Smartphone
Encyclopedia
A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone
built on a mobile computing
platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone
. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant
(PDA) and a mobile phone or camera phone
. Today's models also serve to combine the functions of portable media player
s, low-end compact digital cameras, pocket video camera
s, and GPS navigation units. Modern smartphones typically also include high-resolution touchscreen
s, web browser
s that can access and properly display standard web pages rather than just mobile-optimized sites, and high-speed data access via Wi-Fi
and mobile broadband
.
The most common mobile operating system
s (OS) used by modern smartphones include Apple's iOS, Google's
Android, Microsoft's
Windows Mobile
and Windows Phone
, Nokia's
Symbian
, RIM's
BlackBerry OS
, and embedded Linux
distributions such as Maemo
and MeeGo. Such operating systems can be installed on many different phone models, and typically each device can receive multiple OS software updates over its lifetime.
The distinction between smartphones and feature phones can be vague and there is no official definition for what constitutes the difference between them. One of the most significant differences is that the advanced application programming interfaces (APIs) on smartphones for running third-party applications can allow those applications to have better integration with the phone's OS and hardware than is typical with feature phones. In comparison, feature phones more commonly run on proprietary firmware
, with third-party software support through platforms such as Java ME or BREW
. An additional complication in distinguishing between smartphones and feature phones is that over time the capabilities of new models of feature phones can increase to exceed those of phones that had been promoted as smartphones in the past.
; it was designed in 1992 and shown as a concept product that year at COMDEX
, the computer industry trade show held in Las Vegas
, Nevada. It was released to the public in 1993 and sold by BellSouth
. Besides being a mobile phone, it also contained a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail client, the ability to send and receive fax
es, and games. It had no physical buttons, instead customers used a touchscreen
to select telephone numbers with a finger or create faxes and memos with an optional stylus. Text was entered with a unique on-screen "predictive" keyboard. By today's standards, the Simon would be a fairly low-end product, lacking a camera and the ability to download third-party applications. However, its feature set at the time was highly advanced.
The Nokia Communicator
line was the first of Nokia's smartphones starting with the Nokia 9000
, released in 1996. This distinctive palmtop computer style smartphone was the result of a collaborative effort of an early successful and costly personal digital assistant
(PDA) by Hewlett-Packard
combined with Nokia's best-selling phone around that time, and early prototype models had the two devices fixed via a hinge. The Communicators are characterized by a clamshell design, with a feature phone display, keyboard and user interface on top of the phone, and a physical QWERTY keyboard, high-resolution display of at least 640×200 pixels and PDA user interface under the flip-top. The software was based on the GEOS V3.0 operating system, featuring email communication and text-based web browsing. In 1998, it was followed by Nokia 9110, and in 2000 by Nokia 9110i, with improved web browsing capability.
In 1997 the term 'smartphone' was used for the first time when Ericsson
unveiled the concept phone GS88, the first device labelled as 'smartphone'.
In 2000, the touchscreen Ericsson R380 Smartphone
was released. It was the first device to use an open operating system, the Symbian OS. It was the first device marketed as a 'smartphone'. It combined the functions of a mobile phone and a personal digital assistant
(PDA). In December 1999 the magazine Popular Science
appointed the Ericsson R380 Smartphone to one of the most important advances in science and technology. It was a groundbreaking device since it was as small and light as a normal mobile phone. In 2002 it was followed up by P800
.
Also in 2000, the Nokia 9210 communicator was introduced, which was the first color screen model from the Nokia Communicator
line. It was a true smartphone with an open operating system, the Symbian OS. It was followed by the 9500
Communicator, which also was Nokia's first cameraphone and first Wi-Fi
phone. The 9300
Communicator was smaller, and the latest E90 Communicator includes GPS. The Nokia Communicator model is remarkable for also having been the most costly phone model sold by a major brand for almost the full life of the model series, costing easily 20% and sometimes 40% more than the next most expensive smartphone by any major producer.
In 2007 Nokia launched the Nokia N95
which integrated a wide range of multimedia features into a consumer-oriented smartphone: GPS, a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus
and LED flash, 3G and Wi-Fi
connectivity and TV-out
. In the next few years these features would become standard on high-end smartphones. The Nokia 6110 Navigator
is a Symbian based dedicated GPS phone introduced in June 2007.
In 2010 Nokia released the Nokia N8
smartphone with a stylus
-free capacitive touchscreen, the first device to use the new Symbian^3 OS. It featured a 12 megapixel camera with Xenon flash capable of recording HD video
in 720p
, described by Mobile Burn as the best camera in a phone, and satellite navigation that Mobile Choice described as the best on any phone. It also featured a front-facing VGA camera for videoconferencing.
Symbian was the number one smartphone platform by market share from 1996 until 2011 when it dropped to second place behind Google's Android OS. In February 2011, Nokia announced that it would replace Symbian with Windows Phone
as the operating system on all of its future smartphones. This transition was completed in October 2011, when Nokia announced its first line of Windows Phone 7.5 smartphones, Lumia 710
and 800
.
and/or pager
type devices running early versions of operating systems such as Palm OS
, BlackBerry OS
or Windows CE
/Pocket PC
. Later versions of these systems started integrating cell phone capabilities with their PDA and messaging features and support of third-party applications. Today, high-end devices running these systems are often branded smartphones.
In early 2001, Palm, Inc.
introduced the Kyocera 6035
, the first smartphone to be deployed in widespread use in the United States. This device combined the features of a personal digital assistant
(PDA) with a wireless phone that operated on the Verizon Wireless
network. For example, a user could select a name from the PDA contact list
, and the device would dial that contact's phone number. The device also supported limited web browsing. The device received a very positive reception from technology publications, but the product line never became widespread outside North America.
In 2001 Microsoft announced its Windows CE
Pocket PC OS would be offered as "Microsoft Windows Powered Smartphone 2002." Microsoft originally defined its Windows Smartphone
products as lacking a touchscreen and offering a lower screen resolution compared to its sibling Pocket PC devices.
In early 2002 Handspring
released the Palm OS
Treo smartphone, utilizing a full keyboard that combined wireless web browsing, email, calendar, and contact organizer with mobile third-party applications that could be downloaded or synced with a computer.
In 2002 RIM
released their first BlackBerry
devices with integrated phone functionality and shifted the positioning of their products from 2-way pagers to email-capable mobile phones. The BlackBerry line evolved into the first smartphone optimized for wireless email use and had achieved a total customer base of about 32 million subscribers by December 2009.
In February 2011 Nokia announced a plan to make Microsoft Windows Phone
its main operating system of choice for new Nokia smartphones.
In 2007, Apple Inc. introduced its first iPhone
. It was initially costly, priced at $499 for the cheaper of two models on top of a two year contract. The first mobile phone to use a multi-touch
interface, the iPhone was notable for its use of a large touchscreen for direct finger input as its main means of interaction, instead of having a stylus
, keyboard, and/or keypad, which were the typical input methods for other smartphones at the time. The iPhone featured a web browser that Ars Technica
then described as "far superior" to anything offered by that of its competitors. Initially lacking the capability to install native applications beyond the ones built-in to its OS, at WWDC in June 2007 Apple announced that the iPhone would support third-party "web 2.0 applications" running in its web browser that share the look and feel of the iPhone interface. As a result of the iPhone's initial inability to install third-party native applications, some reviewers did not consider the originally released device to accurately fit the definition of a smartphone "by conventional terms." A process called jailbreaking emerged quickly to provide unofficial third-party native applications. There are many different functions of the iPhone including a GPS unit, kitchen timer, radio, map book, calendar, notepad, and many other features that replace objects we have to carry around each day. This allows for more ease in everyday life. For example, a college student can now keep track of every task and have all the gadgets he or she needs to function in everyday life.
In July 2008, Apple introduced its second generation iPhone
with a lower list price starting at $199 and 3G support. Released with it, Apple also created the App Store, adding the capability for any iPhone
or iPod Touch
to officially execute additional native applications (both free and paid) installed directly over a Wi-Fi
or cellular network, without the more typical process at the time of requiring a PC for installation. Applications could additionally be browsed through and downloaded directly via the iTunes
software client on Macintosh
and Windows
PCs, rather than by searching through multiple sites across the Internet. Featuring over 500 applications at launch, Apple's App Store was immediately very popular, quickly growing to become a huge success and inspiring other smartphone makers to copy its model.
In June of 2010, Apple introduced iOS 4, which included APIs to allow third-party applications to multitask, and the iPhone 4
, which included a 960×640 pixel display with a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch (ppi), a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash capable of recording HD video
in 720p
at 30 frames per second
, a front-facing VGA camera for videoconferencing, a 1 GHz
processor, and other improvements. In early 2011 the iPhone 4 became available through Verizon Wireless
, ending AT&T's exclusivity of the handset in the U.S., and allowing the handset's 3G connection to be used as a wireless Wi-Fi hotspot for the first time, to up to 5 other devices. Software updates subsequently added this capability to other iPhones running iOS 4.
The iPhone 4S
was announced on October 4, 2011, improving upon the iPhone 4 with a dual core A5
processor, an 8 megapixel camera capable of recording 1080p
video at 30 frames per second, World phone capability allowing it to work on both GSM & CDMA networks, and the Siri
automated voice assistant. On October 10th, Apple announced that over one million iPhone 4Ss had been pre-ordered within the first 24 hours of it being on sale, beating the 600,000 device record set by the iPhone 4, despite the iPhone 4S failing to impress some critics at the announcement due to their expectations of an "iPhone 5" with rumored drastic changes compared to the iPhone 4 such as a new case design and larger screen. Along with the iPhone 4S Apple also released iOS 5 and iCloud
, untethering iOS devices from Macintosh or Windows PCs for device activation, backup, and synchronization, along with additional new and improved features.
There are about 35 percent of Americans that have some sort of smartphone. This shows that the market is spreading fast and there is also more capabilities for smartphones because of this spread.
Smartphones are also mainly valuable based on the operating system. For example, the iPhone runs on the iOS and other devices run different operating sytems which makes the functionality of these systems different.
platform backed by Google
, along with major hardware and software developers (such as Intel, HTC, ARM
, Motorola
and Samsung
, to name a few), that form the Open Handset Alliance
. The first phone to use Android was the HTC Dream
, branded for distribution by T-Mobile
as the G1. The software suite included on the phone consists of integration with Google's proprietary applications, such as Maps, Calendar, and Gmail, and a full HTML web browser. Android supports the execution of native applications and a preemptive multitasking capability (in the form of services). Third-party apps are available via the Android Market
(released October 2008), including both free and paid apps.
In January 2010, Google launched the Nexus One
smartphone using its Android OS. Although Android has multi-touch abilities, Google initially removed that feature from the Nexus One, but it was added through a firmware update on February 2, 2010.
Concerning the Xperia Play smartphone, an analyst at CCS Insight said in March 2011 that "Console wars are moving to the mobile platform". In the same month, the HTC EVO 3D
was announced by HTC Corporation, which can produce 3D effects with no need for special glasses (autostereoscopy
). The HTC EVO 3D was officially released on June 24, 2011.
operating system for smartphones was announced by Samsung on 10 November 2009. The first Bada-based phone was the Samsung Wave S8500, released on June 1, 2010, which sold one million handsets in its first 4 weeks on the market.
Samsung shipped 3.5 million phones running Bada in Q1 of 2011. This rose to 4.5 million phones in Q2 of 2011.
s and designs in the markets for smartphones, and devices based on smartphone OSes
such as Android, has been increasing significantly.
Timeline (initial suits, countersuits, rulings, licence agreements, and other major events in bold):
. The most common screen sizes range from 2 inches to over 4 inches (measured diagonally). Some 5 inch screen devices exist that run on mobile OSes
and have the ability to make phone calls, such as the discontinued Dell Streak
and the current Samsung Galaxy Note
. Ergonomics
arguments have been made that increasing screen sizes start to negatively impact usability.
Common resolutions for smartphone screens vary from 240×320 to 720×1280, with many flagship Android phones at 480×800 or 540×960, the iPhone 4
/4S
at 640×960 and Galaxy Nexus
and HTC Rezound
at 720×1280.
, Handango
, Handmark
, PocketGear, and others.
The iPhone's platform is officially restricted to installing apps only through Apple's App Store, though via jailbreaking it can install apps from other sources. Other platforms may allow application distribution through additional sources outside of their manufacturer-provided app stores, such as third-party app stores and downloads from individual websites.
Following the success of Apple's App Store other smartphone manufacturers quickly launched application stores of their own. Google
launched the Android Market
in October 2008. RIM
launched its app store, BlackBerry App World
, in April 2009. Nokia launched its Ovi Store in May 2009. Palm launched its Palm App Catalog
for webOS in June 2009. Microsoft launched an application store for Windows Mobile
called Windows Marketplace for Mobile
in October 2009, and then a separate Windows Phone Marketplace
for Windows Phone
in October 2010. Samsung launched Samsung Apps
for its bada
based phones in June 2010. Amazon
launched its Amazon Appstore
for the Google Android operating system in March 2011.
The relatively high revenue of U.S. $1782 million in 2010 for Apple's App Store compared to competitor's stores can be attributed to a combination of factors. In large part this can be attributed to having the largest number of apps available and the highest download volume of any mobile app store in 2010, but besides that only 28% of the apps in Apple's App Store were free apps, compared to over 57% in the Android Market. Similarly, Nokia's Ovi Store and the BlackBerry App World both had only 26% of their apps available for free, but both generated higher revenues than the Android Market despite having much lower download volumes.
(malware).
Frequently this malware is distributed through application stores that have minimal or no review process for their content. In some cases malware has been hidden in pirated
versions of legitimate apps, which are then distributed through 3rd party app stores. Malware risk also comes from what's known as an "update attack," where a legitimate application is later changed to include a malware component, which users then install when they are notified that the app has been updated. Additionally, the ability to acquire software directly from links on the web results in a distribution vector called "malvertizing," where users are directed to click on links, such as on ads that look legitimate, which then open in the device's web browser and cause malware to be downloaded and installed automatically.
Typical smartphone malware leverages platform vulnerabilities that allow it to gain root access
on the device in the background. Using this access the malware installs additional software to target communications, location, or other personal identifying information
. A common form of malware on mobile phones is the SMS trojan
, which sends premium SMS messages, possibly while unknowingly running in the background of a legitimate application. These premium SMS messages run up charges on the owners phone bill which cannot be recovered.
In August 2010, Kaspersky Lab reported detection of the first malicious program for smartphones running on Google's Android operating system, named Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer.a, an SMS trojan which had already infected a number of devices using that OS. Over the spring of 2011 Android malware increased 76%, according to McAfee
. A report from Juniper Global Threat Center notes that malware on the Android platform increased 400% from 2009 to the summer of 2010, and then saw a 472% increase between July and November 2011. The Juniper report indicates that 55% of Android malware acts as spyware
, and 44% are SMS trojans.
While there have been and continue to be potential security flaws in iOS, as of at least August 2011 there were no known malware or spyware apps in Apple's App Store, according to security firm Lookout. There are however commercial spyware applications available, outside the App Store, for jailbroken iOS devices. In June 2011 Symantec's
23-page report "A Window Into Mobile Device Security" characterized (non-jailbroken) devices running iOS as having "full protection" against malware attacks.
Symbian and older versions Windows Mobile have had to contend with a degree of malware in the past, but as legacy systems it is believed that the people who previously targeted them have shifted their focus to Android. There were also a few Palm OS viruses
.
The only mobile platform other than Apple's iOS without reports of malware so far is HP's (formerly Palm's) webOS, but this may be explained by its relatively low adoption rate.
The best way to reduce a device's vulnerability
to malware attacks is to install the most recent versions of operating systems which include security patches
. This can be complicated by long delays in software updates for many devices which have had their software modified with custom "skins," services, or promotional on-deck apps by their manufacturer or mobile carrier. In some cases a device may no longer be receiving updates from its manufacturer or carrier, leaving it vulnerable to exploits that have been patched in an OS version that's more recent than the device's last supported one.
and graphics processing unit
s, abundant storage
(flash memory
) for applications and media files, high-resolution screens with multi-touch
capability, and open operating systems has outpaced the rest of the mobile phone market.
According to an early 2010 study by ComScore, over 45.5 million people in the United States owned smartphones out of 234 million total subscribers. Despite the large increase in smartphone sales in the last few years, smartphone shipments only made up 20% of total handset shipments as of the first half of 2010.
According to Gartner in their report dated November 2010, total smartphone sales doubled in one year and now smartphones represent 19.3 percent of total mobile phone sales. Smartphone sales increased in 2010 by 72.1 percent from the prior year, whereas sales for all mobile phones only increased by 31.8 percent.
According to an Olswang report in early 2011, the rate of smartphone adoption is accelerating: as of March 2011 22% of UK consumers had a smartphone, with this percentage rising to 31% amongst 24- to 35-year-olds.
In March 2011, Berg Insight reported data that showed global smartphone shipments increased 74% from 2009 to 2010.
A survey of mobile users in the United States by Nielsen in Q3, 2011 reports that smartphone ownership has reached 43% of all U.S. mobile subscribers, with the vast majority of users under the age of 44 owning one. In the 25-34 age range smartphone ownership is reported to be at 62%. NPD Group reports that the share of handset sales that were smartphones in Q3, 2011 reached 59% for consumers 18 and over in the U.S.
In profit share worldwide smartphones now far exceed the share of non-smartphones. According to a November 2011 research note from Canaccord Genuity, Apple Inc., which doesn't make phones that aren't smartphones, holds 52% of the total mobile industry's operating profits, while only holding 4.2% of the global handset market. HTC and RIM similarly only make smartphones and their wordwide profit shares are at 9% and 7%, respectively. Samsung, in second place after Apple at 29%, makes both smartphones and feature phones and doesn't report a breakdown separating their profits between the two kinds of devices, but it can be intuited that a significant portion of that profit comes from their flagship smartphone devices.
, iOS, Samsung's recently introduced bada
, HP's heir of Palm
webOS and the Microsoft Windows Phone
OS seeing a possible revival through an alliance with Nokia
.
Over late 2009 and 2010 Android's smartphone operating system market share increased very rapidly. In the fourth quarter of 2010, Android surpassed Symbian as the most common operating system in smartphones, with 32.9 million units sold versus 31.0 million. Android-equipped phones sold seven times more than in the prior year. According to Canalys
, Google's Android operating system, which is offered to phone makers for free, has raced to the top past operating systems by Nokia, Apple, RIM, and Microsoft. In Q1 2011 Google's Android market share was 35 percent, increasing significantly from 10 percent the previous year, while Nokia's Symbian dropped to 26 percent from 46 percent over the same time period. In the UK, which currently has one of the highest penetrations of smartphones in the World, Android achieved 50% market share in October 2011
it was reported that Apple's iPhones have displaced RIM's BlackBerry devices in enterprise adoption in 2011. The share for iPhones increased to 45% from 31.1% in 2010, while the Blackberry share dropped to 32.2% from 34.5% in the previous year. Android phones also increased in share, to 21.3% from 11.3% in 2010, exceeding Symbian for the first time, which dropped to 7.4% from 12.4%. Windows Mobile and all other smartphone OSes also dropped in 2011 compared to 2010.
was dominant in the smartphone market, but as of Q2 2011 Apple, Inc. has become the worldwide number one single manufacturer of smartphones by revenue, profit, and volume, followed by Samsung
, with Nokia now in third place and the remaining 48.9% of vendor market share split amongst all other manufacturers. Based on a report by Strategy Analytics, Samsung overtook Apple in smartphone shipments with an estimated 27.8 million units shipped in Q3 2011 (Samsung does not publicly disclose the numbers of their smartphone shipments and sales). Strategy Analytics compared this to the 17.1 million smartphones Apple announced they had sold (not just shipped) in Q3 2011. It is believed that one significant reason for the drop in sales of Apple's smartphones from 18.5 million in Q2 to 17.1 million in Q3 was that consumers and operators were awaiting the launch of a new iPhone model
in the fourth quarter. A reason for Samsung's growth is believed to be because of their diversity of models, with both high and low-end smartphones, while Apple had been targeting only the high-end market. Along with the release of the iPhone 4S
, however, Apple began offering the iPhone 3GS
for free with contract on many carriers, providing them with a low-end offering to better compete in that space.
Market share among smartphone manufacturers does not resemble smartphone OS market share numbers due to the differences between the two major smartphone OS sales models: single manufacturer and licensed. Apple's iPhone
, Nokia's Symbian
, and RIM's BlackBerry
smartphones are currently only available from single manufacturers. Google's
Android OS and Microsoft's
mobile OSes are platforms that are licensed and used by a variety of manufacturers. As a result, manufacturers of smartphones using licensed OSes all split the total market share of that OS between them, while the total share for a single-manufacturer OS is held by that manufacturer alone.
Note that Nokia's Symbian OS was previously available from several manufacturers under a licensed model, then later predominantly only by Nokia itself more like a single manufacturer model.
Samsung smartphones use a diverse portfolio of operating systems, including their own Bada
operating system along with Android and Windows Mobile
.
Apple surpassed Nokia worldwide by revenue and profit for the first time in Q2 2011, with Apple's profit share of the total worldwide smartphone market increasing to 66.3% while Nokia reported a loss. Apple's iPhone sales also overtook Nokia's Symbian smartphone volume shipments by 20.3 million and 16.7 million respectively, although Nokia had already announced plans to phase Symbian out.
Between Q2 2010 and Q2 2011 Nokia's worldwide Symbian smartphone sales dropped significantly from 38.1 percent to 15.2 percent, while Samsung
smartphone sales increased significantly worldwide from 5.0 percent to 17.5 percent.
Nokia still remains the number one company in the worldwide mobile phone market with sales for Q2 2011 of 88.5 million when including feature phone platforms such as S40, compared with 16.7 million smartphones running Symbian.
According to Nielsen
in July 2011, in the United States Apple is the top smartphone manufacturer at 28% of the market, with RIM at 20%. Google Android has 39% of the U.S. market as a whole, but this is split between HTC at 14%, Motorola at 11%, Samsung at 8%, and other remaining manufacturers at 6%. HTC's total share of the U.S. smartphone market actually ties RIM at 20%, since sales of their smartphones running Microsoft's mobile operating systems account for 6% of the total market. Samsung similarly gains 2% of overall U.S. market share due to their sales of Microsoft OS-based smartphones. In contrast to the worldwide market, Nokia's share of U.S. smartphone sales is very small, at only 2%. Nielsen's Q3, 2011 survey of mobile users maintains Apple as the top U.S. smartphone maker with a continued 28% of the market, with RIM dropping from 20% to 18%. While Google Android increased in total operating system share from 39% to 43% of the U.S. market, it remains fragmented amongst many different manufacturers. Over the same quarter Microsoft managed a modest gain from 6% to 7% total U.S. smartphone OS share.
Checks with U.S. carriers by technology analyst firm Canaccord Genuity in April and August 2011 have found that Apple's iPhone 4 has consistently been the top selling device at AT&T and Verizon. In addition, the second most popular spot at AT&T has been maintained by the iPhone 3GS, which was originally released in 2009 (and has never been sold on Verizon). In August 2011 the most popular smartphones on Sprint and T-Mobile in the U.S. were the HTC EVO 3D 4G and HTC Sensation, respectively. The other second most popular smartphones were the Samsung Charge 4G on Verizon, the Motorola Photon 4G on Sprint, and the HTC myTouch 4G Slide on T-Mobile. NPD Group reported that in Q3, 2011 the overall top 5 smartphones by sales across all carriers in the U.S. were, in order: the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, HTC EVO 4G, Motorola Droid 3, and Samsung Intensity II.
Currently the vast majority of smartphones are manufactured in China, Taiwan and Mexico, for companies based in the U.S. (Apple, HP
, Motorola), South Korea (LG
, Samsung), Canada (RIM), Finland (Nokia), Taiwan (HTC) and the U.K. (Sony Ericsson
).
smartphones from Apple Inc. have been consistently ranking highest in customer satisfaction, with a late 2011 score of 838 out of 1000. Based on the responses to their most recent survey of 6,898 smartphone users, Apple was followed in ranking by HTC (801), Samsung (777), Motorola (775), RIM (762), LG (760), Palm (733), and Nokia (721).
culture has penetrated the smartphone market in several ways. There have been attempts to open source both hardware and software of smartphones.
In February 2010 Nokia made Symbian
open source. Thus, most commercial smartphones were based on open-source operating systems. These include those based on Linux
, such as Google's Android, Nokia's Maemo
, Hewlett-Packard's WebOS, and those based on BSD
, such as the Darwin
-based Apple iOS. Maemo
was later merged with Intel's project Moblin to form MeeGo
.
is a consequence of the media multitasking which is exploding.
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
built on a mobile computing
Mobile operating system
A mobile operating system, also known as a mobile OS, mobile software platform or a handheld operating system, is the operating system that controls a mobile device or information appliance—similar in principle to an operating system such as Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux distributions that controls a...
platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone
Feature phone
A feature phone is a mobile phone that, like smartphones, combines the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone.Today's models typically also serve as portable media players and camera phones with touchscreen, GPS navigation, Wi-Fi and mobile broadband access.Feature phones is...
. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
(PDA) and a mobile phone or camera phone
Camera phone
A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture still photographs . Since early in the 21st century the majority of mobile phones in use are camera phones....
. Today's models also serve to combine the functions of portable media player
Portable media player
A portable media player or digital audio player, is a consumer electronics device that is capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, video, documents, etc. the data is typically stored on a hard drive, microdrive, or flash memory. In contrast, analog portable audio...
s, low-end compact digital cameras, pocket video camera
Pocket video camera
A pocket video camera is a tapeless camcorder that is small enough to be carried in one's pocket. Most pocket video cameras resemble mobile phones in shape and size, unlike traditional cameras....
s, and GPS navigation units. Modern smartphones typically also include high-resolution touchscreen
Touchscreen
A touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus...
s, web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
s that can access and properly display standard web pages rather than just mobile-optimized sites, and high-speed data access via Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
and mobile broadband
Mobile Broadband
Mobile broadband is the marketing term for wireless Internet access through a portable modem, mobile phone or other mobile device.-Description:...
.
The most common mobile operating system
Mobile operating system
A mobile operating system, also known as a mobile OS, mobile software platform or a handheld operating system, is the operating system that controls a mobile device or information appliance—similar in principle to an operating system such as Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux distributions that controls a...
s (OS) used by modern smartphones include Apple's iOS, Google's
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
Android, Microsoft's
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
and Windows Phone
Windows Phone
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market...
, Nokia's
Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...
Symbian
Symbian
Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...
, RIM's
Research In Motion
Research In Motion Limited or RIM is a Canadian multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada that designs, manufactures and markets wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market...
BlackBerry OS
BlackBerry OS
BlackBerry OS is a proprietary mobile operating system, developed by Research In Motion for its BlackBerry line of smartphone handheld devices...
, and embedded Linux
Embedded Linux
Embedded Linux is the use of Linux in embedded computer systems such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants, media players, set-top boxes, and other consumer electronics devices, networking equipment, machine control, industrial automation, navigation equipment and medical instruments...
distributions such as Maemo
Maemo
Maemo is a software platform developed by the Maemo community for smartphones and Internet tablets. It is based on the Debian Linux distribution, but has no relation to it...
and MeeGo. Such operating systems can be installed on many different phone models, and typically each device can receive multiple OS software updates over its lifetime.
The distinction between smartphones and feature phones can be vague and there is no official definition for what constitutes the difference between them. One of the most significant differences is that the advanced application programming interfaces (APIs) on smartphones for running third-party applications can allow those applications to have better integration with the phone's OS and hardware than is typical with feature phones. In comparison, feature phones more commonly run on proprietary firmware
Firmware
In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices...
, with third-party software support through platforms such as Java ME or BREW
Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless
Brew is an application development platform created by Qualcomm, originally for CDMA mobile phones, featuring third party applications such as mobile games. It is offered in some feature phones but not in smart phones...
. An additional complication in distinguishing between smartphones and feature phones is that over time the capabilities of new models of feature phones can increase to exceed those of phones that had been promoted as smartphones in the past.
Early years
The first smartphone was the IBM SimonIBM Simon
The IBM Simon Personal Communicator was an advanced cellular telephone, created by a joint venture between IBM and BellSouth. Simon was first shown as a product concept in 1992 at COMDEX, the computer and technology trade show held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Launched in 1993 it combined the features of...
; it was designed in 1992 and shown as a concept product that year at COMDEX
COMDEX
COMDEX was a computer expo held in Las Vegas, Nevada, each November from 1979 to 2003. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, usually second only to the German CeBIT, and by many accounts one of the largest trade shows in any industry sector...
, the computer industry trade show held in Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
, Nevada. It was released to the public in 1993 and sold by BellSouth
BellSouth
BellSouth Corporation is an American telecommunications holding company based in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth was one of the seven original Regional Bell Operating Companies after the U.S...
. Besides being a mobile phone, it also contained a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail client, the ability to send and receive fax
Fax
Fax , sometimes called telecopying, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material , normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device...
es, and games. It had no physical buttons, instead customers used a touchscreen
Touchscreen
A touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus...
to select telephone numbers with a finger or create faxes and memos with an optional stylus. Text was entered with a unique on-screen "predictive" keyboard. By today's standards, the Simon would be a fairly low-end product, lacking a camera and the ability to download third-party applications. However, its feature set at the time was highly advanced.
The Nokia Communicator
Nokia Communicator
The Nokia Communicator is a brand name for a series of business-optimized smartphones marketed by Nokia Corporation, all of which appear as normal phones on the outside, and open in clamshell format to access a QWERTY keyboard and an LCD screen nearly the size of the device footprint.Nokia...
line was the first of Nokia's smartphones starting with the Nokia 9000
Nokia 9000
The Nokia 9000 Communicator was the first product in Nokia's Communicator series, introduced in 1996. The phone was large and heavy in comparison with its modern equivalent the Nokia E90. The Communicator part is driven by an AMD 24 MHz i386 CPU. It has 8 MB of memory, which is divided...
, released in 1996. This distinctive palmtop computer style smartphone was the result of a collaborative effort of an early successful and costly personal digital assistant
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
(PDA) by Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
combined with Nokia's best-selling phone around that time, and early prototype models had the two devices fixed via a hinge. The Communicators are characterized by a clamshell design, with a feature phone display, keyboard and user interface on top of the phone, and a physical QWERTY keyboard, high-resolution display of at least 640×200 pixels and PDA user interface under the flip-top. The software was based on the GEOS V3.0 operating system, featuring email communication and text-based web browsing. In 1998, it was followed by Nokia 9110, and in 2000 by Nokia 9110i, with improved web browsing capability.
In 1997 the term 'smartphone' was used for the first time when Ericsson
Ericsson
Ericsson , one of Sweden's largest companies, is a provider of telecommunication and data communication systems, and related services, covering a range of technologies, including especially mobile networks...
unveiled the concept phone GS88, the first device labelled as 'smartphone'.
Symbian
Ericsson R380
The Ericsson R380 Smartphone was a GSM mobile phone made by Ericsson, released in 2000. It combined the functions of a mobile phone and a personal digital assistant . It was the first device marketed as a 'smartphone'. In December 1999 the magazine Popular Science appointed the Ericsson R380...
was released. It was the first device to use an open operating system, the Symbian OS. It was the first device marketed as a 'smartphone'. It combined the functions of a mobile phone and a personal digital assistant
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
(PDA). In December 1999 the magazine Popular Science
Popular Science
Popular Science is an American monthly magazine founded in 1872 carrying articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. Popular Science has won over 58 awards, including the ASME awards for its journalistic excellence in both 2003 and 2004...
appointed the Ericsson R380 Smartphone to one of the most important advances in science and technology. It was a groundbreaking device since it was as small and light as a normal mobile phone. In 2002 it was followed up by P800
Sony Ericsson P800
The Sony Ericsson P800 is a smartphone introduced in 2002 based upon UIQ version 2.0 from Sony Ericsson...
.
Also in 2000, the Nokia 9210 communicator was introduced, which was the first color screen model from the Nokia Communicator
Nokia Communicator
The Nokia Communicator is a brand name for a series of business-optimized smartphones marketed by Nokia Corporation, all of which appear as normal phones on the outside, and open in clamshell format to access a QWERTY keyboard and an LCD screen nearly the size of the device footprint.Nokia...
line. It was a true smartphone with an open operating system, the Symbian OS. It was followed by the 9500
Nokia 9500
Nokia 9500 Communicator is a smartphone produced by Nokia, introduced in 2004. It runs on the Symbian-based Series 90 platform, albeit disguised to look like the Series 80 platform....
Communicator, which also was Nokia's first cameraphone and first Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
phone. The 9300
Nokia 9300
The Nokia 9300 is a Nokia Series 80 Symbian Smartphone introduced in 2005. It is used as a normal though bulky mobile phone in closed mode, when it is flipped open it can be used like a very small notebook computer with a 640×200 screen...
Communicator was smaller, and the latest E90 Communicator includes GPS. The Nokia Communicator model is remarkable for also having been the most costly phone model sold by a major brand for almost the full life of the model series, costing easily 20% and sometimes 40% more than the next most expensive smartphone by any major producer.
In 2007 Nokia launched the Nokia N95
Nokia N95
The Nokia N95 is a smartphone produced by Nokia as part of their Nseries line of portable devices. It was released in 2007. The N95 runs Symbian OS v9.2, with a S60 3rd Edition user interface. The phone has a two-way sliding mechanism, which can be used to access either media playback buttons or...
which integrated a wide range of multimedia features into a consumer-oriented smartphone: GPS, a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus
Autofocus
An autofocus optical system uses a sensor, a control system and a motor to focus fully automatic or on a manually selected point or area. An electronic rangefinder has a display instead of the motor; the adjustment of the optical system has to be done manually until indication...
and LED flash, 3G and Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
connectivity and TV-out
TV-out
The term TV-out is commonly used to label the connector of equipment providing an analog video signal acceptable for a television AV input. TV-out is different from AV-out in that it only provides video, no audio....
. In the next few years these features would become standard on high-end smartphones. The Nokia 6110 Navigator
Nokia 6110 Navigator
The Nokia 6110 Navigator is a smartphone made by Nokia with HSDPA and integrated GPS and Bluetooth features. It has been available since June 2007. It is not to be confused with the 1998 Nokia 6110....
is a Symbian based dedicated GPS phone introduced in June 2007.
In 2010 Nokia released the Nokia N8
Nokia N8
The Nokia N8 is a Symbian^3 smartphone of the Nokia Nseries and Nokia's flagship device of 2010. It was released on 23 September 2010 at the Nokia Online Store before being released in markets around the world on 1 October 2010. The N8 features a 12 megapixel camera, a pentaband 3.5G radio and...
smartphone with a stylus
Stylus (computing)
In computing, a stylus is a small pen-shaped instrument that is used to input commands to a computer screen, mobile device or graphics tablet...
-free capacitive touchscreen, the first device to use the new Symbian^3 OS. It featured a 12 megapixel camera with Xenon flash capable of recording HD video
High-definition video
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
in 720p
720p
720p is the shorthand name for 1280x720, a category of High-definition television video modes having a resolution of 1080 or 720p and a progressive scan...
, described by Mobile Burn as the best camera in a phone, and satellite navigation that Mobile Choice described as the best on any phone. It also featured a front-facing VGA camera for videoconferencing.
Symbian was the number one smartphone platform by market share from 1996 until 2011 when it dropped to second place behind Google's Android OS. In February 2011, Nokia announced that it would replace Symbian with Windows Phone
Windows Phone
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market...
as the operating system on all of its future smartphones. This transition was completed in October 2011, when Nokia announced its first line of Windows Phone 7.5 smartphones, Lumia 710
Nokia Lumia 710
Nokia Lumia 710 is a Windows Phone smartphone. Its release is part of a change in company's direction which has resulted in a move around from the Symbian platform towards windows phone for premium devices...
and 800
Nokia Lumia 800
Nokia Lumia 800 is a Windows Phone OS powered smartphone, first unveiled by the company's CEO Stephen Elop, on 26 October 2011 at the Nokia World 2011 event...
.
Palm, Windows, and BlackBerry
In the late 1990s the vast majority of mobile phones had only basic phone features and many people who needed functionality beyond that also carried PDAPDA
A PDA is most commonly a Personal digital assistant, also known as a Personal data assistant, a mobile electronic device.PDA may also refer to:In science, medicine and technology:...
and/or pager
Pager
A pager is a simple personal telecommunications device for short messages. A one-way numeric pager can only receive a message consisting of a few digits, typically a phone number that the user is then requested to call...
type devices running early versions of operating systems such as Palm OS
Palm OS
Palm OS is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants in 1996. Palm OS is designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management...
, BlackBerry OS
BlackBerry OS
BlackBerry OS is a proprietary mobile operating system, developed by Research In Motion for its BlackBerry line of smartphone handheld devices...
or Windows CE
Windows CE
Microsoft Windows CE is an operating system developed by Microsoft for embedded systems. Windows CE is a distinct operating system and kernel, rather than a trimmed-down version of desktop Windows...
/Pocket PC
Pocket PC
A Pocket PC is also known by Microsoft as a 'Windows Mobile Classic device'. It is a hardware specification for a handheld-sized computer, personal digital assistant , that runs the Microsoft 'Windows Mobile Classic' operating system...
. Later versions of these systems started integrating cell phone capabilities with their PDA and messaging features and support of third-party applications. Today, high-end devices running these systems are often branded smartphones.
In early 2001, Palm, Inc.
Palm, Inc.
Palm, Inc., was a smartphone manufacturer headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, that was responsible for products such as the Pre and Pixi as well as the Treo and Centro smartphones. Previous product lines include the PalmPilot, Palm III, Palm V, Palm VII, Zire and Tungsten. While their older...
introduced the Kyocera 6035
Kyocera 6035
The Kyocera 6035 was one of the first smartphones to appear in the American market, released in February 2001.Its predecessor was built by QUALCOMM and called the PDQ 800 , then after Kyocera acquired Qualcomm's handset division , they built the QCP 6035...
, the first smartphone to be deployed in widespread use in the United States. This device combined the features of a personal digital assistant
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
(PDA) with a wireless phone that operated on the Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless
Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless, is one of the largest mobile network operators in the United States. The network has 107.7 million subscribers as of 2011, making it the largest wireless service provider in America....
network. For example, a user could select a name from the PDA contact list
Contact list
A contact list is a collection of screen names in an instant messaging or e-mail program or online game or mobile phone. It has various trademarked and proprietary names in different contexts....
, and the device would dial that contact's phone number. The device also supported limited web browsing. The device received a very positive reception from technology publications, but the product line never became widespread outside North America.
In 2001 Microsoft announced its Windows CE
Windows CE
Microsoft Windows CE is an operating system developed by Microsoft for embedded systems. Windows CE is a distinct operating system and kernel, rather than a trimmed-down version of desktop Windows...
Pocket PC OS would be offered as "Microsoft Windows Powered Smartphone 2002." Microsoft originally defined its Windows Smartphone
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
products as lacking a touchscreen and offering a lower screen resolution compared to its sibling Pocket PC devices.
In early 2002 Handspring
Handspring (company)
Handspring was a maker of Palm OS-based Visor- and Treo-branded personal digital assistants. It was run by Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan, the original inventors of the Palm Pilot and founders of Palm Computing, after they became unhappy with the direction in which 3Com was taking...
released the Palm OS
Palm OS
Palm OS is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants in 1996. Palm OS is designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management...
Treo smartphone, utilizing a full keyboard that combined wireless web browsing, email, calendar, and contact organizer with mobile third-party applications that could be downloaded or synced with a computer.
In 2002 RIM
Research In Motion
Research In Motion Limited or RIM is a Canadian multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada that designs, manufactures and markets wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market...
released their first BlackBerry
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
devices with integrated phone functionality and shifted the positioning of their products from 2-way pagers to email-capable mobile phones. The BlackBerry line evolved into the first smartphone optimized for wireless email use and had achieved a total customer base of about 32 million subscribers by December 2009.
In February 2011 Nokia announced a plan to make Microsoft Windows Phone
Windows Phone
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market...
its main operating system of choice for new Nokia smartphones.
iPhone
IPhone (original)
The iPhone—retroactively labeled the original iPhone, iPhone 2G, or iPhone EDGE—was the first generation of iPhone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. and was succeeded by the iPhone 3G. It was announced on January 9, 2007 after months of rumors and speculation. It was introduced in the United...
. It was initially costly, priced at $499 for the cheaper of two models on top of a two year contract. The first mobile phone to use a multi-touch
Multi-touch
In computing, multi-touch refers to a touch sensing surface's ability to recognize the presence of two or more points of contact with the surface...
interface, the iPhone was notable for its use of a large touchscreen for direct finger input as its main means of interaction, instead of having a stylus
Stylus (computing)
In computing, a stylus is a small pen-shaped instrument that is used to input commands to a computer screen, mobile device or graphics tablet...
, keyboard, and/or keypad, which were the typical input methods for other smartphones at the time. The iPhone featured a web browser that Ars Technica
Ars Technica
Ars Technica is a technology news and information website created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games. Ars Technica is known for its features, long articles that go...
then described as "far superior" to anything offered by that of its competitors. Initially lacking the capability to install native applications beyond the ones built-in to its OS, at WWDC in June 2007 Apple announced that the iPhone would support third-party "web 2.0 applications" running in its web browser that share the look and feel of the iPhone interface. As a result of the iPhone's initial inability to install third-party native applications, some reviewers did not consider the originally released device to accurately fit the definition of a smartphone "by conventional terms." A process called jailbreaking emerged quickly to provide unofficial third-party native applications. There are many different functions of the iPhone including a GPS unit, kitchen timer, radio, map book, calendar, notepad, and many other features that replace objects we have to carry around each day. This allows for more ease in everyday life. For example, a college student can now keep track of every task and have all the gadgets he or she needs to function in everyday life.
In July 2008, Apple introduced its second generation iPhone
IPhone 3G
The iPhone 3G is the second generation of iPhone designed and marketed by Apple Inc.. It was the successor to the original iPhone, and is succeeded by the iPhone 3GS. Introduced on June 9, 2008 at the WWDC 2008 at the Moscone Center, San Francisco...
with a lower list price starting at $199 and 3G support. Released with it, Apple also created the App Store, adding the capability for any iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
or iPod Touch
IPod Touch
The iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant, handheld game console, and Wi-Fi mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod Touch adds the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line...
to officially execute additional native applications (both free and paid) installed directly over a Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
or cellular network, without the more typical process at the time of requiring a PC for installation. Applications could additionally be browsed through and downloaded directly via the iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
software client on Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
and Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
PCs, rather than by searching through multiple sites across the Internet. Featuring over 500 applications at launch, Apple's App Store was immediately very popular, quickly growing to become a huge success and inspiring other smartphone makers to copy its model.
In June of 2010, Apple introduced iOS 4, which included APIs to allow third-party applications to multitask, and the iPhone 4
IPhone 4
The iPhone 4 is a touchscreen slate smartphone developed by Apple Inc. It is the fourth generation iPhone, and successor to the iPhone 3GS. It is particularly marketed for video calling , consumption of media such as books and periodicals, movies, music, and games, and for general web and e-mail...
, which included a 960×640 pixel display with a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch (ppi), a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash capable of recording HD video
High-definition video
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
in 720p
720p
720p is the shorthand name for 1280x720, a category of High-definition television video modes having a resolution of 1080 or 720p and a progressive scan...
at 30 frames per second
Frame rate
Frame rate is the frequency at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. The term applies equally well to computer graphics, video cameras, film cameras, and motion capture systems...
, a front-facing VGA camera for videoconferencing, a 1 GHz
Hertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....
processor, and other improvements. In early 2011 the iPhone 4 became available through Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless
Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless, is one of the largest mobile network operators in the United States. The network has 107.7 million subscribers as of 2011, making it the largest wireless service provider in America....
, ending AT&T's exclusivity of the handset in the U.S., and allowing the handset's 3G connection to be used as a wireless Wi-Fi hotspot for the first time, to up to 5 other devices. Software updates subsequently added this capability to other iPhones running iOS 4.
The iPhone 4S
IPhone 4S
The iPhone 4S is a touchscreen slate smartphone developed by Apple Inc. It is the fifth generation of the iPhone, a device that combines a widescreen iPod with a touchscreen, mobile phone, and internet communicator. It retains the exterior design of its predecessor, iPhone 4, but is host to a range...
was announced on October 4, 2011, improving upon the iPhone 4 with a dual core A5
Apple A5
The Apple A5 is a package on package system-on-a-chip designed by Apple and manufactured by Samsung to replace the Apple A4. The chip commercially debuted with the release of Apple's iPad 2 tablet, and also powers the iPhone 4S...
processor, an 8 megapixel camera capable of recording 1080p
1080p
1080p is the shorthand identification for a set of HDTV high-definition video modes that are characterized by 1080 horizontal lines of resolution and progressive scan, meaning the image is not interlaced as is the case with the 1080i display standard....
video at 30 frames per second, World phone capability allowing it to work on both GSM & CDMA networks, and the Siri
Siri (software)
Siri is an intelligent software assistant and knowledge navigator functioning as a personal assistant application for iOS. The application uses a natural language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of web services...
automated voice assistant. On October 10th, Apple announced that over one million iPhone 4Ss had been pre-ordered within the first 24 hours of it being on sale, beating the 600,000 device record set by the iPhone 4, despite the iPhone 4S failing to impress some critics at the announcement due to their expectations of an "iPhone 5" with rumored drastic changes compared to the iPhone 4 such as a new case design and larger screen. Along with the iPhone 4S Apple also released iOS 5 and iCloud
ICloud
iCloud is a cloud storage and cloud computing service from Apple Inc. announced on June 6, 2011 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference . The service allows users to store data such as music files on remote computer servers for download to multiple devices such as iPhones, iPods, iPads, and...
, untethering iOS devices from Macintosh or Windows PCs for device activation, backup, and synchronization, along with additional new and improved features.
There are about 35 percent of Americans that have some sort of smartphone. This shows that the market is spreading fast and there is also more capabilities for smartphones because of this spread.
Smartphones are also mainly valuable based on the operating system. For example, the iPhone runs on the iOS and other devices run different operating sytems which makes the functionality of these systems different.
Android
The Android operating system for smartphones was released in 2008. Android is an open-sourceOpen source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
platform backed by Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, along with major hardware and software developers (such as Intel, HTC, ARM
ARM Holdings
ARM Holdings plc is a British multinational semiconductor and software company headquartered in Cambridge. Its largest business is in processors, although it also designs, licenses and sells software development tools under the RealView and KEIL brands, systems and platforms, system-on-a-chip...
, Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
and Samsung
Samsung
The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
, to name a few), that form the Open Handset Alliance
Open Handset Alliance
The Open Handset Alliance is a consortium of 84 firms to develop open standards for mobile devices. Member firms include Google, HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, T-Mobile, Nvidia, and Wind River Systems.-History:The OHA was...
. The first phone to use Android was the HTC Dream
HTC Dream
The HTC Dream is an Internet-enabled smartphone with an operating system designed by Google and hardware designed by HTC...
, branded for distribution by T-Mobile
T-Mobile
T-Mobile International AG is a German-based holding company for Deutsche Telekom AG's various mobile communications subsidiaries outside Germany. Based in Bonn, Germany, its subsidiaries operate GSM and UMTS-based cellular networks in Europe, the United States, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...
as the G1. The software suite included on the phone consists of integration with Google's proprietary applications, such as Maps, Calendar, and Gmail, and a full HTML web browser. Android supports the execution of native applications and a preemptive multitasking capability (in the form of services). Third-party apps are available via the Android Market
Android Market
Android Market is an online software store developed by Google for Android OS devices. Its gateway is an application program called "Market", preinstalled on most Android devices, allows users to browse and download mobile apps published by third-party developers...
(released October 2008), including both free and paid apps.
In January 2010, Google launched the Nexus One
Nexus One
The Nexus One was Google's flagship smartphone manufactured by Taiwan's HTC Corporation. It became available on January 5, 2010 and uses the Android open source mobile operating system...
smartphone using its Android OS. Although Android has multi-touch abilities, Google initially removed that feature from the Nexus One, but it was added through a firmware update on February 2, 2010.
Concerning the Xperia Play smartphone, an analyst at CCS Insight said in March 2011 that "Console wars are moving to the mobile platform". In the same month, the HTC EVO 3D
HTC EVO 3D
The HTC Evo 3D is an Android 2.3 smartphone that allows for the creation and viewing of 3D content through the use of two 5 MP rear-facing cameras and a glasses-free 3D-capable 4.3" qHD touch screen. In the United States, the Evo 3D is available exclusively on the Sprint/Nextel network...
was announced by HTC Corporation, which can produce 3D effects with no need for special glasses (autostereoscopy
Autostereoscopy
Autostereoscopy is any method of displaying stereoscopic images without the use of special headgear or glasses on the part of the viewer. Because headgear is not required, it is also called "glasses-free 3D" or "glassesless 3D"...
). The HTC EVO 3D was officially released on June 24, 2011.
Others
The BadaBada
Bada is a South Korean K-pop singer. Her birth name is Choi Sung-hee. Bada studied Korean traditional vocal music at Dankook University. As the former lead vocal from the now defunct S.E.S., Bada has released three solo albums and two singles. Before the release of her third album, Bada started a...
operating system for smartphones was announced by Samsung on 10 November 2009. The first Bada-based phone was the Samsung Wave S8500, released on June 1, 2010, which sold one million handsets in its first 4 weeks on the market.
Samsung shipped 3.5 million phones running Bada in Q1 of 2011. This rose to 4.5 million phones in Q2 of 2011.
Patent licensing and litigation
Recently the number of lawsuits, trade complaints, and countersuits and complaints based on patentPatent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
s and designs in the markets for smartphones, and devices based on smartphone OSes
Mobile operating system
A mobile operating system, also known as a mobile OS, mobile software platform or a handheld operating system, is the operating system that controls a mobile device or information appliance—similar in principle to an operating system such as Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux distributions that controls a...
such as Android, has been increasing significantly.
Timeline (initial suits, countersuits, rulings, licence agreements, and other major events in bold):
- 2009, Oct 22: Nokia sues Apple over 10 patents.
- 2009, Dec 11: Apple countersues Nokia over 13 patents.
- 2009, Dec 29: Nokia files a second lawsuit and a U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC)United States International Trade CommissionThe United States International Trade Commission is an independent, bi-partisan, quasi-judicial, federal agency of the United States that provides trade expertise to both the legislative and executive branches. Further, the agency determines the impact of imports on U.S...
complaint against Apple over 7 more patents. - 2010, Jan 15: Apple files an ITC complaint against Nokia over 9 patents.
- 2010, Feb 19: Apple drops 4 patents from their countersuit against Nokia that are in their ITC complaint against Nokia.
- 2010, Feb 24: Apple countersues Nokia in Nokia's second lawsuit, over the 9 patents that are in Apple's ITC complaint.
- 2010, Mar 02: Apple sues HTC over 10 patents and files an ITC complaint against HTC over 10 other patents.
- 2010, Apr 26: 5 of the patents in Apple's ITC complaint against Nokia are merged into their ITC complaint against HTC.
- 2010, Apr 27: HTC signs an agreement with Microsoft to licence Microsoft patents in return for royalties on HTC's Android-based devices (rumored to be $5 per handset).
- 2010, May 07: Nokia files a third lawsuit against Apple over 5 more patents.
- 2010, May 12: HTC files an ITC complaint against Apple over 5 patents.
- 2010, May 28: S3 GraphicsS3 GraphicsS3 Graphics, Ltd is an American company specializing in graphics chipsets. Although they do not have the large market share that they once had, they still produce graphics accelerators for home computers under the "S3 Chrome" brand name.-History:...
files an ITC complaint against Apple over 4 patents used in the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Apple computers. - 2010, Jun 28: Apple countersues Nokia in Nokia's third lawsuit, over 7 more patents.
- 2010, Jul 06: HTC countersues Apple over 3 patents.
- 2010, Jul 21: Nokia drops 1 patent from their ITC complaint against Apple.
- 2010, Aug 12: Oracle sues Google over 7 patents relating to the use of Java in Android.
- 2010, Sep 17: Nokia adds 2 more patents to their third lawsuit against Apple.
- 2010, Sep 27: Apple sues Nokia in the UK and Germany over 9 patents.
- 2010, Sep 30: Nokia countersues Apple in Germany over 4 patents.
- 2010, Oct 01: Microsoft files an ITC complaint and a lawsuit against Motorola over 9 patents.
- 2010, Oct 06: Motorola sues Apple over 18 patents, and files an ITC complaint against Apple over 6 of them.
- 2010, Oct 08: Motorola files a request for declaratory judgement that they do not infringe 12 Apple patents, and that those patents be declared invalid.
- 2010, Oct 12: Nokia adds 3 more patents to their countersuit against Apple in Germany.
- 2010, Oct 25: Nokia sues Apple in another German court over 5 patents.
- 2010, Oct 28: Apple drops 4 patents from their ITC complaint against HTC and/or Nokia.
- 2010, Oct 29: Apple sues Motorola over 6 patents, and files an ITC complaint against Motorola over 3 of them.
- 2010, Nov 05: HTC drops 1 patent from their ITC complaint against Apple.
- 2010, Nov 09: Microsoft alleges Motorola has failed to comply with RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory) licensing obligations.
- 2010, Nov 10: Motorola sues Microsoft over 7 patents in one court and 9 patents in another.
- 2010, Nov 18: Apple makes counterclaims against Motorola over 6 patents.
- 2010, Nov 22: Motorola files an ITC complaint against Microsoft over 5 patents.
- 2010, Dec 01: Apple adds the 12 patents to their suit against Motorola that Motorola previously requested declaratory judgement that they do not infringe.
- 2010, Dec 03: Nokia countersues Apple in the UK over 4 patents, and files a new suit against Apple in the Netherlands over 2 patents.
- 2010, Dec 03: Apple countersues Nokia in Nokia's second German lawsuit, over 1 patent and 2 utility models.
- 2010, Dec 06: Nokia drops 1 patent from their ITC complaint against Apple.
- 2010, Dec 15 and 22: Nokia and Apple take their first German suit/countersuit to the Federal Patent Court of Germany.
- 2010, Dec 23: Motorola files a third lawsuit against Microsoft over 3 patents.
- 2010, Dec 23: Microsoft countersues Motorola over 7 patents.
- 2011, Jan 06: The third Nokia/Apple lawsuit/countersuit is transferred to the location of the first and second ones.
- 2011, Jan 18: Apple seeks to invalidate one Nokia patent in the UK, which it was not yet being sued over.
- 2011, Jan 18: Motorola drops 1 patent from their lawsuits against Microsoft.
- 2011, Jan 19: Microsoft counterclaims against Motorola, asserting 5 patents.
- 2011, Jan 25: Microsoft counterclaims against Motorola, asserting 2 patents.
- 2011, Feb 14: Motorola adds 2 patents to their lawsuits against Microsoft.
- 2011, Feb 22: Apple drops 1 more patent from their ITC complaint against HTC and Nokia.
- 2011, Mar 21: Microsoft sues Barnes & Noble over the Android operating system in the Nook ebook reader.
- 2011, Mar 25: ITC finds that Apple does not infringe on 5 Nokia patents.
- 2011, Mar 29: Nokia files an ITC complaint against Apple over 7 more patents, and a fourth lawsuit over 6 of those.
- 2011, Apr 15: Apple sues Samsung for patent and trademark infringement (7 utility patents, 3 design patents, 3 registered trade dresses, 6 trademarked icons) with its Galaxy line of mobile products, including the Galaxy S smartphone and the Galaxy Tab tablet.
- 2011, Apr 22: Samsung sues Apple in South Korea (5 patents), Japan (2 patents), and Germany (3 patents).
- 2011, Apr 28: Samsung countersues Apple over 10 patents.
- 2011, Apr 29: Apple drops 1 more patent from their ITC complaint against HTC.
- 2011, May 18: Samsung ordered to provide Apple samples of the announced Galaxy S2, Infuse 4G, and Infuse 4G LTE smartphones, as well as the Galaxy Tab 8.9 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets as part of Apple's lawsuit against the company.
- 2011, May 18: Samsung files a court motion for Apple to provide samples of the unannounced iPhone 5 and iPad 3 prototypes.
- 2011, Jun 14: Nokia and Apple settle their litigation with Apple agreeing to pay Nokia an undisclosed one-time payment as well as continuing royalties.
- 2011, Jun 16: Apple amends its lawsuit against Samsung, dropping 2 utility patents and 1 design patent, and adding 3 new utility patents plus 4 trade dress applications, now covering the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 series is an Android-based tablet computer produced by Samsung, introduced on 13 February 2011 at its Samsung Unpacked event in Barcelona....
- 2011, Jun 22: Apple countersues Samsung in South Korea over an unknown number of patents.
- 2011, Jun 22: Samsung's motion to be provided samples of Apple's unannounced iPhone 5 and iPad 3 prototypes is denied.
- 2011, Jun 27: General DynamicsGeneral DynamicsGeneral Dynamics Corporation is a U.S. defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2008 it is the fifth largest defense contractor in the world. Its headquarters are in West Falls Church , unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Falls Church area.The company has...
Itronix signs an agreement with Microsoft to licence Microsoft patents in return for royalties on General Dynamics Itronix's Android-based devices. - 2011, Jun 28: Samsung files an ITC complaint and a lawsuit against Apple over 5 patents.
- 2011, Jun 29: Samsung sues Apple in London, UK over an unknown number of patents, and a Samsung lawsuit against Apple in Italy becomes known (details unknown).
- 2011, Jun 29: Velocity MicroVelocity MicroVelocity Micro is a privately held computer manufacturer located in Richmond, VA , specializing in custom high-end computers. Its high-performance product line includes gaming systems, notebooks, netbooks, home servers, digital media creation workstations, home and home office PCs, home...
signs an agreement with Microsoft to licence Microsoft patents in return for royalties on Velocity Micro's Android-based devices. - 2011, Jun 30: Samsung converts its countersuit against Apple into counterclaims against Apple's suit, dropping 2 patents but adding 4 more.
- 2011, Jun 30: A consortium of companies made up of Apple, EMCEMCEMC may refer to:In organizations:* EMC Corporation, an information management company* IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society, a worldwide professional engineering society* Eastern Media Centre, a television channel in the UK...
, EricssonEricssonEricsson , one of Sweden's largest companies, is a provider of telecommunication and data communication systems, and related services, covering a range of technologies, including especially mobile networks...
, Microsoft, Research In Motion and SonySony, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
win against Google in an auction of over 6,000 NortelNortelNortel Networks Corporation, formerly known as Northern Telecom Limited and sometimes known simply as Nortel, was a multinational telecommunications equipment manufacturer headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada...
mobile-related telecommunications patents for $4.5 billion USD. - 2011, Jun 30: OnkyoOnkyois a Japanese consumer electronics manufacturer, specializing in home cinema and audio equipment including receivers and surround sound speakers. The word Onkyo translates as "sound harmony".The company started under the name of Osaka Denki Onkyo K.K in 1946...
signs an agreement with Microsoft to licence Microsoft patents in return for royalties on Onkyo's Android-based devices. - 2011, Jul 01: Apple files for preliminary injunction against 4 Samsung products: Infuse 4G, Galaxy S 4G, Droid Charge, and Galaxy Tab 10.1 based on 3 design patents and 1 utility patent.
- 2011, Jul 01: ITC rules that Apple infringes on 2 patents held by S3 Graphics, while not infringing on 2 others.
- 2011, Jul 05: Apple files an ITC complaint against Samsung over 6 smartphones and 2 tablets infringing 5 utility patents and 2 design patents.
- 2011, Jul 05: WistronWistron CorporationWistron Corporation is a major original design manufacturer in Taiwan. It was the manufacturing arm of Acer Inc., which was spun off in 2000....
signs an agreement with Microsoft to licence Microsoft patents in return for royalties on Wistron's Android-based devices. - 2011, Jul 06: HTC agrees to purchase S3 Graphics in order to secure 235 patents for use in its defense against Apple.
- 2011, Jul 06: Microsoft seeks $15 licensing fees from Samsung for a range of claimed patent violations on every Android device,.
- 2011, Jul 11: Apple files a second ITC complaint against HTC over 5 more patents, and sues HTC over 4 patents from this second ITC complaint that they weren't already suing HTC over.
- 2011, Jul 11-12: Google acquires 1,029 Patents from IBM for an undisclosed amount.
- 2011, Jul 15: ITC finds HTC infringes on 2 Apple patents.
- 2011, Jul 29: HTC sues Apple in London, UK over an unknown number of patents.
- 2011, Aug 02: Apple sues Samsung in Australia over 10 patents, resulting in Samsung delaying the launch and halting advertising of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Australia to an indefinite date.
- 2011, Aug 09: A German court issues a preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Apple's lawsuit against Samsung which causes its sale to be banned in most of Europe.
- 2011, Aug 15: Google announces its intention to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion USD. Eighteen of Motorola's patents could potentially be used for defense or countersuits against Apple and Microsoft, and may influence the smartphone war. These patents may change the balance of power, and force the various players to settle their lawsuits.
- 2011, Aug 16: The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales ban in Europe is lifted outside of Germany.
- 2011, Aug 17: Google acquires 1,023 more patents from IBM for an undisclosed amount (not revealed until 13 Sep 2011).
- 2011, Aug 23: Microsoft files a complaint with the ITC requesting a ban on several key Motorola smartphones and devices in the USA based on infringements of 7 patents.
- 2011, Aug 24: A court in the Netherlands rules that Samsung will be banned from selling the Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Galaxy Ace in a number of European countries due to Apple's patent infringement claims.
- 2011, Sep 02: Apple granted preliminary injunction against Samsung preventing display of the prototype Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 tablet at the IFA trade show in Berlin.
- 2011, Sep 02: Apple court filings assert that Andy Rubin got inspiration for Android framework while working at Apple prior to working at General Magic and Danger, Inc.
- 2011, Sep 07: HTC countersues Apple using nine patents from Google. The move is seen as a possible first step for Google giving direct support in lawsuits involving manufacturers using Android.
- 2011, Sep 08: Acer and ViewSonicViewSonicViewSonic Corporation is a manufacturer and provider of visual technology, specifically CRT monitors, liquid crystal displays, projectors, plasma displays, HDTV technology, and mobile products, including Mini and All-in-One PCs and wireless monitors....
sign patent license agreements with Microsoft regarding their use of Android on smartphones and tablets. - 2011, Sep 09: Apple's preliminary injunction against sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany is upheld.
- 2011, Sep 12: Samsung announces a lawsuit against Apple in France that had been filed in July over 3 patents.
- 2011, Sep 12: Apple countersues Samsung in the UK over an unknown number of patents.
- 2011, Sep 13: Google's August 17 acquisition of 1,023 patents from IBM is revealed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
- 2011, Sep 17: Samsung countersues Apple in Australia over 7 patents.
- 2011, Sep 28: Samsung signs an agreement with Microsoft to licence Microsoft patents in return for royalties on Samsung's Android-based devices.
- 2011, Oct 12: An Australian court issues a preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Apple's lawsuit against Samsung which prevents its sale in Australia leading up to the 2011 holiday season.
- 2011, Oct 13: Quanta signs an agreement with Microsoft to licence Microsoft patents in return for royalties on Quanta's Android and Chrome-based devices.
- 2011, Oct 13: Judge in Apple's U.S. lawsuit against Samsung agrees that Samsung's tablets infringe on Apple's patents, but also that the validity of some of the patents might be questionable.
Screen
Screens on smartphones vary largely in both display size and display resolutionDisplay resolution
The display resolution of a digital television or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is controlled by all different factors in cathode ray tube , flat panel or projection...
. The most common screen sizes range from 2 inches to over 4 inches (measured diagonally). Some 5 inch screen devices exist that run on mobile OSes
Mobile operating system
A mobile operating system, also known as a mobile OS, mobile software platform or a handheld operating system, is the operating system that controls a mobile device or information appliance—similar in principle to an operating system such as Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux distributions that controls a...
and have the ability to make phone calls, such as the discontinued Dell Streak
Dell Streak
Dell Streak 5 is a smartphone/tablet PC hybrid from Dell that uses the Android operating system. It comes with a capacitive touchscreen and two cameras, a 5MP one with dual-LED flash on the back and a VGA-resolution one on the front for video calling; both are capable of video.The development...
and the current Samsung Galaxy Note
Samsung Galaxy Note
The Samsung Galaxy Note is an Android smartphone and tablet computer that was introduced in 2011. It occupies a niche in Samsung's Galaxy range, bridging the gap between other Galaxy-series smartphones such as the Galaxy S II and tablets such as the Galaxy Tab....
. Ergonomics
Ergonomics
Ergonomics is the study of designing equipment and devices that fit the human body, its movements, and its cognitive abilities.The International Ergonomics Association defines ergonomics as follows:...
arguments have been made that increasing screen sizes start to negatively impact usability.
Common resolutions for smartphone screens vary from 240×320 to 720×1280, with many flagship Android phones at 480×800 or 540×960, the iPhone 4
IPhone 4
The iPhone 4 is a touchscreen slate smartphone developed by Apple Inc. It is the fourth generation iPhone, and successor to the iPhone 3GS. It is particularly marketed for video calling , consumption of media such as books and periodicals, movies, music, and games, and for general web and e-mail...
/4S
IPhone 4S
The iPhone 4S is a touchscreen slate smartphone developed by Apple Inc. It is the fifth generation of the iPhone, a device that combines a widescreen iPod with a touchscreen, mobile phone, and internet communicator. It retains the exterior design of its predecessor, iPhone 4, but is host to a range...
at 640×960 and Galaxy Nexus
Galaxy Nexus
The Galaxy Nexus is a touchscreen slate Android smartphone developed by a partnership between Samsung and Google. The phone and operating system were developed collaboratively by engineers from both companies. It is the third generation successor to Google’s previous flagship phones, the Nexus One...
and HTC Rezound
HTC Rezound
The HTC Rezound is a smartphone by HTC and sold through Verizon. Along with the Galaxy Nexus and Droid RAZR, it is expected to be a major competitor to the iPhone 4S. It was released on November 14, 2011.- References :...
at 720×1280.
Application stores
The introduction of Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch in July 2008 popularized manufacturer-hosted online distribution for third-party applications focused on a single platform. Prior to this, smartphone application distribution was largely dependent on third-party sources providing applications for multiple platforms, such as GetJarGetJar
GetJar is an independent mobile phone application store founded in Lithuania in 2004, with offices in Vilnius, Lithuania and San Mateo, California....
, Handango
Handango
Handango is an online store that sells mobile software. Handango offers worldwide distribution, support, and e-commerce services to its partners. Company's customers include consumers, software developers, mobile operators, and original equipment manufacturers...
, Handmark
Handmark
Handmark is a developer and distributor of mobile content. The company was created in 2000 by the merger of Mobile Generation Software with Palmspring Software....
, PocketGear, and others.
The iPhone's platform is officially restricted to installing apps only through Apple's App Store, though via jailbreaking it can install apps from other sources. Other platforms may allow application distribution through additional sources outside of their manufacturer-provided app stores, such as third-party app stores and downloads from individual websites.
Following the success of Apple's App Store other smartphone manufacturers quickly launched application stores of their own. Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
launched the Android Market
Android Market
Android Market is an online software store developed by Google for Android OS devices. Its gateway is an application program called "Market", preinstalled on most Android devices, allows users to browse and download mobile apps published by third-party developers...
in October 2008. RIM
Research In Motion
Research In Motion Limited or RIM is a Canadian multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada that designs, manufactures and markets wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market...
launched its app store, BlackBerry App World
BlackBerry App World
BlackBerry App World is an application distribution service and application by Research In Motion for a majority of BlackBerry devices. The service provides BlackBerry users with an environment to browse, download, and update third-party applications. The service went live on April 1, 2009...
, in April 2009. Nokia launched its Ovi Store in May 2009. Palm launched its Palm App Catalog
Palm App Catalog
The Palm App Catalog is an online marketplace for applications for Palm mobile devices running webOS but not Palm OS.The App Catalog is similar to Apple's App Store for iOS, Google's Android Market for Android, and Nokia's Ovi Store for Nokia devices...
for webOS in June 2009. Microsoft launched an application store for Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
called Windows Marketplace for Mobile
Windows Marketplace for Mobile
Windows Marketplace for Mobile is a service by Microsoft for its Windows Mobile platform that allows users to browse and download applications that have been developed by third parties. The service was available for use directly on Windows Mobile 6.x devices and on personal computers...
in October 2009, and then a separate Windows Phone Marketplace
Windows Phone Marketplace
Windows Phone Marketplace is a service by Microsoft for its Windows Phone 7 platform that allows users to browse and download applications that have been developed by third-parties...
for Windows Phone
Windows Phone
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market...
in October 2010. Samsung launched Samsung Apps
Samsung Apps
Samsung Apps, is an application store for Samsung mobile & TV users. The store first opened in June 2010, after the company released its Samsung Wave smartphone...
for its bada
Bada
Bada is a South Korean K-pop singer. Her birth name is Choi Sung-hee. Bada studied Korean traditional vocal music at Dankook University. As the former lead vocal from the now defunct S.E.S., Bada has released three solo albums and two singles. Before the release of her third album, Bada started a...
based phones in June 2010. Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
launched its Amazon Appstore
Amazon Appstore
The Amazon Appstore is a mobile application store for the Google Android operating system and was opened on March 22, 2011. It was launched with around 3,800 applications both free or paid. Developers are paid either 70% of the sale price or 20% of the developer's list price, whichever one is...
for the Google Android operating system in March 2011.
| Store | 2009 (Millions U.S.) | 2010 (Millions U.S.) |
|---|---|---|
| Apple App Store | $769 | $1782 |
| Blackberry App World | $36 | $165 |
| Nokia Ovi Store | $13 | $105 |
| Google Android Market | $11 | $102 |
| Total | $828 | $2155 |
The relatively high revenue of U.S. $1782 million in 2010 for Apple's App Store compared to competitor's stores can be attributed to a combination of factors. In large part this can be attributed to having the largest number of apps available and the highest download volume of any mobile app store in 2010, but besides that only 28% of the apps in Apple's App Store were free apps, compared to over 57% in the Android Market. Similarly, Nokia's Ovi Store and the BlackBerry App World both had only 26% of their apps available for free, but both generated higher revenues than the Android Market despite having much lower download volumes.
Malicious software attacks
As smartphone adoption goes up they have increasingly become subject to attacks by malicious softwareMalware
Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming that is designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, or gain unauthorized access to system resources, or that otherwise exhibits abusive behavior...
(malware).
Frequently this malware is distributed through application stores that have minimal or no review process for their content. In some cases malware has been hidden in pirated
Copyright infringement of software
Copyright infringement of software=The copyright infringement of software refers to several practices which involve the unauthorized copying of computer software. Copyright infringement of this kind varies globally...
versions of legitimate apps, which are then distributed through 3rd party app stores. Malware risk also comes from what's known as an "update attack," where a legitimate application is later changed to include a malware component, which users then install when they are notified that the app has been updated. Additionally, the ability to acquire software directly from links on the web results in a distribution vector called "malvertizing," where users are directed to click on links, such as on ads that look legitimate, which then open in the device's web browser and cause malware to be downloaded and installed automatically.
Typical smartphone malware leverages platform vulnerabilities that allow it to gain root access
Rootkit
A rootkit is software that enables continued privileged access to a computer while actively hiding its presence from administrators by subverting standard operating system functionality or other applications...
on the device in the background. Using this access the malware installs additional software to target communications, location, or other personal identifying information
Spyware
Spyware is a type of malware that can be installed on computers, and which collects small pieces of information about users without their knowledge. The presence of spyware is typically hidden from the user, and can be difficult to detect. Typically, spyware is secretly installed on the user's...
. A common form of malware on mobile phones is the SMS trojan
Trojan horse (computing)
A Trojan horse, or Trojan, is software that appears to perform a desirable function for the user prior to run or install, but steals information or harms the system. The term is derived from the Trojan Horse story in Greek mythology.-Malware:A destructive program that masquerades as a benign...
, which sends premium SMS messages, possibly while unknowingly running in the background of a legitimate application. These premium SMS messages run up charges on the owners phone bill which cannot be recovered.
In August 2010, Kaspersky Lab reported detection of the first malicious program for smartphones running on Google's Android operating system, named Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer.a, an SMS trojan which had already infected a number of devices using that OS. Over the spring of 2011 Android malware increased 76%, according to McAfee
McAfee
McAfee, Inc. is a computer security company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA. It markets software and services to home users, businesses and the public sector. On August 19, 2010, electronics company Intel agreed to purchase McAfee for $7.68 billion...
. A report from Juniper Global Threat Center notes that malware on the Android platform increased 400% from 2009 to the summer of 2010, and then saw a 472% increase between July and November 2011. The Juniper report indicates that 55% of Android malware acts as spyware
Spyware
Spyware is a type of malware that can be installed on computers, and which collects small pieces of information about users without their knowledge. The presence of spyware is typically hidden from the user, and can be difficult to detect. Typically, spyware is secretly installed on the user's...
, and 44% are SMS trojans.
While there have been and continue to be potential security flaws in iOS, as of at least August 2011 there were no known malware or spyware apps in Apple's App Store, according to security firm Lookout. There are however commercial spyware applications available, outside the App Store, for jailbroken iOS devices. In June 2011 Symantec's
Symantec
Symantec Corporation is the largest maker of security software for computers. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock market index.-History:...
23-page report "A Window Into Mobile Device Security" characterized (non-jailbroken) devices running iOS as having "full protection" against malware attacks.
Symbian and older versions Windows Mobile have had to contend with a degree of malware in the past, but as legacy systems it is believed that the people who previously targeted them have shifted their focus to Android. There were also a few Palm OS viruses
Palm OS Viruses
While some viruses do exist for Palm OS based devices, very few have ever been designed. Typically, mobile devices are difficult for virus writers to target, since their simplicity provides fewer security holes to target compared to a desktop.-Viruses for Palm OS:...
.
The only mobile platform other than Apple's iOS without reports of malware so far is HP's (formerly Palm's) webOS, but this may be explained by its relatively low adoption rate.
The best way to reduce a device's vulnerability
Vulnerability (computing)
In computer security, a vulnerability is a weakness which allows an attacker to reduce a system's information assurance.Vulnerability is the intersection of three elements: a system susceptibility or flaw, attacker access to the flaw, and attacker capability to exploit the flaw...
to malware attacks is to install the most recent versions of operating systems which include security patches
Patch (computing)
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
. This can be complicated by long delays in software updates for many devices which have had their software modified with custom "skins," services, or promotional on-deck apps by their manufacturer or mobile carrier. In some cases a device may no longer be receiving updates from its manufacturer or carrier, leaving it vulnerable to exploits that have been patched in an OS version that's more recent than the device's last supported one.
Smartphone market share
For several years, demand for advanced mobile devices boasting powerful processorsMicroprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
and graphics processing unit
Graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...
s, abundant storage
Non-volatile memory
Non-volatile memory, nonvolatile memory, NVM or non-volatile storage, in the most basic sense, is computer memory that can retain the stored information even when not powered. Examples of non-volatile memory include read-only memory, flash memory, ferroelectric RAM, most types of magnetic computer...
(flash memory
Flash memory
Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data...
) for applications and media files, high-resolution screens with multi-touch
Multi-touch
In computing, multi-touch refers to a touch sensing surface's ability to recognize the presence of two or more points of contact with the surface...
capability, and open operating systems has outpaced the rest of the mobile phone market.
According to an early 2010 study by ComScore, over 45.5 million people in the United States owned smartphones out of 234 million total subscribers. Despite the large increase in smartphone sales in the last few years, smartphone shipments only made up 20% of total handset shipments as of the first half of 2010.
According to Gartner in their report dated November 2010, total smartphone sales doubled in one year and now smartphones represent 19.3 percent of total mobile phone sales. Smartphone sales increased in 2010 by 72.1 percent from the prior year, whereas sales for all mobile phones only increased by 31.8 percent.
According to an Olswang report in early 2011, the rate of smartphone adoption is accelerating: as of March 2011 22% of UK consumers had a smartphone, with this percentage rising to 31% amongst 24- to 35-year-olds.
In March 2011, Berg Insight reported data that showed global smartphone shipments increased 74% from 2009 to 2010.
A survey of mobile users in the United States by Nielsen in Q3, 2011 reports that smartphone ownership has reached 43% of all U.S. mobile subscribers, with the vast majority of users under the age of 44 owning one. In the 25-34 age range smartphone ownership is reported to be at 62%. NPD Group reports that the share of handset sales that were smartphones in Q3, 2011 reached 59% for consumers 18 and over in the U.S.
In profit share worldwide smartphones now far exceed the share of non-smartphones. According to a November 2011 research note from Canaccord Genuity, Apple Inc., which doesn't make phones that aren't smartphones, holds 52% of the total mobile industry's operating profits, while only holding 4.2% of the global handset market. HTC and RIM similarly only make smartphones and their wordwide profit shares are at 9% and 7%, respectively. Samsung, in second place after Apple at 29%, makes both smartphones and feature phones and doesn't report a breakdown separating their profits between the two kinds of devices, but it can be intuited that a significant portion of that profit comes from their flagship smartphone devices.
Operating system market shares
2010 saw the rapid rise of the Google Android operating system from 4 percent of new deployments in 2009 to 33 percent at the beginning of 2011 making it share the top position with the since long dominating Symbian OS. The smaller rivals include US popular Blackberry OSBlackBerry OS
BlackBerry OS is a proprietary mobile operating system, developed by Research In Motion for its BlackBerry line of smartphone handheld devices...
, iOS, Samsung's recently introduced bada
Bada (operating system)
Bada is an operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. It is developed by the Samsung Electronics. Its name is derived from " ", meaning "ocean" or "sea" in Korean...
, HP's heir of Palm
Palm
Palm may refer to :* Palm, the central region of the front of the hand, see Hand#Human anatomy or metacarpus.-People:* August Palm , Swedish socialist activist* Conny Palm, , Swedish electrical engineer and statistician...
webOS and the Microsoft Windows Phone
Windows Phone
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market...
OS seeing a possible revival through an alliance with Nokia
Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...
.
Over late 2009 and 2010 Android's smartphone operating system market share increased very rapidly. In the fourth quarter of 2010, Android surpassed Symbian as the most common operating system in smartphones, with 32.9 million units sold versus 31.0 million. Android-equipped phones sold seven times more than in the prior year. According to Canalys
Canalys
Canalys is an independent technology focused analyst house. It offers its clients market intelligence, analysis and strategic consultancy about trends and activity in a range of high-tech markets, and with route-to-market strategies...
, Google's Android operating system, which is offered to phone makers for free, has raced to the top past operating systems by Nokia, Apple, RIM, and Microsoft. In Q1 2011 Google's Android market share was 35 percent, increasing significantly from 10 percent the previous year, while Nokia's Symbian dropped to 26 percent from 46 percent over the same time period. In the UK, which currently has one of the highest penetrations of smartphones in the World, Android achieved 50% market share in October 2011
Enterprise share by operating system
In a worldwide study of 2,300 workers at 1,100 businesses by iPassIPass
iPass, a commercial company, unifies the management of remote and mobile devices and connectivity. It provides Internet services to business users working remotely by integrating Internet connectivity with management of VPN and other third-party security applications...
it was reported that Apple's iPhones have displaced RIM's BlackBerry devices in enterprise adoption in 2011. The share for iPhones increased to 45% from 31.1% in 2010, while the Blackberry share dropped to 32.2% from 34.5% in the previous year. Android phones also increased in share, to 21.3% from 11.3% in 2010, exceeding Symbian for the first time, which dropped to 7.4% from 12.4%. Windows Mobile and all other smartphone OSes also dropped in 2011 compared to 2010.
Customer loyalty by operating system
According to a survey of more than 6,000 smartphone users through 2010 by mobile analytics firm Zokem, the top five loyalty scores for smartphone platforms are the iPhone at 73%, followed by Google's Android at 40%, Samsung's Bada at 33%, RIM's BlackBerry at 30%, and Symbian S60 at 23%. Windows Mobile and Palm follow at 10% each. Customer loyalty gauges the likelihood that the user of a smartphone platform whose contract has expired or who has broken or lost their phone will repurchase another one that uses that same platform.Manufacturer market shares
From the launch of their Communicator model in 1996 until 2011 NokiaNokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...
was dominant in the smartphone market, but as of Q2 2011 Apple, Inc. has become the worldwide number one single manufacturer of smartphones by revenue, profit, and volume, followed by Samsung
Samsung
The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
, with Nokia now in third place and the remaining 48.9% of vendor market share split amongst all other manufacturers. Based on a report by Strategy Analytics, Samsung overtook Apple in smartphone shipments with an estimated 27.8 million units shipped in Q3 2011 (Samsung does not publicly disclose the numbers of their smartphone shipments and sales). Strategy Analytics compared this to the 17.1 million smartphones Apple announced they had sold (not just shipped) in Q3 2011. It is believed that one significant reason for the drop in sales of Apple's smartphones from 18.5 million in Q2 to 17.1 million in Q3 was that consumers and operators were awaiting the launch of a new iPhone model
IPhone 4
The iPhone 4 is a touchscreen slate smartphone developed by Apple Inc. It is the fourth generation iPhone, and successor to the iPhone 3GS. It is particularly marketed for video calling , consumption of media such as books and periodicals, movies, music, and games, and for general web and e-mail...
in the fourth quarter. A reason for Samsung's growth is believed to be because of their diversity of models, with both high and low-end smartphones, while Apple had been targeting only the high-end market. Along with the release of the iPhone 4S
IPhone 4S
The iPhone 4S is a touchscreen slate smartphone developed by Apple Inc. It is the fifth generation of the iPhone, a device that combines a widescreen iPod with a touchscreen, mobile phone, and internet communicator. It retains the exterior design of its predecessor, iPhone 4, but is host to a range...
, however, Apple began offering the iPhone 3GS
IPhone 3GS
-Camera:The iPhone 3GS features an improved 3 megapixel camera manufactured by OmniVision. In addition to the higher megapixel count, it also features auto-focus, auto white balance and auto macro and is capable of capturing VGA video...
for free with contract on many carriers, providing them with a low-end offering to better compete in that space.
Market share among smartphone manufacturers does not resemble smartphone OS market share numbers due to the differences between the two major smartphone OS sales models: single manufacturer and licensed. Apple's iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
, Nokia's Symbian
Symbian
Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...
, and RIM's BlackBerry
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
smartphones are currently only available from single manufacturers. Google's
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
Android OS and Microsoft's
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
mobile OSes are platforms that are licensed and used by a variety of manufacturers. As a result, manufacturers of smartphones using licensed OSes all split the total market share of that OS between them, while the total share for a single-manufacturer OS is held by that manufacturer alone.
Note that Nokia's Symbian OS was previously available from several manufacturers under a licensed model, then later predominantly only by Nokia itself more like a single manufacturer model.
Samsung smartphones use a diverse portfolio of operating systems, including their own Bada
Bada
Bada is a South Korean K-pop singer. Her birth name is Choi Sung-hee. Bada studied Korean traditional vocal music at Dankook University. As the former lead vocal from the now defunct S.E.S., Bada has released three solo albums and two singles. Before the release of her third album, Bada started a...
operating system along with Android and Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
.
Apple surpassed Nokia worldwide by revenue and profit for the first time in Q2 2011, with Apple's profit share of the total worldwide smartphone market increasing to 66.3% while Nokia reported a loss. Apple's iPhone sales also overtook Nokia's Symbian smartphone volume shipments by 20.3 million and 16.7 million respectively, although Nokia had already announced plans to phase Symbian out.
Between Q2 2010 and Q2 2011 Nokia's worldwide Symbian smartphone sales dropped significantly from 38.1 percent to 15.2 percent, while Samsung
Samsung
The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
smartphone sales increased significantly worldwide from 5.0 percent to 17.5 percent.
Nokia still remains the number one company in the worldwide mobile phone market with sales for Q2 2011 of 88.5 million when including feature phone platforms such as S40, compared with 16.7 million smartphones running Symbian.
According to Nielsen
Nielsen Media Research
Nielsen Media Research is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre films and newspapers...
in July 2011, in the United States Apple is the top smartphone manufacturer at 28% of the market, with RIM at 20%. Google Android has 39% of the U.S. market as a whole, but this is split between HTC at 14%, Motorola at 11%, Samsung at 8%, and other remaining manufacturers at 6%. HTC's total share of the U.S. smartphone market actually ties RIM at 20%, since sales of their smartphones running Microsoft's mobile operating systems account for 6% of the total market. Samsung similarly gains 2% of overall U.S. market share due to their sales of Microsoft OS-based smartphones. In contrast to the worldwide market, Nokia's share of U.S. smartphone sales is very small, at only 2%. Nielsen's Q3, 2011 survey of mobile users maintains Apple as the top U.S. smartphone maker with a continued 28% of the market, with RIM dropping from 20% to 18%. While Google Android increased in total operating system share from 39% to 43% of the U.S. market, it remains fragmented amongst many different manufacturers. Over the same quarter Microsoft managed a modest gain from 6% to 7% total U.S. smartphone OS share.
Checks with U.S. carriers by technology analyst firm Canaccord Genuity in April and August 2011 have found that Apple's iPhone 4 has consistently been the top selling device at AT&T and Verizon. In addition, the second most popular spot at AT&T has been maintained by the iPhone 3GS, which was originally released in 2009 (and has never been sold on Verizon). In August 2011 the most popular smartphones on Sprint and T-Mobile in the U.S. were the HTC EVO 3D 4G and HTC Sensation, respectively. The other second most popular smartphones were the Samsung Charge 4G on Verizon, the Motorola Photon 4G on Sprint, and the HTC myTouch 4G Slide on T-Mobile. NPD Group reported that in Q3, 2011 the overall top 5 smartphones by sales across all carriers in the U.S. were, in order: the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, HTC EVO 4G, Motorola Droid 3, and Samsung Intensity II.
Currently the vast majority of smartphones are manufactured in China, Taiwan and Mexico, for companies based in the U.S. (Apple, HP
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
, Motorola), South Korea (LG
LG
LG may refer to:*LG Corp., a South Korean electronics and petrochemicals conglomerate*LG Electronics, an affiliate of the South Korean LG Group which produces electronic products* Lawrence Graham, a London headquartered firm of business lawyers...
, Samsung), Canada (RIM), Finland (Nokia), Taiwan (HTC) and the U.K. (Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB is a joint venture established on October 1, 2001 by the Japanese consumer electronics company Sony Corporation and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson to manufacture mobile phones....
).
Customer satisfaction by manufacturer
According to global marketing information services firm J.D. Power and AssociatesJ.D. Power and Associates
J.D. Power and Associates is a global marketing information services firm founded in 1968 by James David Power III. The firm conducts surveys of customer satisfaction, product quality, and buyer behavior for industries ranging from cars to marketing and advertising firms. The firm is best known for...
smartphones from Apple Inc. have been consistently ranking highest in customer satisfaction, with a late 2011 score of 838 out of 1000. Based on the responses to their most recent survey of 6,898 smartphone users, Apple was followed in ranking by HTC (801), Samsung (777), Motorola (775), RIM (762), LG (760), Palm (733), and Nokia (721).
Open-source development
The open-sourceOpen source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
culture has penetrated the smartphone market in several ways. There have been attempts to open source both hardware and software of smartphones.
In February 2010 Nokia made Symbian
Symbian
Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...
open source. Thus, most commercial smartphones were based on open-source operating systems. These include those based on Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, such as Google's Android, Nokia's Maemo
Maemo
Maemo is a software platform developed by the Maemo community for smartphones and Internet tablets. It is based on the Debian Linux distribution, but has no relation to it...
, Hewlett-Packard's WebOS, and those based on BSD
Berkeley Software Distribution
Berkeley Software Distribution is a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995...
, such as the Darwin
Darwin (operating system)
Darwin is an open source POSIX-compliant computer operating system released by Apple Inc. in 2000. It is composed of code developed by Apple, as well as code derived from NeXTSTEP, BSD, and other free software projects....
-based Apple iOS. Maemo
Maemo
Maemo is a software platform developed by the Maemo community for smartphones and Internet tablets. It is based on the Debian Linux distribution, but has no relation to it...
was later merged with Intel's project Moblin to form MeeGo
MeeGo
MeeGo is a Linux-based open source mobile operating system project. Primarily targeted at mobile devices and information appliances in the consumer electronics market, MeeGo is designed to act as an operating system for hardware platforms such as netbooks, entry-level desktops, nettops, tablet...
.
Location-based check-in services
According to a ComScore report released on May 12, 2011, nearly one in five smartphone users are tapping into check-in services like Foursquare and Gowalla. A total of 16.7 million mobile-phone subscribers used location-based services on their phones in March 2011.Second Screen
The smartphones have introduced a new way of watching television. The second screenSecond screen
Second Screen is a new expression which describes, in the broadcasting industry, the use of a smartphone, tablet computer or computer that audiences use while watching television.- Multi-tasking :...
is a consequence of the media multitasking which is exploding.
See also
- Camera phoneCamera phoneA camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture still photographs . Since early in the 21st century the majority of mobile phones in use are camera phones....
and videophoneVideophoneA videophone is a telephone with a video screen, and is capable of full duplex video and audio transmissions for communication between people in real-time... - Comparison of smartphonesComparison of smartphones-Hardware and OS:-Networks and connectivity:...
- List of digital distribution platforms for mobile devices
- Mobile broadbandMobile BroadbandMobile broadband is the marketing term for wireless Internet access through a portable modem, mobile phone or other mobile device.-Description:...
connectivity - Mobile Internet device (MID) and personal digital assistantPersonal digital assistantA personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
(PDA) - Mobile operating systemMobile operating systemA mobile operating system, also known as a mobile OS, mobile software platform or a handheld operating system, is the operating system that controls a mobile device or information appliance—similar in principle to an operating system such as Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux distributions that controls a...
- Second screenSecond screenSecond Screen is a new expression which describes, in the broadcasting industry, the use of a smartphone, tablet computer or computer that audiences use while watching television.- Multi-tasking :...
External links
- Freesmartphone.org – a collaboration platform for open-source smartphones
- Defining the Smartphone, part 1, part 2 by Steve Litchfield on July 16, 2010, various definitions are treated
- Mozilla Labs: Seabird –Community driven Mobile Phone Concept