Pem’s Tech Blog

A recent big hobby of mine has been (paying some attention to) smart phones and smart phone OS’s (or device OS’s)… Today (2009/01/22), a huge part of what distinguishes (smart phone) from (desktop / laptop) is the OS.

The current wikipedia entry for Smart Phone OS gives us a very interesting data point that Nokia’s Symbian OS is the biggest world-wide Smart Phone OS with 46.6% market share sales Q3 2008. I recently had a software engineer roommate come from Nokia (India), and he was surprised at the basically complete lack of Symbian OS in the US. There’s also the N770 / N800 / N810 non-phone Nokia devices (which for whatever reason, runs Maemo, instead of Symbian).

Symbian OS is pretty small in the US, because of the carriers… Verizon only sells BlackBerry and Windows Mobile. AT&T only sells Black Berry and Windows Mobile and iPhone. Sprint is also BlackBerry and Windows Mobile… T-Mobile is the first to offer a Google Android phone…

There is also one Palm OS phone I noticed on Verizon (under their category “PDAs and Smartphones”), and although I thought Palm OS was dead, they are coming out with a new smart phone according to recent CES 2009…

So for PC (desktop form factor, laptop form factor), we primarily have: Windows, Apple OS, and Linux/Unix-based. For lower-powered smart phone devices, we in the US primarily have: Apple iPhone OS, RIM BlackBerry OS, Microsoft Windows Mobile, and the up-coming Google Android, and maybe the if-it-survives Palm OS. That’s still at least 3 big players (4 when Google Android gets big; 5 if you count Palm OS; 6 if Nokia Symbian ever comes to the US)…

Okay, there are also “dumb” cell phones, which the carriers use… But they tend to be less powered, and even more significantly – they tend to locked-down (by the carriers) even worse than any of the smart phones (if you ask me, I think Verizon is the worst of the big 4 at locking / crippling everything)… But these can run programs too. And if you do the research, you’ll find out that you can write software for them too with J2ME (or BREW, but fyi I think BREW is dead). But anyway, it’s that’s pretty locked down, and if I’m going to rant about the economic / political issues with the US cell phone industry… Well, maybe I’ll save that for another post O:-)

So… Which one do I use (as of 2009/01/22)? Right now I am using Windows Mobile (Verizon XV6800)… But it’s just a matter of time before I get an iPod touch (waiting for 64 GB, hoping for some other feature upgrades too like GPS). Nothing against BlackBerry; I just went with Windows Mobile b/c it sounded more powerful. Nothing against AT&T iPhone, except that even if I had AT&T, well I am planning to eventually get an iPod touch (that way I carry both a smart phone, and an iPhone OS device)

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/01/22 (Thursday, January 22, 2009) :: Mobile Devices/Services :: 1 Comment »

In the big picture, there are basically 3 major form factors for computers:
* desktop / workstation / server: more powerful, less portable, typically doesn’t run on battery
* laptop / notebook / mobile: carry around, or easily fit in backpack, runs on big battery
* smart phone / device / iPod / game player: fits in pocket, runs on small battery, low power with long battery life, less often than laptop has any heat issues

Obviously screen size is a big part of this too, but you can of course attach an external monitor to any of them…

Like many attempts at categorization, this isn’t completely set in stone… For example, the netbooks (which recently starting getting big/popular after Asus Eee PC, and OLPC XO), are laptops, but they are lower powered, less expensive, and smaller than standard laptops… For example, there small desktops that use internal components normally meant for mobile hardware. For example, an Ultra-Mobile PC (such as OQO model 2) is still in the laptop category (in terms of performance/functionality and battery life), but size is closer to the the smart phone / device category.

And then there are things that threaten the category boundaries even further… Take the rumored Asus Eee Keyboard. Personally, I would call it a ntebook-style laptop without a screen, because it looks like it will use netbook / laptop-style internal hardware, not fit in your pocket, and the battery life goal sounds like laptop battery life (only 1 to 3 hours).

In the current world, another big distinguishing feature is software… My next post will be about smart phone OS’s

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/01/22 (Thursday, January 22, 2009) :: Mobile Devices/Services :: No Comments »