This time I got this question about Android Os. So here is what I explained.
As we use windows operating system(OS) on our PCs, mobile phone works on various OS. This OS thing is the big difference between Smartphones(Nokia N73) and feature phone(Nokia 3315).
Symbian foundation developed Symbian OS for mobile phone and this was the fist advanced OS for mobile phones. Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and other manufacturer used it on their phones. You may have used it on Nokia 6600, 6630, N70, N72, N73, N95-98, E series etc.. etc..
Apple launched first version of iPhone in January 2007. It was way ahead of Symbian and other OS present at that time. This phone made every other OS look like a decade old in front of it. Any manufacturer had nothing to show to public in comparison to Apple’s iOS. iOS evolved through different versions and latest is iOS 4.0. Actually its first time it is called as iOS. We were calling it iPhone Os until now.
Now here came Google’s Android to rescue 🙂
In Nov 2007 Google announced Android OS for mobile phones. It was just the piece of technology that was able to challenge iOS. The mind blowing thing with this OS was that this OS is free to use(open source) by anyone that can make hardware to support this OS.
In Feb 2009 came first phone carrying Android OS 1.1 from American telecom company T-mobile called T-mobile G-1.
Than came android 1.5( codename cupcake)
1.6 (Donut) This version currently powers my Samsung Galaxy.
2.0/2.1(Eclair)
2.2(froyo)-this one latest in production phones
Future release will be called “Gingerbread” and then next one will be “Honeycomb”.
Every big manufacturer Like Samsung, Motorola, HTC, Sony Ericsson , Dell, and many more jumped into the bandwagon and started making Android phones. You must have seen the latest Samsung Galaxy S phone’s ads in TV, yes that’s an android phone.
In between all these new technology advances Nokia took one ridiculous step and purchased Symbian OS in 2008 and made it open source. No one other than Nokia wanted to use it now.
The latest Nokia phone N8 will be carrying Symbian’s latest version that they call Symbian^3. Every Technology Guru has declared N8 as Hardware masterpiece but Software failure. It just cant stand in front of iOS or Android for a sec.
Now Nokia themselves have realized their mistake and have started investing in a new OS called MeeGo along with Intel for their upcoming phones. Nokia knows its in trouble because of Symbian.
The best part about android and iPhone is that every Android phone comes with an inbuilt android marketplace and iPhone with iTunes. Android market place has close to 100,000 Application and games that you can download and install directly on your phone with few click of button( oops..few taps on the screen) and iOS has around 3 times more apps and games. 80% of these apps are free to download and use.
Other big player in market is Research In Motion(RIM). RIM is manufacturer of Blackberry phones. They are making these phones rich in communication abilities since 1996. They are also struggling to combat iOS and Android. They recently announced new version blackberry OS 6.0.
Palm pre is another player but they have not been able to make their place in this mobile OS war. Recently they have been acquired by HP.
Windows phones have been around for a long time but they were not able to attract much of traction as they were considered buisness phones but they were not good as Blackberry for business purpose. They have recently announced Windows mobile 7.
Samsung released Bada operating system and Samsung wave mobile with this OS. I don’t think no one knows about this OS other that samsung itself. Do you wanna know?
If you have something to add please feel free to comment below.
