What is an Operating System?

Somehow you’ve managed to come across this little site about Smartphone operating systems. If you already know what an operating system is, great, if not, according to WikiPedia, an operating system is, “software, consisting of programs and data, that runs on computers and manages the computer hardware and provides common services for efficient execution of various application software.” In layman’s terms, an operating system is the software that makes your computer, or in this case, your cellphone function.  There are many different smartphone operating systems currently on the market, but there are five big contenders dominating the market at the moment. These five are: Symbian, Android, iOS4, Windows Mobile Phone (soon to be Windows Phone 7), and Research in Motion or RIM.

iOS has recently been updated to its 4th version and with it came many new and exciting features. iOS4 was released to run on Apple’s iPhone 4 and the newest iPod touches. If you’re using any Apple portable device you’re quite familiar with iOS4. Older iPhones can upgrade to the software as well. This update brought multitasking, unified inbox and threaded e-mail, and application organization by using folders.

Symbian OS logo

Rumors have been circulating around the tech blogs related to Symbian’s downfall. The rumor is that the newly released Nokia phones will stop using Symbian and will start running the Android operating system. If this happens, continuous updates of Symbian will cease and the operating system will fall out of use.

Android OS logo

Android is Google’s operating system and is the most open of all of the platforms. The newest version of Android is 2.2 or Froyo. Most of the versions of Android have a dessert as a name. Android is a modified version of the Linux operating system. With the release of the operating system came the creation of the Open Handset Alliance, which consists of some of the biggest companies in the cell phone business to help develop open standards for the mobile platform.