Mobile Operating Systems-Feature Comparison Free Essay Example from StudyTiger

1. Introduction: Gone are the days when operating systems meant Windows or Linux or Mac. In the present days operating systems also mean Symbian, Android, Windows Phone, iOS or Blackberry OS. A mobile operating system is the operating system which controls the mobile device like how Windows or Linux controls a desktop or laptop. Smart phones, PDAs, tablets are few devices which run on Mobile operating system.

People use smartphones for many purposes. The basic needs of mobile phones have changed over the years.Mobile phones are not only used for calling or texting which were the basic needs of mobile phone. They love to use the phone on the go to browse, connect with people on web, pay tickets for movies, Shopping, take pictures, watch live soccer and many more. So the mobile companies have responded the people in best possible ways.

All said mobile phones have become an essential electronic device that helps us to navigate our day. [1][5] 2. What is an Operating system? In simple words an operating systems is a platform for mobiles to function.Michael Jipping(April 2007, p.

2-3 ) tells that Operating system consists of programs that control the device. It is basically a software that manages the resources and provides common service to applications. It is just loaded into the device and instructions are executed like any other software. Operating system plays an intermediate role between hardware and applications in allocating memory and hardware functions like input and output.

Altogether it binds the software and hardware together. It presents the software to the hardware.A main feature of mobile operating system is memory allocation. Which application should be given top priority and which should not? [2][3] 2.

1 Different Mobile operating systems: 1. Symbian 2. iOS 3. Android 4. Windows phone 5. Blackberry 6.

In February 2010, the source code of Symbian was published. The Symbian foundation reported that it was the largest codebase in open source history. [6][7] The latest version of Symbian is Symbian^3. One unique feature in this version of operating system is the HDMI outlet which lets the user to plug and play the Smartphone in many ways . It can be done on your TV or through the FM transmitter in the car.

[8] 3. 1 I Parked Here: This is a new application in Symbian operating system which remembers where you have parked your car. In large parking areas it is not easy to find out where you have parked your car.In this application you can save your parking place on your ‘I Parked Here application’ by clicking ‘remember my car’ and also set a reminder of the allowed parking time.

The alarm rings once your parking time is about to be expired. Later when you want to find where you have parked your car, just press ‘find my car’ on your application . The application shows you the list of your latest parked areas. Once you select the latest parked details, the application lets you choose a map (Google Maps or OVI Maps) in which you want the application to show the way.

Nokia OVI maps are free of cost. It is a voice navigated application. [9] 4. MeeGo OS: Nokia N9 is the first phone developed by Nokia using MeeGo OS released in 2011. It is a user friendly operating system.Multi-tasking is a great asset of this operating system.

[10] Three main features of this operating system are 1. Notifications This tab contains all the notifications on the device which includes messages, missed calls as well as the social networking feeds an updates in one single window. 2. Applications It’s the main menu of the device which contains all the applications installed on the device. It contains 4 columns and can scrolled according to the number of applications 3. Open Applications This window shows the user’s favourite or recently opened applications.

The last accessed application will be on top. So it is very easy to start where you let off. [10][11] 4. 1 Touch outside the screen:It is a unique feature of MeeGo Operating system. If you want to connect your smart phone to a Bluetooth device, you don’t have to pair it or authenticate it. All you should do is to touch the Bluetooth on your Smart phone.

It automatically connects. This applies to the speakers also . You can just touch the phone on your speaker and it continues playing on the speaker. These speakers are specifically designed for this particular device known as Nokia play 360 speakers. In most of the smartphones if you have to see the time you have to either unlock the device or swipe it.

But in this operating system the timer is always on the screen which runs on low power mode.It also displays the notifications without unlocking the device. Next interesting feature is Alarm. It has a unique display.

You don’t have to set the timings by numbers. There is clock display in which you just have to swipe and set the alarm. [11] 4. 2 Maps: Voice navigated 3D Maps is a great feature of this operating system. New locations and languages can be installed through Wi-Fi for free of cost.

There are three kinds of navigations available namely by walk, by car and by public transportation. There is a separate application named Drive which the user can navigate while driving. [11] 5. Android: Android was founded in 2003 by Andy Rubin which was later acquired by Google in 2005.

It consists of kernel based on Linux with middle wares and libraries. Application programming interface is written in C. [12] Android Operating system has a User Interface which will estimate how much energy has the application consumed with event instrumentation and system call. Some of those features are packet counts and processor scheduling. This will help the user to understand how the memory is being used by the applications. [16] 5.

1 Dalvik Dalvik is the process virtual machine used in the Android operating system. It is register based architecture unlike Java virtual machines which are stack machines. Dalvik does not support any Java classes.It has got its own library which is built on the subset of the Apache harmony Java implementation. [13] In order to maintain the security Dalvik shares core read only libraries between virtual machines.

This is a unique library used in Dalvik VM. Android operating system has an outstanding virtual machine which runs the device with minimum specifications too. [14] 5. 2 Multi-tasking Multi-tasking is a main feature in any smartphones. In Android multi-tasking has been given much importance.

Process and Applications are not coupled entities in Android. When you see an application running in the background it does not mean that application is running or it is active. It is there because the operating system needs it at some point of time.In this same context you can leave an application for a while and come back you can start where you let off. A key aspect in handling the applications is that Android does not shut down the apps cleanly.

The process is just running in the background. However there is limited memory to accommodate these features. Android will decide which processes should be closed. This is done with the use of Android life cycle. The cycle will consider the user’s recent experience, how long the application was open.

If Android decides to kill a process it does it brutally. If the user returns to the same application Android makes sure it displays the way it was last seen by the user at the time of killing.It can be done by keeping track the parts of that application [15] 6. Cinder Operating system: Cinder is based on HiStar. It is an operating system which is built upon information flow control.

Energy Management is an important aspect of a mobile operating system. In this topic we discuss about “Energy management in mobile devices in cinder Operating system”. We saw that Android has an interface which helps the user know the memory used by the application. However it just has the visibility, it cannot be controlled. 6.

1 The Three Mechanisms: To control energy effectively an operating system needs to have three mechanisms. They are isolation, delegation and subdivision. 6. 1. Isolation: In simple terms an application must not be allowed to use excess of energy and at the same time it must deprive other applications as well. 6.

1. 2 Delegation: This mechanism allows a principal to donate its available energy to another process. After delegation resource donor or acceptor can easily consume the delegated resources. If there are multiple donors then the resources are pooled.

With the help of this mechanism quality of service can be improved and energy consumption can be reduced drastically. 6. 1. 3 Subdivision: Subdivision allows the application to share a portion of its energy not before making sure that the application has enough energy for its own use.

For example, plugins are an important feature of a browser. If a browser is given finite amount of power and energy, it would make sure that it does not allow plugins that would waste CPU energy. Subdivision allows the browser to share its portion of energy to its plugins. At the same time Isolation makes sure that plugins does not consume more than the allotted energy. When this balance is being maintained the energy is properly used in the mobile devices.

6. 2 Key Objects There are two fundamental key objects in Cinder operating system. They are reserves and taps. 6.

2. 1 Reserves: A reserve makes sure which kernel has the right to use the given resource.When a process consumes a resource, particular value will be reduced from the corresponding reserve by the Cinder kernel. This will be protected by a security label, which will make sure the right application observes, use and manipulate the resource.

Cinder’s CPU scheduler will allow a thread to run only if its energy reserve is not empty. 6. 2. 2 Taps: A tap is an efficient special thread whose job is to transfer energy between two reserves per unit time.

It is made up of four states 1. A source reserve 2. A sink reserve 3. A rate 4. A security label A user wants to use the mobile phone for surfing for five hours.

So the amount of energy sent to the browser will be relative to the time it is used.This can be done by this concept of providing resources at particular rate. 6. 3 Developing on Mobile Platform: The Cinder operating system was run on HTC dream mobile phone. To run this Operating system, the kernel was first ported to the generic ARM architecture. Cinder uses the Android drivers for implementing GSM/GPRS/EDGE radio functionality.

The shared memory segment was mapped to the user level process and user space was ported with Android Linux kernel’s shared memory device. The radio interference library has two parts 1. Open source generic library that provides common radio function across different hardware platforms and for a specific device 2.Android centric shared object that interfaces with specific modem hardware. Cinder operating system is a good prospect for mobile devices in managing the memory and energy.

[16][17] 7. Conclusion Mobile operating systems play a vital role in the betterment of mobile technology. In this modern life smartphones are used for various activities. We saw the basic features of different type of operating systems. Battery life is a main aspect of a smart phone, Cinder operating system’s role in memory and energy management will play an important role in the future of mobile technology. 9.

References: 1. Wikipedia(2001) Available at http://en. wikipedia. rg/wiki/Mobile_operating_system (Accessed : 7th December 2011) 2. Wikipedia(2001) Available at http://en. wikipedia.

org/wiki/Operating_system (Accessed: 7th December 2011) 3. Michael J. Jipping (April 2007) Smartphone Operating System Concepts with Symbian OS- 1. Edition John Wiley & Sons, West Sussex – England 4.

Saila Laitinen ( January 2007) S60 Smartphone Quality Assurance A Guide for Mobile Engineers and Developers, John Wiley & Sons West Sussex – England 5. Chetan Sharma (August 2011) How Mobile will change the way we spend, Future Text UK 6. Wikipedia(2001) Available at http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Symbian (Accessed : 7th December 2011) 7.

Symbianblog(2011) Available at http://www. symbianblogs. com/history/111-symbian--an-intro. html (Accessed : 7th December 2011) 8. Symbian World (2007-2011) http://symbianworld. org/7977-top-10-awesome-symbian3-features/ (Accessed : 7th December 2011) 9.

Thenokiablog (6th August 2010) I Parked here – Symbian app that remembers where you park Available at http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=340PErtT9fQ ( Accessed 7th December 2011) 10. Wikipedia(2001) Available at http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/MeeGo (Accessed: 7th December 2011) 11.

Minipcpro( 21st June 2011) Nokia N9 MeeGo Smartphone- Full Presentation with all slides http://www. youtube. com/watch? =1weKReXu16Q&feature=related (Accessed: 7th December 2011). 12.

Wikipedia(2001) Available at http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Android_(operating_system) (Accessed: 10th December 2011) 13. Wikipedia(2001) Available at http://en.

wikipedia. org/wiki/Dalvik_(software) (Accessed : 10th December 2011) 14. David Ehringer (March 2010) The Dalvik Virtual machine architecture Available at : http://davidehringer. com/software/android/The_Dalvik_Virtual_Machine. pdf (Accessed 10th December 2011) 15. Android(2011) Available at http://developer.

android. com/resources/articles/multitasking-android-way. html (Accessed 10th December 2011) 16.Arjun Roy, Stephen M.

Rumble, Ryan Stutsman, Philip Levis, David Mazieres, Nickolai Zeldovich. ‘Energy management in Mobile devices with the Cinder Operating systems ‘ Technical Report CSTR 2010-02, Computer Science Department, Stanford University, 3. June 2010 Available at: http://hci. stanford.

edu/cstr/reports/2010-02. pdf (Accessed: 10th December 2011) 17. Arjun Roy, Stephen M. Rumble, Ryan Stutsman, Philip Levis, David Mazieres, Nickolai Zeldovich. ‘Energy management in Mobile devices with the Cinder Operating systems ‘ In the Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGOPS/EuroSys European Conference on Computer Systems (EuroSys 2011) Salzburg Austria April 2011

Sorry, but downloading text is forbidden on this website. If you need this or any other sample, we can send it to you via email. Please, specify your valid email address

Thank you! How about make it original at only $13.90/page?

HAVEN’T FOUND YOUR TOPIC?

Sorry, but downloading text is forbidden on this website.
If you need this or any other sample, we can send it to you via email.
Please, specify your valid email address

Thank you!
How about make it original at only $13.90/page?