In this section the discussion is not only limited to the functionality comparison of the hardware used in the smart phones. The discussion is continued while comparing the operating systems used in the phones and the discussion about the leading varieties of platforms that are available in the current market is also done.
The main aim of this section is to discuss about the significance of the iPhone and at the same time to decide the variations in features that are provided by the other phone available in the market. Initially mobile phones are in use and that usage is developed with the usage of the smart phones and this development is caused because of the concentration is applied on the software rather than on the hardware while developing them.
This indicates that according to the requirements and interests of the users they can install several applications in their phone as similar to that they can do in the personal computers. There are several operating systems that are utilized in the smart phones that are available in the market and they are BlackBerry OS4.7, Android Cupcake, S60 5th edition, iPhone OS 3.0, Windows Mobile 6.5 and Palm WebOS.
These operating systems are briefly discussed below to make clear comparisons:
- BlackBerry OS4.7: This operating system is developed by the Research in Motion RIM and this is used in the smarts phones of BlackBerry and these devices are based on java applications. The developers of these phones uses java as the programming language and they also have BlackBerry JDE plug-in and this provided for them to eclipse that will also adopt the APIs, they are also provided with the “signing authority devices” and “Smart phone simulators”.
- Android Cupcake: This is a new operating system which is developed basing on Linux. In this operating system among the software one part is open source and the other part is released with the license of “Apache license 2.0”. The basic application of android is developed by Google and the developers of this operating system have Android SDK and this will provide the required APIs and tools for the development of applications of the android OS. For the development of this platform java is selected as the programming language.
- S60 5th Edition: This operating system is based on Symbian and this application is used in the phones of Samsung, Nokia, and Sony Ericson etc. In order to make the programming using this OS more flexible, the developers will make use of one among the programming environments that are provided and they are java ME, Flash Lite, Open C, P.I.P.S., Python, Symbian C++, .NET or Ruby.
- IPhone OS 3.0: This is a UNIX based operating system which is also based on operating system X. The developers of this operating system are provided with SDK which has the required APIs. They also have developing environment. Objective-C is the programming language used.
- Windows Mobile 6.5: This operating system is based on windows and the developer of this OS will be provided with a separate developer toolkit and SDK. As a necessary requirement the user has to purchase the Visual Studio as the development environment for developing these windows based mobiles. C++, VB and C# are the programming languages used for developing this operating system.
- Palm WebOS: This operating system is introduced by Palm as its next generation operating system and this based on LINUX. The developer is provided with a SDK and Traditional HTML is used for the development of native applications required and the web applications are developed using the JavaScript and CSS. The programming of the applications is done by the web development tools and these tools are installed directly on the device and executed directly.
All the operating systems that are discussed above have their own advantages and disadvantages and the main aim of this discussion is to provide some awareness on the features provided by the smart phones available in the market. The features available in different variety of phones are based on the operating systems used.
When we discuss about S60,Android cupcake, windows mobile6.5 and palm web OS are outstanding.All the domains can easily acclimatize multitasking but it is not fit for IPhone OS.Though apple discussed about this multitasking in OS 3.0 itself it is not implemented hence it continues the previous process i.e. one system should be completed to open the other application we can see multi touch parallel in blackberry,iPhone, android and palm all of them are capacitive. When we look at third party side apple is excellent as it maintains a store called appstore.
It steps into business platform by introducing the new system i.e. adding software into their project. This makes the programmer a money maker in short time which is big revolution in the industry. Before every application to be signed in it should pass all the controlling techniques for its release into app store. This step is revolutionary in industry as it is followed by every other company coming to OS it is difficult to say which is the best.
There are many factors reside when the customer look towards IPhone. We can calculate smart phone market today it considers all the devices which brings sophisticated technology to the customers as they are not looking for best software. We cannot expect the future improvements will lead to but every one is certain that it is in the initial stage.