A mobile operating system is an operating system for smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical/mobile laptops are "mobile", the operating systems used on them are generally not considered mobile ones, as they were originally designed for desktop computers that historically did not have or need specific mobile features. This 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 hardware of the past. Key notabilities blurring this line are the introduction of tablet computers and light-weight laptops and the hybridization of the two in 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 inbuilt modem and SIM tray for telephony and data connection. In Q1 2018, over 123 million smartphones were sold (highest ever recorded) with 60.2 percent running Android and 20.9 percent running iOS. Nonetheless, although not as many as 2018 (1.56 billion), 2021 still had soaring sales, 1.43 billion to be exact with 53.32 percent being Android. Android alone is more popular than the popular desktop operating system Microsoft Windows, and in general smartphone use (even without tablets) outnumbers desktop use.
Mobile devices, with mobile communications abilities (e.g., smartphones), contain two mobile operating systemsthe 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 majority use since 2017 (measured by web use); with even only the smartphones running them (excluding tablets) having majority use, more used than any other kind of device. Thus traditional desktop OS is now a minority-used kind of OS; see usage share of operating systems. However, variations occur in popularity by regions, while desktop-minority also applies on some days in countries such as United States and United Kingdom. Android and iOS currently dominate 80% of the market share of mobile operating systems worldwide.
Timeline
Mobile operating system milestones mirror the development of mobile phones, PDAs, and smartphones:
Pre-1993
1973–1993 – Mobile phones use embedded systems to control operation.
1993–1999
1993
April – PenPoint OS by GO Corp. becomes 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 (WAP) browser for accessing specially formatted Internet data.