Mobile operating system


A mobile operating system is an operating system used for smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as laptops are "mobile", the operating systems used on them are usually not considered mobile, as they were originally designed for desktop computers that historically did not have or need specific mobile features. This "fine line" distinguishing mobile and other forms has become blurred in recent years, due to the fact that newer devices have become smaller and more mobile, unlike the hardware of the past. Key factors blurring this line are the introduction of tablet computers, light laptops, and the hybridization of the 2-in-1 PCs.
Mobile operating systems combine features of a desktop computer operating system with other features useful for mobile or handheld use, and usually including a wireless built-in modem and SIM tray for telephone and data connection. In 2024, approximately 1.22 billion smartphones were sold globally, marking a 7% increase over the previous year and a solid rebound after two consecutive years of declines. Sales in 2012 were 1.56 billion; sales in 2023 were 1.43 billion with 53.32% being Android. Android alone has more sales than the popular desktop operating system Microsoft Windows, and smartphone use outnumbers desktop use.
Mobile devices, with mobile communications abilities, contain two mobile operating systems. The main user-facing software platform is supplemented by a second low-level proprietary real-time operating system which operates the radio and other hardware. Research has shown that these low-level systems may contain a range of security vulnerabilities permitting malicious base stations to gain high levels of control over the mobile device.
Mobile operating systems have had the most use of any operating system since 2017.

Timeline

Mobile operating system milestones mirror the development of mobile phones, PDAs, and smartphones:

Pre-1990

  • 1990–2010 – Mobile phones use embedded systems to control operation.

    1993–1999

  • 1993
  • * April – PenPoint OS by GO Corp. become available on the AT&T EO Personal Communicator.
  • * August – Apple launches Newton OS running on their Newton series of portable computers.
  • 1994
  • * March – Magic Cap OS by General Magic is first introduced on the Sony Magic Link PDA.
  • * August – The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, has a touchscreen, email, and PDA features.
  • 1996
  • * March – The Palm Pilot 1000 personal digital assistant is introduced with the Palm OS mobile operating system.
  • * August – Nokia releases the Nokia 9000 Communicator running an integrated system based on the PEN/GEOS 3.0 OS from Geoworks.
  • 1997 – EPOC32 first appears on the Psion Series 5 PDA. Release 6 of EPOC32 will later be renamed to Symbian OS.
  • 1998 – Symbian Ltd. is formed as a joint venture by Psion, Ericsson, Motorola, and Nokia, Psion's EPOC32 OS becomes Symbian's EPOC operating system, and is later renamed to Symbian OS. Symbian's OS was used by those companies and several other major mobile phone brands, but especially Nokia.
  • 1999
  • * June – Qualcomm's pdQ becomes the first smartphone with Palm OS.
  • * October – Nokia S40 Platform is officially introduced along with the Nokia 7110, the first phone with T9 predictive text input and a Wireless Application Protocol browser for accessing specially formatted Internet data.

    2000s

  • 2000 – The Ericsson R380 is released with EPOC32 Release 5, marking the first use on a phone of what's to become known as Symbian OS.
  • 2001
  • * June – Nokia's Symbian Series 80 platform is first released on the Nokia 9210 Communicator This is the first phone running an OS branded as Symbian, and the first phone using that OS that allows user installation of additional software.
  • * September – Qualcomm's Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless platform on their REX real-time operating system is first released on the Kyocera QCP-3035.
  • 2002
  • * March
  • ** BlackBerry releases its first smartphone, running Java 2 Micro Edition.
  • ** UIQ is first released, at v2.0, on Symbian OS, and becomes available later in the year on the Sony Ericsson P800, the successor to the Ericsson R380.
  • * June
  • ** Microsoft's first Windows CE smartphones are introduced.
  • ** Nokia's Symbian Series 60 platform is released with the Nokia 7650, Nokia's first phone with a camera and Multimedia Messaging Service. S60 would form the basis of the OS on most of Nokia's smartphones until 2011, when they adopted Microsoft's Windows Phone 7. S60 was also used on some phones from Samsung and others, and later by Sony Ericsson after the consolidation of some Symbian UI variants in 2008.
  • * October – The Danger Hiptop is first released by Danger, Inc., running DangerOS.
  • 2003 – Motorola introduces first Linux-based cellphone Motorola A760 base on Linux MontaVista distribution.
  • 2005
  • * May – Microsoft announces Windows Mobile 5.0.
  • * November – Nokia introduces Maemo OS on the first, small Internet tablet, the N770, with a 4.13" screen.
  • 2007
  • * January – Apple's iPhone with iOS is introduced as a "widescreen iPod", "mobile phone", and "Internet communicator".
  • * February – Microsoft announces Windows Mobile 6.0.
  • * May – Palm announces the Palm Foleo, a "Mobile Companion" device similar to a subnotebook computer, running a modified Linux kernel and relying on a companion Palm Treo smartphone to send and retrieve mail, as well as provide data connectivity when away from WiFi. Palm canceled Foleo development on September 4, 2007, after facing public criticism.
  • * June – World's very first iPhone is released in the United States.
  • * November – Open Handset Alliance is established, led by Google with 34 members
  • 2008
  • * February – LiMo Foundation announces the first phones running the LiMo mobile Linux distribution, from Motorola, NEC, Panasonic Mobile, and Samsung, released later in the year. The LiMo Foundation later became the Tizen Association and LiMo was subsumed by Tizen.
  • * June – Nokia becomes the sole owner of Symbian Ltd. The Symbian Foundation was then formed to co-ordinate the future development of the Symbian platform among the corporations using it, in a manner similar to the Open Handset Alliance with Android. Nokia remained the major contributor to Symbian's code.
  • * July – Apple releases iPhone OS 2 with the iPhone 3G, making available Apple's App Store.
  • * October – OHA releases Android 1.0 with the HTC Dream as the first Android phone.
  • * November – Symbian^1, the Symbian Foundation's touch-specific S60-based platform is first released on Nokia's first touchscreen Symbian phone, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, with a resistive screen and a stylus. Symbian^1 being derived from S60 meant that support for UIQ disappeared and no further devices using UIQ were released.
  • 2009
  • * January
  • ** Intel announces Moblin 2, specifically created for netbooks that run the company's Atom processor. In April 2009 Intel turned Moblin over to the Linux Foundation.
  • ** Palm introduces webOS with the Palm Pre. The new OS is not backward-compatible with their previous Palm OS.
  • * February
  • ** Palm announces that no further devices with Palm OS are going to be released by the company.
  • ** Microsoft announces Windows Mobile 6.5, an "unwanted stopgap" update to Windows Mobile 6.1 intended to bridge the gap between version 6.1 and the then yet-to-be released Windows Mobile 7. The first devices running it appeared in late October 2009.
  • * May – DangerOS 5.0 becomes available, based on NetBSD.
  • * June – Apple releases iPhone OS 3 with the iPhone 3GS.
  • * November – Nokia releases the Nokia N900, its first and only smartphone running the Maemo OS intended for "handheld computers...with voice capability", while stating that they remain focused on Symbian S60 as their smartphone OS.

    2010s

2010

  • February
  • * MeeGo is announced, a mobile Linux distribution merging Maemo from Nokia and Moblin from Intel and Linux Foundation, to be hosted by Linux Foundation. MeeGo is not backward-compatible with any previous operating system.
  • * Samsung introduces the Bada OS and shows the first Bada smartphone, the Samsung S8500. It was later released in May 2010.
  • April
  • * Apple releases the iPad with iPhone OS 3.2. This is the first version of the OS to support tablet computers. For its next major version iPhone OS will be renamed iOS.
  • * HP acquires Palm in order to use webOS in multiple new products, including smartphones, tablets, and printers, later stating their intent to use it as the universal platform for all their devices.
  • May – Microsoft Kin phone line with KIN OS become available.
  • June – Apple releases iOS 4, renamed from iPhone OS, with the iPhone 4.
  • July – Microsoft Kin phones and KIN OS are discontinued.
  • September
  • * Apple releases a variant of iOS powering the new 2nd generation Apple TV.
  • * Symbian^3 is first released on the Nokia N8. This would be Nokia's last flagship device running Symbian, before switching to Windows Phone 7 for future flagship phones.
  • * The Danger Hiptop line and DangerOS are discontinued as a result of Microsoft's acquisition of Danger, Inc. in 2008.
  • November
  • * Nokia assumes full control over Symbian as the Symbian Foundation disintegrates.
  • * Windows Phone OS is released on Windows Phone 7 phones by HTC, LG, Samsung, and Dell. The new OS is not backward-compatible with the prior Windows Mobile OS.

    2011

  • February
  • * Android 3.0, the first version to officially support tablet computers, is released on the Motorola Xoom.
  • * Nokia abandons the Symbian OS and announces that it would use Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 as its primary smartphone platform, while Symbian would be gradually wound down.
  • April – BlackBerry Tablet OS, based on QNX Neutrino is released on the BlackBerry PlayBook.
  • July
  • * Mozilla announces their Boot to Gecko project to develop an OS for handheld devices emphasizing standards-based Web technologies, similar to webOS.
  • * webOS 3.0, the first version to support tablet computers, is released on the HP TouchPad.
  • August – HP announces that webOS device development and production lines would be halted. The last HP webOS version, 3.0.5, is released on January 12, 2012.
  • September
  • * MeeGo is introduced with the limited-release Nokia N9, Nokia's first and only consumer device to use the OS.
  • * After Nokia's abandonment of MeeGo, Intel and the Linux Foundation announce a partnership with Samsung to launch Tizen, shifting their focus from MeeGo and Bada during 2011 and 2012.
  • October
  • * Apple releases iOS 5 with the iPhone 4S, integrating the Siri voice assistant.
  • * The Mer project is announced, based on an ultra-portable core for building products, composed of Linux, HTML5, QML, and JavaScript, which is derived from the MeeGo codebase.
  • November – Fire OS, a fork of the Android operating system, is released by Amazon.com on the Kindle Fire tablet.