's Windows Mobile was a strong player too, offering the first touchscreen smartphone experience with the PocketPCs powered by their OS.



Today mobile devices with a proper OS are called smartphones and users have a wide choice of applications, such as games, productivity apps, communication or social media apps, digital maps, etc.




Standardized operating system platforms make it possible to provide a consistent user interface (and experience) across devices from different hardware manufacturers.

Yet, Android smartphone manufacturers like to customize the user experience so each offers a slightly modified version of the stock Android UI.



While the major players these days are clear, over the years we've seen the emergence of numerous mobile OS projects including but not limited to:

  • Palm's webOS
  • Samsung's Bada OS
  • Nokia's Maemo OS
  • Nokia's MeeGo OS
  • LiMo OS, Tizen
  • BlackBerry's Playbook OS
  • Jolla's Sailfish OS and
  • Mozilla's Firefox OS.




Android Versions History:




Apple IOS Version History:

  • iPhone OS 1
  • iPhone OS 2
  • iPhone OS 3
  • iOS 4
  • iOS 5
  • iOS 6
  • iOS 7
  • iOS 8
  • iOS 9
















Credit : GSMArena and Wikipedia













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