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Mobile operating systems – do you know them all?

February 26, 2016

It is common knowledge by now that mobile operating systems are designed for mobile devices, regardless of whether they are smartphones, tablets or other gadgets (although wearable operating systems are usually listed in a separate category).

The basic features included by these systems would be the touchscreen, the cellular, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS mobile navigation functions, a camera, a video camera, the speech recognition and voice recorder elements, a music player, and a near field communication (NFC) receiver beacon.

Some of the mobile operating systems are the most predominant and also the most efficient – well known worldwide due to their status and quality. Usually running on high-class devices, the leaders of them all are (in a random order):

  • Android OS:

    this Linux kernel – based OS originates in the Google labs; it is free and open-sourced but it is however proprietary and close-sourced when considering all the bundled-in software; all Android major updates have been codenamed by dessert terms (1.5 Cupcake, 1.6 Donut, 2.0 Eclair, 2.2 Froyo, 2.3 Gingerbread, 3.x Honeycomb, 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, 4.1- 4.3 Jelly Bean, 4.4 KitKat, 5.0 Lollipop, 6.0 Marshmallow); the first 2008 version carried the name Astro; the platform gained a lot of popularity and traction since many Android apps come from independent developers and offer a lot of variety and exciting new capabilities; the official Google Play store holds approximately 1.6 million apps; as for the Android phones, almost all quality smartphones besides iPhones operate on Android (Samsung Galaxy series, LG, Motorola, HTC).

iOS-9

  • iOS:

    the Darwin core – based operating system that reached its 9th version is closed source and proprietary; the Apple OS for smartphones holds the second largest worldwide base. However it leads in profits, its supremacy being challenged by Android, or rather with Android attempting to challenge the Apple profits, since an iPhone allegedly brings more profit in 3 months than Android in its entire existence (?!); the Apple App Store holds approx. 1.5 million apps; iOS is only paired with Apple devices and developed exclusively by the company’s developers;

  • Windows Mobile:

    (currently Windows 10 Mobile) is the third most renowned mobile OS, with the correspondent third installed base on smartphones; it is Windows CE 5.2 kernel based, closed source and proprietary; it belongs to Microsoft and comes with integrated services such as Office, OneDrive or Xbox video; the Windows Mobile 10 system is considered better that its predecessors, nevertheless it still does not qualify for a close-distance third place to Apple and Android; the Windows phone store holds approximately 340 thousands apps; it comes with the entire Nokia Lumia series, and more recently the Vaio phone; you may check here an in-depth Windows 10 Mobile review.

  • BlackBerry OS:

    first released in 1999 for the same name smartphones line belonging to Research in Motion (RIM), this QNX microkernel (Unix-like) based mobile operating system may be living its last days since BlackBerry Priv and other future devices adopted the Android OS; this OS is also close source and proprietary and it was a pioneer of its times, especially designed for business applications; it was also a short runner for the position of third strong pillar in the mobile OS environment; its global glory times comprised the 2001-2011 timespan; it suffered both the impact of iOS and Android launching and success and seemingly the restructuring moves did not scored the needed results; its official applications store, BlackBerry World only has about 130 thousands.

Remembering some discontinued mobile operating systems

To mark an imaginary space between the most famous mobile operating systems and other OS-s that reach the online media more rarely, here’s a short review of some no longer developed brands:

image Credits
Image Credits

 

  • Bada (from which Samsung moved forward to Tizen in 2013); designed for mid-range and high-end smartphones, this Linux kernel based 2010 OS used to have somehow of a resonance; the company itself considered Bada (“sea” in Korean) more of a platform with configurable architecture than an actual OS; it only came in 2 versions and five paired Samsung phones.
  • Symbian: another platform, developed by Nokia and released in 2002 as a proprietary software; discontinued in 2012, it was however also used by mobile brands such as Samsung, Motorola or Ericsson; it is currently maintained by Accenture; here’s a blast from the past with the best Symbian phones ever (slideshow).

Other ex-operating systems would be MeeGo (Linux foundation), webOS and Palm OS (Palm) or LiMo (replaced with Tizen).

Other current mobile operating systems

  • Cyanogen (CM) OS: Cyanogen Mod describes as an “aftermarket firmware for a number of cell phones based on the open-source Android operating system”, while Cyanogen OS defines as “Android evolved” stock firmware that comes preinstalled on devices such as OnePlus One, YU Yureka, YU Yuphoria or Lenovo ZUK Z1; it also supports Nexus devices; it is open-source and its series debuted with Cyanogen Mod 7, based on Android Gingerbread; in November 2015 the 13.0 was released.
  • Firefox OS: developed by Mozilla foundation and based on Windows NT 8+, this mobile system is open source; it is dubbed Boot to Gecko (B2G) and its roadmap starts with its 2013 launch; however GSM Arena pronounced it as a fail in December 2015, considering how low-end and unable to provide the best user experience it proved to be.

    Image Credits
    Image Credits
  • Sailfish OS: this mobile operating system actually inspired this entire overview; this second week of February Turing Robotic Industries announced they will be dropping Android for their sturdy, secure smartphone in favor of Jolla’s Sailfish operating system; this Linux-based system is free and open source (the Mer core middleware), yet its user interface (UI) is proprietary to Jolla; the developer team behind it comes from the discontinued MeeGo project; all 19 versions carry Finnish lake names; an interesting capacity is that Sailfish allows software porting and migration from abandoned projects such as Symbian – the compatible devices include Nexus line phones, HTC phones , Samsung and Sony phones, Xiaomi and OnePlus One smartphones.
  • Tizen OS: another operating system that has gained a bit of a traction; open source and Linux based, this OS has ambitions, since its range of supported devices surpasses smartphones and reaches into the smart devices world, smart appliances and wearables included; the developers behind Tizen comprise LiMo and MeGoo team members; it is backed by a Tizen Association (rebranded from the LiMo Foundation) which includes Samsung, Huawei, Orange or Sprint;

We will conclude by mentioning Ubuntu Touch as another current Linux-based, free and open source OS, launched in 2013 by Canonical UK Ltd and the Ubuntu community; it also aims for full convergence and support for various smart devices.