REVIEW PAPER

Name: Vaishnavi Sambhaji Biradar

Roll No.:TF022
Title: A Comparative Study of Android and iOS Operating Systems

Abstract:

Nowadays rapidly increasing technology is mobile phone technology in telecom-

munication sector. This mobile device technology has great effect on everyone’s
life. This technology has reduced the burden of people in their daily life. To manage
the rising demand for such mobile devices, numerous operating systems came in
the market as a platform upon which modern application can be produced. As a re-
sult, numbers of platforms and essential depository describe these platforms; cus-
tomers may or may not be aware of these platforms that are appropriate for their
needs. In order to solve this issue, we examine the most famous mobile phone oper-
ating systems to decide which operating system is most suitable for developers,
business applications as well as casual use. In this paper we make assessment on
the popular operating systems of mobile devices available in the business market,
and on behalf of such assessment we distinguish that operating system OS is much
useful of its particular characteristics compared with other systems. The evolution
of mobile operating systems has transformed the landscape of personal computing,
empowering users with diverse features, functionalities, and experiences. This re-
view paper provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of four prominent mo-
bile operating systems: Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and Symbian. Each system is eval-
uated across various parameters. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of
each OS can aid users, developers, and policymakers in making informed decisions
regarding mobile technology adoption and development.
The objectives of a comparative study of Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and
Symbian operating systems in brief:

1. Assess user interface design and usability across platforms.

2. Evaluate the diversity, quality, and availability of app ecosystems.

3. Analyze security features and measures implemented by each OS.

4. Measure and compare performance metrics, including speed and battery life.

5. Determine market share and adoption rates.

6. Identify strengths and weaknesses of each OS.

7. Explore historical significance and technological evolution.

8. Anticipate future trends and challenges.

9. Provide insights for users, developers, and policymakers.

10. Contribute to academic discourse on mobile operating systems.

Introduction:

Mobile operating system is the interface between user and mobile phones to
communicate and it provides many more features which is essential to run mobile
devices. It manages all the resources to be used in an efficient way and provides a
user friendly interface to the users. A mobile operating system (OS) is software that
allows Smartphone, tablet PCs and other devices to run applications and
programs. A mobile OS typically starts up when a device powers on, presenting a
screen with icons or tiles that present information and provide application access.
Mobile operating systems also manage cellular and wireless network connectivity,
as well as phone access. It has truly become an important part of our everyday life.
Talking about its impact, mobile technology affects our life in both ways –
positively and negatively. Nowadays its becoming really difficult to choose mobile
phones as a wide variety of operating systems are available in the market with
various features such as touch screen, cellular, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS navigation
system, camera, speech recognition, voice recorder, music player etc. This paper
gives an overview about different mobile operating systems which are most
commonly available in the market.

Android OS:
Google released the first Android OS on September 23th, 2008 by the name of
‘Astro’. After sometime next upgraded versions ‘Bender’ and ‘Cupcake’ were also
released. Google then adopted the trend of naming Android versions after any
dessert or a sweet in alphabetical order. Just after stepping into the Smartphone
and tablets market Android gained immense popularity due to its beautiful
appearance and efficient working. Many new features were introduced which
played a significant role in Android’s success. Google Play is an official app market
that contains millions of different apps for Android devices. Samsung HTC,
Motorola and many other top manufacturers are using Android in their devices.
Currently, Android is one of the top operating systems and is considered serious
threat for iPhones. One of the major advantages of Android is the huge developer
communities who regularly update and create apps using a customized version of
Java. Android OS is updated regularly, each time fixing bugs and adding new
features. Android is used by most of the mobile users and is a trending topic of
modern technology. It is an open-source area of development and is a Linux based
OS which acts as middleware and a key mobile application. This OS is designed to
use in modern smart phones, e-book readers, set-top boxes, tablets, and televisions as
well. Open Handset Alliance created it. In this tutorial, you will learn the basics of
Android, and what are its features and categories of applications developed for
Android.

 Advantages of Android OS:

  Open Source Platform supported by a wide range of mobile device
manufacturer
 Easy access to a lot of free and premium apps that support Android OS
 Multitasking - Android OS is capable of running many applications at the
same time
 Easy notification of any SMS, email or RSS reader alert
 The widgetized home screen allows easy access to settings quickly and easily
 The continuous development in looks and features might soon leave other
mobile OS far behind in the long run.
 Great for programmers who would like to mess with Linux Kernal for
making changes in OS.

 Disadvantages of Android OS:

 Very unstable and prone to crashes compared to other Mobile OS
 Being open source, a large number of apps are created by developers. Some
of these apps might have bugs which can be exploited by hackers or viral
infections. Android’s open source makes it more easily accessible to a wide
variety of developers but also makes it easier for hackers.
 To log on as administrator for making advanced changes, you need to know
Linux commands.
 Continuous updates on the OS might want you to upgrade to the latest which
is called rooting. Rooting needs to be done carefully or else you might end up
with a piece of brick in hand.
 Most of the Apps require an internet connection for functioning which
sometimes is a disadvantage. For e.g. an app for dictionary should have an
inbuilt dictionary which allows it to function even when there is no internet
connection.

iOS Mobile Operating System:

iOS is from Apple Inc. It has the second largest installed base worldwide on
smartphone, but the largest profits, due to aggressive price competition between
Android-based manufacturers. It is closed source and proprietary, and is built on
the open source Darwin operating system. The iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and
second or thirdgeneration Apple TV all use iOS, which is derived from macOS. iOS is
Apple’s mobile operating system which was developed for iPhone, but later
extended support for iPad and Apple TV. iOS root comes from Mac OS X, hence it is
UNIX based OS. iOS was introduced in 29th June 2007 when the first iPhone was
developed. Like other OS, iOS is frequently updated starting from iOS version 4.0
and the latest is iOS version 12.1.Apple has still not allowed any other
manufacturer to lay hands on its operating system. Unlike Android, Apple has more
concentrated on the performance along with appearance. This is the reason that
the basic appearance of iOS is almost the same as it was in 2007. Overall it is very
user-friendly and is one of the mobile best operating systems in the world so iOS
has been used in all iPhones, iPod & iPad . As of March 2018, Apple’s App store
contains more than 2.1 million iOS applications. The most recent stable release, iOS
12.1, was released on October 30, 2018. It has many features which make it
superior choice as compared with others which includes SMS OTP auto fill,
multiple faces on face id, detailed battery stats, QR code scanner in Control centre
and many more attractive features are available.

 Advantages of iOS:
 Very stable and secure OS for mobile phones .Apple closely guards their
source code.
 Maybe the most loved interface for any mobile OS in the market. Beautifully
designed desktop and app icons which go hand to hand with the stunning
looks of Apple devices.
 Fewer bugs and secure OS because of high standardization followed when
developing apps or updates
  High support for latest web standards
 Good support for cloud storage.
 Easy access to free and premium apps from Apple store

 Disadvantages of iOS:
 iOS only support Apple Hardware
 Very costly

BlackBerry OS:
It is a proprietary mobile OS developed by Canadian company Blackberry Limited,
for its BlackBerry line of Smartphone handheld devices. The operating System
provides multitasking and supports specialized input devices that have been
adopted by Blackberry for use in its handhelds. Blackberry was once the
undeniable ruler when it comes to mobile OS. But because of stiff competition from
Android and iOS, they lost a considerable share of the mobile market. Blackberry
OS also have different versions. A lot of apps developed in the market are
compatible with Blackberry OS. BlackBerry OS was discontinued after the release
of BlackBerry 10 in January 2013.

Symbian OS:
Symbian was the most widely used Smartphone operating system in the world until
2010,when it was overtaken by Android .Development of Symbian operating
system was discontinued in May 2014.Symbian operating system began as an
operating system called EPOC, which was developed in 1980s by a company Psion.
In 1998, in a joint venture handset manufacturer Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola,
Psion became Symbian OS. In 2008,Nokia acquired Symbian and the majority of
source code was released under a open source license. At the time it was one of the
largest open source code bases ever released to the public. During 2014,developers
 was not able to publish new Symbian applications and thus discontinued for the
future use.

Comparison of different mobile operating system:

OS Android IOS Symbian Blackberry

Parameter
OS Linux Darwin RTOS QNX
Family
Vendor Open Handset Alliance, Apple, Inc Accenture Blackberry
Google on behalf Ltd.
of Nokia

Environment Eclipse XCode (Apple), QT, Carbide.C++, Vistamax, Eclipse,

(IDE) (Google) AppCode Eclipse BlackBerry
JDE
SDK Linux, Mac OS X and Mac OSX using Windows XP Professional Linux,
Platform Windows iOS SDK SP2; Windows, Mac OS X
Vista & 7 for some SDKs
CPU ARM, x86, ARM, ARM64 ARM, ARM
Architecture MIPS x86
Source Open source and in most Closed source Closed source, previously Closed
Model devices with open source Source
proprietary components
License Free and open-source, but Proprietary EULAexcept Proprietary, previously Proprietary
usually bundled with for open source licensed under EPL
proprietary apps and components
drivers
Written In C, C++, Java C, C++, Objective-C, C, C++, Java ME, Python, C, C++,
Swift Ruby, Flash Lite HTML5,Javascript,CSS,
ActionScript,Java
Initial Release September 23, 2008 June 29, 2007 1997 January, 1999
Latest 5.1 "Lollipop" / March iPhone 6 Plus/ Nokia Belle Feature Pack 2 / BlackBerry 9790/9900/
Release 10, 2015; September 19, 2014; October 2, 2012 November 2013;
Package Manaer Google Play, APK iTunes Nokia Store BlackBerry Link

Runs On Smartphones, iPhone, Smartphones Smartphones

tablet, computers, iPad,
TVs, cars and wearable iPod Touch
devices
Market Share 48.8% 17.2% 0.1% 11.1%

Market Size Very High High Very low Low

Application Google Play App Store Nokia Ovi Store BlackBerry World
Store
Non-English Partial Yes Yes Yes
Language
Support
Virtual Machine Allowed Not Allowed Allowed Allowed

Debugger Debugger available Debugger Debugger available Debugger

available Available
Cross-Platform Android only iPhone, iPad, Compile per target BlackBerry only
Deployment iPod Touch
GUI Android Cocoa Touch Avkon Cascades

Documentat-ion www.android.com www.apple.com/ios/ symbian.nokia.com us.blackberry.com/apps-

Available At software/blackberry7/
Tool for Reverse Apk tool, Dex2jar, iRET Toolkit, Windows Carbidge.c++, IDA Pro, JD-GUI, Notepad,
Engineering of JD-Compiler, XDA Auto Explorer, oTool, APP Trk, SISWare, ARM VSMTool,
App tool iExplorer, Class-dump-z assembler COD extractor
Future Prospect Very High High Low Low

Counclusion:
Android is the only free open source operating system in this list, so it scores three
points but the competition scores only two. These operating systems have different
technologies to deal with the restricted memory capacity of mobile devices, but
BlackBerry and Android OS score two instead of three since the development of lo-
cal applications is not possible and all third party applications can run in the vir-
tual machine. Networking is the most important attribute for applications, but ap-
proximately all operating systems have restrictions in regard of automatically con-
necting to Wi-Fi or Bluetooth network. Windows Mobile does not have this type of
restrictions and gets three points.
Android also gets three points because it has a very strong feature set in
place since Android 2.0. Security is an important aspect that gets a reasonable
amount of consideration in mobile operating systems. BlackBerry and Android OS
both run applications in sandboxed virtual machine and hence get three points.
Symbian OS has a complicated system for signing applications and Windows Mo-
bile also has the same situation, while the system is less complicated. Android and
iPhone OS are nowadays leading the business market .