Mobile Operating

Systems
Week I
 Overview

• Introduction
• Mobile Operating System Structure
• Mobile Operating System Platforms
• Java ME Platform
• Palm OS
• Symbian OS
• Linux OS
• Windows Mobile OS
• BlackBerry OS
• iPhone OS
• Google Android Platform

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 OS Features

• Features
– Multitasking
– Scheduling
– Memory Allocation
– File System Interface
– Keypad Interface
– I/O Interface
– Protection and Security
– Multimedia features

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 Introduction

• Design and capabilities of a Mobile OS (Operating

System) is very different than a general purpose OS
running on desktop machines:
– mobile devices have constraints and restrictions on
their physical characteristic such as screen size,
memory, processing power and etc.
– Scarce availability of battery power
– Limited amount of computing and communication
capabilities

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 Introduction (Cont.)

• Thus, they need different types of operating systems

depending on the capabilities they support. e.g. a PDA
OS is different from a Smartphone OS.

• Operating System is a piece of software responsible for

management of operations, control, coordinate the use
of the hardware among the various application
programs, and sharing the resources of a device.

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 Operating System Structure

• A mobile OS is a software platform on top of which other

programs called application programs, can run on
mobile devices such as PDA, cellular phones,
smartphone and etc.

Applications

OS Libraries

Device Operating System Base, Kernel

Low-Level Hardware, Manufacturer Device Drivers

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 Mobile Operating
System Platforms
• There are many mobile operating systems. The
followings demonstrate the most important ones:
– Java ME Platform
– Palm OS
– Symbian OS
– Linux OS
– Windows Mobile OS
– BlackBerry OS
– iPhone OS
– Google Android Platform

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 Java ME Platform

• J2ME platform is a set of technologies, specifications

and libraries developed for small devices like mobile
phones, pagers, and personal organizers.

• Java ME was designed by Sun Microsystems. It is

licensed under GNU General Public License

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 Java ME Architecture

• Java ME platforms are composed of the following

elements:
Application
Vendor
Optional
specific
Profile Package
classes -
s
OEM

Configuration

Native Operating System

Device/ Hardware

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 Java ME Main Components

• Configuration: it defines a minimum platform including

the java language, virtual machine features and minimum
class libraries for a grouping of devices. E.g. CLDC

• Profile: it supports higher-level services common to a

more specific class of devices. A profile builds on a
configuration but adds more specific APIs to make a
complete environment for building applications. E.g.
MIDP

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 Java ME

• Optional Package: it provides specialized service or

functionality that may not be associated with a specific
configuration or profile. The following table lists some of
the available packages:

Packages Description
JSR 75 - PIM PDA Package
JSR 82 - BTAPI Java APIs for Bluetooth
JSR 120 - WMA Wireless Messaging API
JSR 172 J2ME Web Service
JSR 179 Location API for J2ME

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 Java ME Platforms
• It includes two kinds of platforms:
– High-end platform for high-end consumer devices.
E.g. TV set-top boxes, Internet TVs, auto-mobile
navigation systems
– Low-end platform for low-end consumer devices. E.g.
cell phones, and pagers
Platforms Device Characteristics
“High-End” consumer • a large range of user interface capabilities
devices • total memory budgets starting from about two to four megabytes
• persistent, high-bandwidth network connections, often using TCP/IP

“Low-end” consumer •simple user interfaces

devices •minimum memory budgets starting from about 128–256 kilobytes
•low bandwidth, intermittent network connections that is often not based on
the TCP/IP protocol suite.
• most of these devices are battery-operated

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 Java ME Platforms (Cont.)

• The following figures demonstrate the elements of these two

types of platforms:
Personal Profile

MIDP Foundation Profile

CLDC CDC

KVM JVM

Fig.1- Low-end consumer device Fig.2- High-end consumer device

platform architecture platform architecture

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 Java ME CLDC

• We focus on “Low-end” consumer devices:

– CLDC configuration address the following areas:
• Java language and virtual machine features
• Core Java libraries
• CLDC Specific Libraries (Input/output & Networking)
• Internationalization: There is a limited support for converting
Unicode characters to and from a sequence of bytes.
• Security: CLDC addresses the following topics to security
– At the low-level the virtual machine security is achieved
by requiring downloaded Java classes to pass a class file
verification step.
– Applications are protected from each other by being run
in a closed “sandbox” environment.
– Classes in protected system packages cannot be
overridden by applications.

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 Java ME CLDC (Cont.)

• The entire CLDC implementation (static size of the K

virtual machine + class libraries) should fit in less than
128 kilobytes.
• It guarantee portability and interoperability of profile-
level code between the various kinds of mobile (CLDC)
devices

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 Palm OS

• Palm OS[1] is an embedded operating system designed

for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user
interface.

• It has been implemented on a wide variety of mobile

devices such as smart phones, barcode readers, and
GPS devices.

• It is run on Arm architecture-based processors. It is

designed as a 32-bit architecture.

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 Palm OS Features

• The key features of Palm OS [1,2,3] are:

– A single-tasking OS:
• Palm OS Garnet (5.x) uses a kernel developed at
Palm, but it does not expose tasks or threads to
user applications. In fact, it is built with a set of
threads that can not be changed at runtime.
• Palm OS Cobalt (6.0 or higher) does support
multiple threads but does not support creating
additional processes by user applications.
• Palm OS has a preemptive multitasking kernel that
provides basic tasks but it does not expose this
feature to user applications .

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 Palm OS Features (Cont.)

– Memory Management:
• The Memory, RAM and ROM, for each Palm resides
on a memory module known as card. In other
words, each memory card contains RAM, ROM or
both. Palms can have no card, one card or multiple
cards.
– Expansion support[3]:
• This capability not only augments the memory and
I/O , but also it facilitates data interchanges with
other Palm devices and with other non-Palm
devices such as digital cameras, and digital audio
players.
– Handwriting recognition input called Graffiti 2

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 Palm OS Features (Cont.)

– HotSync technology for synchronization with PC

computers
– Sound playback and record capabilities
– TCP/IP network access
– Support of serial port, USB, Infrared, Bluetooth and
Wi-Fi connections
– Defined standard data format for PIM (Personal
Information Management) applications to store
calendar, address, task and note entries, accessible
by third-party applications

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 Palm OS Features (Cont.)

– Security model:
• Device can be locked by password, arbitrary
application records can be made private [2]
• Palm OS Cobalt include a certificate manager. The
Certificate Manager handles X.509 certificates[3].

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 Symbian OS

• Symbian OS is 32 bit, little-endian operating system,

running on different flavors of ARM architecture[4].

• It is a multitasking operating system and very less

dependence on peripherals.

• Kernel runs in the privileged mode and exports its

service to user applications via user libraries.

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 Symbian OS Structure

• User libraries include networking, communication, I/O

interfaces and etc.

• Access to these services and resources is coordinated

through a client-server framework.

• Clients use the service APIs exposed by the server to

communicate with the server.

• The client-server communication is conducted by the

kernel.

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 Symbian OS
Structure (Cont.)

• The following demonstrates the Symbian OS

architecture[5]:

Symbian OS
Libraries
KVM
Application Engines

Servers

Symbian OS Base- Kernel

Hardware

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 Symbian OS Features

• Real-time: it has a real-time, multithreaded kernel.

• Data Caging [6]: it allows applications to have their own
private data partition. This feature allows for applications
to guarantee a secure data store. It can be used for e-
commerce applications, location aware applications and
etc.
• Multimedia: it supports audio, video recording, playback
and streaming, and Image conversion.

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 Symbian OS
Features (Cont.)

• Platform Security [6]: Symbian provides a security

mechanism against malware. It allows sensitive
operations can be accessed by applications which have
been certified by a signing authority. In addition, it
supports full encryption and certificate management,
secure protocols ( HTTPS, TLS and SSL) and WIM
framework.

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 Symbian OS
Features (Cont.)

• Internationalization support: it supports Unicode

standard.
• Fully object-oriented and component- based
• Optimized memory management
• Client- server architecture [6]: described in previous
slides, it provides simple and high-efficient inter-process
communication. This feature also eases porting of code
written for other platforms to Symbian OS.

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 Symbian OS
Features (Cont.)

• A Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL): This layer provides

a consistent interface to hardware and supports device-
independency

• Kernel offers hard real-time guarantees to kernel and

user mode threads.

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 Embedded Linux OS

• It is known as Embedded Linux which is used in

embedded computer systems such as mobile phones,
Personal Digital Assistants, media players and other
consumer devices.

• In spite of Linux operating system designed for Servers

and desktops, the Embedded Linux is designed for
devices which have relatively limited resources such as
small size of RAM, storage, screen, limited power and
etc. Then, they should have an optimized kernel.

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 Embedded Linux OS

• It is a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS). It meets

deadlines and switch context
• It has relatively a small footprint. Today, mobile phones
can ship with a small memory. Thus, OS must not seek
to occupy a large amount of available storage. It should
have a small foot print. Theoretically, they deploy in a
footprint of 1MB or less.
• It is open source. It has no cost for licensing.
• Examples: Motorola Mobile phones such as RAZR V8,
RAZR V9, A1200 are based on MontaVista Linux.

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 Embedded Linux OS

• ARM and MIPS structures [7]: Embedded CPU

architectures like ARM and MIPS offer small instruction
sets and special execution modes that shrinks
application size and consequently generates smaller
code.

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 Windows Mobile OS

• Windows Mobile is a compact operating system

designed for mobile devices and based on Microsoft
Win32.

• It is run on Pocket PCs, Smartphones and Portable

media centers.

• It provides ultimate interoperability. Users with various

requirements are able to manipulate their data.

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 Google Android Platform

• It is a platform and an operating system for mobile

devices based on the Linux operating system.
• It allows developers design applications in a java-like
language using Google-developed java libraries.
• It supports a wide variety of connectivity such as GSM,
WiFi, 3G, …
• The Operating system has not been implemented yet
(Feb, 2008). Several prototypes have been proposed.

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 Google Android Platform

Android architecture:
http://code.google.com/android/what-is-android.html

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 Google Android Platform

• As demonstrated in the previous slide, the Android

platform contains the following layers:
– Linux Kernel: Android relies on Linux for core system
services such as security, memory management,
process management and etc.
– Android [7] Runtime: it provides a set of core libraries
which supports most of the functionality in the core
libraries of Java. The Android Virtual Machine known
as Dalvik VM relies on the linux kernel for some
underlying functionality such as threading,…

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 Google Android Platform

– Libraries: Android includes a set of C/C++ libraries.

These libraries are exposed to developers through the
Android application framework. They include media
libraries, system C libraries, surface manager, 3D
libraries, SQLite and etc.
For more details, please visit the following link:
http://code.google.com/android/what-is-android.html

– Application Framework: it provides an access layer to

the framework APIs used by the core applications. It
allows components to be used by the developers.

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 iPhone OS

• iPhone OS is an operating system run on iPhone and

iPod.
• It is based on Mach Kernel and Drawin core as Mac OS X.
• The Mac OS X kernel includes the following component:
– Mach Kernel
– BSD
– I/O component
– File Systems
– Networking components

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 iPhone OS

• The following is Mac OS X Architecture [8]:

Classic Carbon Cocoa JDK BSD

QuickTime
Application Services

Core Services

Kernel Environment

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 iPhone OS

• Mac OS X has a preemptive multitasking environment.

• Preempting is the act of taking the control of operating

system from one task and giving it to another task.

• It supports real-time behavior.

• In Mac OS X, each application has access to its own 4

GB address space.

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 iPhone OS

• Not any application can directly modify the memory of

the kernel. It has a strong mechanism for memory
protection.

• For more details about kernel architecture, please visit

the following link:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Conce
ptual/KernelProgramming/Architecture/Architecture.html

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 References
[1] Palm OS, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_OS
[2] Palm OS is a multitasking operating system. How can I create a task?,
http://kb.palmsource.com/cgi-bin/palmsource.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=72
[3] Palm OS Programmer’s companion- Volume I, http://www.access-
company.com/developers/documents/docs/palmos/PalmOSCompanion/CompanionTOC.html
[4] Mobile Operating Systems,
http://dsonline.computer.org/portal/site/dsonline/menuitem.9ed3d9924aeb0dcd82ccc6716bbe
36ec/index.jsp?&pName=dso_level1&path=dsonline/topics/os&file=MobileOS.xml&xsl=article
.xsl&##archives
[5] Symbian OS,
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/images/7/77/Symbian_OS
_Structure.png&imgrefurl=http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Symbian_OS&h=260&w=467
&sz=10&hl=en&start=45&sig2=Hx5G5bWIQo_Hc3_kni4lgw&um=1&tbnid=PeArbbX9LhuMaM:
&tbnh=71&tbnw=128&ei=ZStJSIKCNaLGgwKe09nXAw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmobile%2Bop
erating%2Bsystem%2Bstructure%26start%3D36%26ndsp%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%2
6sa%3DN
[6] Symbian OS, http://www.symbian.com/files/rx/file6965.pdf
[7] Mobile Phones, the Embeded Linux Challenge, http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8762
[8] iPhone SDK, http://cssinnovations.blogspot.com/2008/05/iphone-sdk-iphone-sdk-was-
officially.html

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