Right now the mobile operating system wars have only two main combatants: Apple's iOS and Google's Android.
IOS is well-known as the platform Apple uses for its ever-popular iPhone and iPad devices. Android appears on a huge range of devices from different vendors, ranging from Motorola's Droid series to Samsung's
Galaxy phones and tablets to HTC's Thunderbolt LTE smartphone. According to the latest Nielsen numbers, Android-based devices now account for 43% of American smartphones in use today while the iPhone accounts for 28% of American smartphones in use today and RIM's BlackBerry OS devices account
for 18% of the market. What's more, Android's adoption rate has been accelerating as 56% of users who reported buying a new
smartphone in the past three months purchased an Android device. By comparison, 28% reported purchasing an Apple iPhone while
just 9% of recent smartphone buyers reported purchasing one of Research in Motion's BlackBerry devices.
So since Android is currently the top dog, let's look where it's headed in the near future. Google will soon release its Google
Nexus Prime smartphone that features Android 4.0, a.k.a. "Ice Cream Sandwich," that is designed to unify the Android platform
for use on both tablets and smartphones. Scott Main, the lead tech writer for Google's Android Developers Blog, last month
started prepping developers for the impending release of Ice Cream Sandwich and reminded them that the new Android will "support big screens, small screens and everything in between."
Main also emphasized
that Android would maintain "the same version ... on all screen sizes" going forward. Put another way, this could mean that
the era of Android fragmentation will soon end if Google is successful.
As for iOS, Apple just released its iOS 5 update this past month to go along with its new iPhone 4S. Key features include
Notification Center, a new app that lets you manage all your notifications "in one place and without interruption" and the
iMessage service that can be used to send SMS, pictures and videos to fellow iOS 5 users. Apple is also touting improvements
to iOS's photo editing capabilities, its Safari browser, and its integration capabilities with Twitter. Apple's mobile operating system is also now supporting the iCloud online data storage and syncing service, and Siri, a voice-enabled "personal assistant" that can interpret your speech patterns and provide you answers to your questions just
by asking it in a natural voice.
So we know now how the two mobile OS titans have been doing, but what about their competitors? RIM has been taking its time
in developing its new QNX
operating system for its next generation of smartphones, due to be
released next year. RIM gave QNX a test spin on its BlackBerry
PlayBook tablet, although the general consensus has been that the
PlayBook was rushed to market and that it lacked even basic
features such as access to corporate email that isn't dependent on
owning a BlackBerry smartphone. RIM has seemingly learned
its lessons and is making sure that when it releases its QNX
smartphones they'll be ready from Day One.
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