Smartphone OS
For those who want to buy a cell phone soon and for the operating system is a factor taken into account, and also for the curious, here are some short notes on the smartphone operating system’s most important market.
Iphone
In particular it is a reduced version of Mac OS X optimized for ARM processors that is currently in its version 2.0, released on 11 July 2008.
Officially you can not install programs that have not been signed by Apple, for what you need to pay to join the iPhone Developer Program (download the SDK, on the other hand, if free). It is possible, however, develop web applications for Safari or install third party applications through through jailbreaking PwnageTool and WinPwn programs, which also allow free the first generation iPhone.
This is a great operating system with an interface very interesting, as we are accustomed Apple, though it’s a shame the hardware they run on the system, which has many shortcomings, and self-imposed restrictions:
* Restrictions on the hardware that it runs the system
* Restrictions on software that can run the system
* Restrictions on applications that can run in the background, or what is the same, restrictions on multitasking (that can be addressed again with PwnageTool and WinPwn)
* And restrictions on operators that can use your phone.
Windows Mobile
It is written from scratch a system that only has in common with the Windows desktop and name some conventions of the user interface.
Is in its version 6.1, April 2008, version 7 being planned for the second half of 2009. Windows Mobile 7 is intended to be revolutionary, giving greater prominence to the touch screen (again, Apple shows the way forward). It may interact with the system by movements on the screen that will detect the phone using the camera. The interface will look more like Vista.
At present there are already phones that run Windows Mobile and have touch screen like the HTC Touch Diamond, which uses the TouchFLO 3D user interface designed by HTC and some consider one of the greatest competitors of the iPhone.
Blackberry
It is a multitasking operating system developed by the company Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the BlackBerry. It is an operating system geared primarily to the business environment that supports the profile MIDP 1.0 for Java application development for mobile devices, as well as part of MIDP 2.0 since version 4.
It is possible to develop software for the platform using MIDP using the API or owner of RIM, but if the application makes use of certain functions must be signed by RIM to run. To sign an application developer must make an initial payment of $ 100.
Symbian
The operating system running on most smartphones, and therefore the operating system with more applications to its credit. According to a February 2008 study Symbian has 65% market share, compared with 12% of Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS 11%, 7% and 5% iPhone OS Linux.
It has several user interfaces S60 being the most popular, especially interesting for allowing development in Python.
Symbian is currently in version 9.5, although there are still no telephones that incorporate (either version 9.4, which is probably included with the upcoming Nokia 5800 XpressMedia, touch screen and is Nokia’s bid to compete with the iPhone) . Since version 9.1 is that applications must be signed in order to use certain features of the phone, but you can bypass this limitation by using different methods.
Nokia, which already had a 48% stake in Symbian, recently announced the purchase of the company. Also announced their intention of becoming a Symbian free software in the near future, for which has already created a nonprofit foundation that is responsible for standardization of Symbian, the Symbian Foundation.
Android
The Google mobile platform. It is free (Apache License version 2) and is based on Linux and Java. For now nothing more than a promise, since it has not presented any phone that uses it. There is speculation that HTC could be the first manufacturer to use this operating system later this year, and even rumored name for this model: the HTC Dream.