Official smartphone discussion thread

[E6600]

Palm webOS
Palm's webOS graphical user interface is designed for use on devices with touchscreens. It includes a suite of applications for personal information management and makes use of a number of web technologies such as HTML 5, JavaScript, and CSS. Palm claims that the design around these existing technologies was intended to spare developers from learning a new programming language.The Palm Pre, released on June 6, 2009, is the first device to run this platform.
The webOS interface is based on a system of "cards" used to manage multitasking. Applications can be launched from either the "Launcher", which displays a default of three pages of applications icons in a scrollable grid, or the Quick Launch bar, which displays five icons inline horizontally. The user switches between running applications by clicking the front-face button to bring up the "cards" and then flicking left and right on the screen. Applications are closed by flicking a "card" up—and "off"—the screen. webOS also supports multi-touch gestures, enabling most navigational input to be made using the touchscreen.

Google Android (2.8% Market Share Sales Q2 2009)
Android was developed by Google Inc.. Android is an Open Source, Linux-derived platform backed by Google, along with major hardware and software developers (such as Intel, HTC, ARM, and eBay, to name a few), that form the Open Handset Alliance. This OS, though very new, already has a cult following among programmers eager to develop apps for its flexible, Open Source, back end. Android promises to give developers access to every aspect of the phone's operation. This lends many to foresee the promise of further growth for the Android platform.

Apple iPhone OS (13.7% Market Share Sales Q2 2009)
The iPhone uses an operating system called iPhone OS, which is derived from Mac OS X. It is derived from Mac OS X, with which it shares the Darwin foundation, and is therefore a Unix-like operating system by nature. iPhone OS has four abstraction layers: the Core OS layer, the Core Services layer, the Media layer, and the Cocoa Touch layer. The operating system uses less than 500 megabytes of the device's internal storage. Third party applications were not officially supported until the release of iPhone OS 2.0 on July 11th 2008. On January 27, 2010, there were more than 140,000 applications available for the iPhone OS with 3 billion downloads.

RIM BlackBerry OS (20.9% Market Share Sales Q2 2009)
This OS is focused on brainfuck operation and was originally designed for corporate drones. Recently it has seen a surge in third-party applications and has been hacked to offer full multimedia support.

Microsoft Windows Mobile (9% Market Share Sales Q2 2009)
The Windows CE operating system and Windows Mobile middleware are widely spread in Asia. The two improved variants of this operating system, Windows Mobile 6 Professional (for touch screen devices) and Windows Mobile 6 Standard, were unveiled in February 2007. Windows Mobile benefits from the low barrier to entry for third-party developers to write new applications for the platform. It has been criticized for having a user interface which is not optimized for touch input by fingers; instead, it is more usable with a stylus. However, unlike iPhone OS, it does support both touch screen and physical keyboard configurations.
With next major release of Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, Microsoft intends to make a dramatic come-back in the industry and become a much more aggressive force in the mobile space than it has been before in the past.

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To start this official thread on a high note Google Nexus One vs. iPhone 3GS Display Shoot-Out

[Nirvana09]

Personally, I use a Moto Q Global with Windows Mobile 6.1.

I love it; it's fast, does everything I need and looks great.

[E6600]

WinMo 6.1. Oh dear.
At least by the time you upgrade WP7S would be available

[Nirvana09]

Yeah, unfortunately I cannot upgrade to 6.5. I was so excited to hear about it, and then It was told that I couldn't upgrade. Oh well. Having a task manager kicks an infinite amount of ass.

[E6600]

Why would you need a task manager on a phone?

Last time I used WinMo 6.1 it was a long time ago. Even then it was blown away with iPhone OS 1.x, even WinMo 6.5 did little to bridge the gap. Thankfully, WP7S is a leap forward and in the right direction.

Aside from apps and hardware itself, can't say for certain if iPhone OS is the best smartphone OS, I'm seriously digging Palm's webOS, only if Plam releases an all-screen phone :\ Highly likely though, due to apps and superb hardware, I'll still be Apple's customer when it comes time to upgrade later this year. Palm really needs to sort out its hardware :\

[Romanc]

I'm highly partial to Maemo, which is the Debian (and qt) based OS used in some Nokia devices. Very slick and usable. They are now merging with Moblin (Which is Intel's linux-based mobile OS) to a project called Meego. I'm all for open platforms.

[E6600]

We'll see how MeeGo fares in the market, don't hold your breath though. Nokia has been touting the openness of Maemo and not many people jumped in -obvious by its market share-. I didn't care for it and I use Debian on my desktop.

Another problem facing MeeGo is hardware fragmentation, something you wont see with the iPhone OS. Android is already fragmented around many different hardwares with different custom UIs, I don't see how MeeGo would fare any better.

Nokia is a huge player, they can easily push MeeGo, but it wont be openness that'll attract customers. Many of Nokia's current customer don't know or care that Symbian is now open source, and that isn't slowing its decline either. MeeGo will become a huge player when Nokia phases out Symbian in favor of MeeGo, I don't see Nokia maintaining two incompatible mobile platforms.

All in all it seems a bit too little too late, joining forces with Intel was probably Nokia's best bet for survival in the cutthroat smartphone market. If only the desktop market had this much competition.

[downphoenix]

Originally Posted by E6600

RIM BlackBerry OS (20.9% Market Share Sales Q2 2009)
This OS is focused on easy operation

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Am I going delusional? Did I just see that the blackberry OS is designed for "EASE OF USE". Tell that to the 50+% of people that buy them who arent business or tech savvy.

Every other one (with the exception of windows mobile) on the other hand, IS designed for ease of use. Now why does windows mobile get a pass? Simple. Its similar to using WINDOWS, which damn near everyone knows how. So though its not EASY, its familiar. Blackberry isnt. It just fails. Hard. Couple that with some of the worst user guides I've ever seen for a product (poor layout, odd terminology, lack of information), most of the time when a customer calls in for a blackberry problem, I pretty much HAVE to get them to tech support, because the info that RIM sends us is basically crap, whereas if they got an Android or Palm phone, Im actually able to help sometimes.

BTW I know the blackberry isnt actually hard to use, though it doesnt have a "common sense" layout like its competitors, but the lack of information that we get on the phones is appaling, I think RIM does it on purpose to get anyone interested in fixing their crap to buy it so they can play with it or something, instead of writing proper troubleshooting documentation.

[E6600]

It was copy and paste
I didn't even read it

And never used it either

[Spindel]

I've tried Android, used WinMob 2003 and currently use WinMob 6.2 and iPhone OS.

iPhone OS wins hands down for ease of use and "it just works".

WinMob makes me want to cry ,I hate it and want to kill someone everytime I have to use my work phone (which means all the time everyday).

Android is still bad and not at all user friendly, but I have to give it a point for being better than WinMob (which isn't such a impressive feat). The feeling of android is too much Nokia or SonyEricsson phones, which means loads of "features" of which you'll never use because they are too cumbersome and you end up only using SMS, Phone and maybe something else.

The other OSs I can't comment.