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Android Operating Systems Perform the Best in Dynamic Mobile Computing

Environments

Conference Paper · October 2020

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 Android Operating Systems Perform the Best in Dynamic Mobile
Computing Environments
Megan E. Rouault, Amlan Nag

Abstract—To meet society’s needs over the years, operating

systems have had to become increasingly dynamic. Mobile com-
puting is an example of a situation where an operating system
must always be flexible, dynamic and changing. In general,
mobile computing refers to any mobile operating system which
can also be connected to a computer via a port. However, for
the purposes of this paper we will focus on mobile computing in
terms of cellular phone devices, or smartphones. Smartphones
today are both a computer and a telephone mixed into one. In
the sections below, we will introduce the concept and history of
mobile computing, before getting into the details of operating
system performance related to mobile computing. There an in
depth survey of available mobile operating systems is done.
Lastly, the information found is summarized in tabular form,
and then used to make a conclusion of the operating system that
performs best during mobile computing for cellular devices.

I. INTRODUCTION
In modern day society and during recent history, mobile
phones have become increasingly common. As a result, operat- Fig. 1. History of Mobile Devices
ing systems have had to adapt to perform in mobile computing
environments while they have become more prevalent. For
reference, by the end of the year 2010, more smartphones [3] PDA’s were devices that could connect to your computer
than computers were being sold worldwide. [1] A mobile and also work remotely storing simple applications such as
computing environment differs from a typical environment calendar and contacts. Convergence of the PDA technology
because it has to be a dynamic or changing environment. and cellular phones happened around the early 1990’s resulting
No longer does the operating system just work in conditions in the first mobile computing devices, and then large-scale
where everything stays in the same place, it must be able to gadget convergence occurred around the 2000’s resulting in
work wherever and whenever the mobile phone user needs. more mobile computing devices with more functionalities. [2]
Considering this, when adapting or creating new operating This large-scale digital gadget convergence refers to the con-
systems for mobile computing, there must be multiple different vergence of multiple hardware devices with cellular phones.
ways in which the operating system is affected. Furthermore, Today, almost everyone has their own smartphone that takes
the competition between companies to create and implement pictures, sends text messages, runs applications, has GPS
the mobile operating system with the best performance has services, downloads music, searches the internet and much
always been very high. This has made it so that today there more. This would not of been possible without the "gadget
are multiple options for a consumer to choose from when convergence" merging together for example, a cell phone and
purchasing a new mobile phone. This raises the question a camera. Above, the timeline of the beginning of mobile
of, which OS has the best performance in terms of mobile computing and digital convergence is shown in 1.
computing, and, which mobile phone should consumers be
buying solely based on the OS performance? These questions II. D ETAILS
will be examined and answered in the following research
related to operating system performance for mobile computing. In terms of mobile computing, operating systems are af-
fected by changing working environments. As we know, nowa-
days, technology is dynamic and diverse. Different operating
A. History of Mobile Computing systems have different performance levels to accelerate their
To fully understand modern mobile computing performance work, and new operating systems must interact with multiple
the past iterations that have resulted in today’s technology must devices and have cross-platform functionality. Similarly to in
be reviewed quickly. In the beginning (early 1990’s), mobile computers, the operating system in a mobile phone serves as
computing didn’t quite yet exist and there was a difference an interpreter between the human user and the system working
between cellular phones and personal data assistants(PDAs). inside the machine. Furthermore, the future of operating
[2]. In fact, the first cellular phone ever was highly expensive systems are systems that are more than just a single unit.
and released to the public in 1983; the Motorola DynaTAC. Instead, they must sustain a whole ecosystem. The online
service Amazon has a great example in Alexa, a custom- connectivity and personal information management (PIM)
based operating system, which began as a simple speaker and features. Symbian OS incorporates middleware and wireless
was adapted to become an intelligent, interactive speaker. The communications with an integrated mailbox and Java and
operating system is a part of virtualization technology and a PIM capabilities. Nokia has made the Symbian framework
type of server virtualization. As market demand increases and accessible in an additional, open, and direct model to partner
the requirement of cross-functionality for various hardware is with some OEMs and a small group of platform development
necessary, operating systems must be changed. Consider the collaborators. Nokia no longer supports Symbian as an open-
Apple watch or a smart wallet for paying bills and interacting source programming project.
through an app. For these systems to work, they are required WebOS is a mobile operating system that uses the Linux
to have a particular type of operating system that allows kernel as its foundation. Palm initially created WebOS as the
the devices to perform dynamically. As per market demand successor to its Palm OS mobile operating system. It is a
and concern for working environment flexibility, the operating proprietary Mobile OS that was ultimately acquired by HP and
system has diverse changes it must deal with compared to in is currently referred to in HP literature as webOS. HP uses
the past. WebOS in a variety of applications, including some smart-
Now, everywhere starting from the restaurant, automobile phones and HP TouchPads. With the introduction of webOS
shop, or any other marketing vendor, uses Tab or mobile 3.x, HP has moved the webOS into the enterprise smartphone
phone for their daily services or business. Also, they maintain market by focusing on enhancing security capabilities and
inventory and stocks throughout the mobile device. Where management. HP has also announced plans to update a version
windows are not compatible to all tabs and various appli- of webOS inside the Microsoft Windows operating system on
cations, the operating system is not user-friendly. Google’s both HP desktop and notebook computers in 2012. [4]
Android mobile operating system is an open and free software Microsoft’s mobile operating system, Windows Mobile, is
stack that includes an operating system, middleware, and found in laptops and mobile computers without touch screens.
main applications for mobile devices such as smartphones. The Windows CE 5.2 kernel serves as the foundation for the
Updates for the open-source Android smartphone operating Mobile OS. Microsoft unveiled a new mobile interface dubbed
system have been developed with "dessert-inspired" update Windows Phone 7 in 2010. [4]
names (Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, On the other hand, Android Os is way more flexible to
and Ice Cream Sandwich), with each new version coming in use and more compatible. WEB-OS also supports various
alphabetical order with new updates and upgrades. Bada is a devices to use websites. Android OS is more prevalent in
Samsung smartphone operating system that was first released the current world because it is an open-source operating
in 2010. The Samsung Wave was the first smartphone to system, and it means to build for all android devices. In the
run this mobile operating system. Bada offers smartphone development of the android journey, many individuals have
applications including multipoint touch, 3D graphics, and, of contributed, and the developer got the opportunity to make it
course, device downloads and installation. [4] more functional as peruse. Though Apple devices are more
The BlackBerry OS is a proprietary smartphone operating prevalent in Northern America for personal uses, the IOS
system produced by Research In Motion for its popular operating system is a locked source system.It’s not compatible
BlackBerry handheld smartphones. When combined with the with non-apple devices, making it more costly as Apple is the
BlackBerry Enterprise Server, the BlackBerry platform is sole developer of their product. In terms of corporate uses,
shared among corporate users. It allows compatibility with where users need to use a mobile device, their preference is
Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino, Novell GroupWise email, always Android.
and other business applications. [4] Smartphones can run a complete operating system and pro-
The iPhone OS was initially designed for use on Apple’s vide a standardised interface and platform for app developers.
iPhone smartphones. The smartphone operating system is also The operating system must be able to support things like email
known as iOS, and it is powered by a variety of Apple devices and the internet. We tend to take these things for granted on the
such as the iPhone, iPad, iPad 2, and iPod Touch. Since phone these days, but smartphones today had more processing
Apple does not licence the iOS smartphone operating system power than desktop computers ten years ago.
for third-party hardware, it is only available on Apple’s own Symbian Operating System was one of the most popular
manufactured computers. Apple iOS is based on the Mac OS OP. The demand for uses gets changed, and people need more
X operating system. flexible devices and portable devices with more functionality.
The Palm OS is a proprietary mobile operating system In some divisions, smartphones and devices took a Desktop
(PDA operating system) that debuted in 1996 on the Pilot and laptop because using a phone for essential functional work
1000 handheld computer. Support for expansion ports, new is more convenient.
processors, removable memory cards, enhanced protection, The UBports group developed a smartphone version of the
and support for ARM processors and smartphones have all Ubuntu operating system called Ubuntu Touch Phone. Its user
been included in later versions of the Palm OS. Palm OS 5 interface is written in Qt and is mainly meant for touchscreen
was renamed Garnet OS after it was expanded to accommodate mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. The
a wide variety of screen resolutions, cellular connectivity, and initial aim of convergence was to introduce Ubuntu Touch to
upgraded multimedia capabilities. [4] Symbian is a mobile notebooks, desktops, IoT devices, TVs, and smartwatches for
operating system designed for mobile phones that integrates a completely seamless user experience.
Fig. 2. Comparison of Mobile Operating System Performance information was gathered from the multiple sources: [5], [6],
[7], [8]. However, it is clear that in terms of large number
of app loading and memory uses that operating system per-
Also, Microsoft corporation came with a unique idea of their formance is not perfect. Android Operating systems are faster
operating system, Windows operating system for the phone. and more efficient in terms of memory management and have
But by that time, android Os took over the market because it been providing services with excellent performance standards
provides platforms to the developer to use it as per their need for years. This is obviously reflected in the Android market
and also its operating system is open to all devices, which shares, as they are high compared to those of their competition
made it easier to reach. at 71 percent. Also, their development languages are very
widely-ranged giving developers and employees have more
flexibility in the sector of compatibility and 3rd party software
III. S UMMARY
use. Being an open-source operating system, this allows many
From the above comparison, Android and IOS operating developers to develop various applications with functionalities
systems are more flexible in terms of development and have in the programming language that they are comfortable with.
been serving their users with more features. To create this table
Open sourced mobile computing is an advantage since anyone
anywhere can make improvements to the software. In this
way, new iterations of applications and operating systems can
be released and worked on daily by programmers around the
world. As a result, many phone developers come with multiple
phone models focusing on the android operating system as it
is widely used and compatible with many devices. While the
iPhone/Apple OS has relatively high market shares and various
available coding languages as well, it is not open-sourced and
is one of the more expensive types of OS. So, based on it
being open-sourced, market shares favouring it, the multiple
available coding languages and storage performance we have
come to the conclusion that the best operating system in terms
of mobile computing today is the Android OS.

R EFERENCES
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Computer Interaction, The Interaction Design Foundation, 2013.
[2] S. P. Hall and E. Anderson, “Operating systems for mobile computing,”
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2009.
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[4] V. Beal, “Mobile operating systems and the different types.”
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line; accessed 05-April-2021].
[5] “Windows phone versions.” https://winodws.fandom.com/wiki/Windows-
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[6] “The symbian operating system.”
[7] “Comparison of mobile os - android, ios, windows and black-
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