The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period of Mobile Operating Systems

Nowadays, when we talk about smart mobile terminals, we are talking about mobile phones and tablets. The systems are either Apple or Android, which are strictly speaking iOS and Android. Behind the peaceful and harmonious smart mobile terminals is a bloody and murderous past; Apple and Android are stepping on the bones of countless mobile operating systems. The smart phones we hold in our hands now are the ultimate winners in the history of mobile terminals in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

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The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period of Mobile Operating Systems

●Mobile OS is divided into three parts

In the era of feature phones more than a decade ago, mobile phones, computers, laptops, and PDAs were completely different digital products with very different prices. As a separate category, PDAs emphasized portable, high-performance mobile office, mainly targeting high-end business areas. In English, they were called Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), also known as Handheld PCs. The concept of operating systems had not yet appeared on mobile phones, and mobile OS was also for PDAs. At that time, the mobile office field was divided into three parts by the well-known Microsoft and BlackBerry, and Palm, which young people may not have heard of. Let's start with Palm.

Palm PDA is a symbol of success

Palm is an important role in the history of mobile OS, even Microsoft cannot be compared with it. It popularized the concepts of PDA, mobile office and handheld computer to office workers. Palm was founded in 1992 and launched the first PDA Pilot 1000 in 1996. The image of Silicon Valley elites wearing suits and ties, holding styluses and handheld computers in advertisements in the 1990s seems to be Palm now.

Palm ads posted by netizens on PDA Forum in 2007 are everywhere

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Ironically, the Palm PDA ad content: Google search is not enemies, but they will always meet.

Palm handheld computers are designed for business and office use. They support handwriting input and have a variety of interfaces, including serial, USB, infrared, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and memory card expansion. The most popular feature is the synchronization function, which can connect to a computer to update address books, calendars, to-do lists, etc. It is a very useful personal assistant tool. In 2009, Palm launched webOS, a real mobile operating system, but it was too late. Android and Apple had already begun to show their edge.

In the field of mobile office, the only company that could rival Palm at the time was BlackBerry, whose predecessor was RIM, so its mobile OS was later called RIM BlackBerry OS. In 1996, BlackBerry launched its first mobile business terminal, Inter@ctive Pager 900, and in 1999, it launched its first BlackBerry named BlackBerry 850, which was more precisely a pager for sending and receiving emails.

It is said that the most popular feature of BlackBerry among successful people is: handling emails?

Later, after the launch of the BlackBerry mobile phone, it was favored by business elites because the BlackBerry's email communication uses an encrypted protocol and is not easy to be monitored or cracked. At the same time, it gained a group of loyal fans in mainland China, who were keen on the full keyboard and luminous trackball of the BlackBerry mobile phone, which was unique and extremely easy to use. Of course, the mobile phones were all parallel imports, and BlackBerry was not sold in China at that time. Strictly speaking, there is no direct competition between BlackBerry and Palm. BlackBerry focuses on email and mobile communication, while Palm focuses on digital assistants and PC auxiliary tools. The uses of the two are quite different.

Around 2008, BlackBerry full keyboards and trackballs were very popular.

Before 2013, BlackBerry's business terminals were very popular based on its self-developed operating system BlackBerry OS. The number of devices used reached a peak in September 2013, with 85 million registered users worldwide. In the same year, BlackBerry felt the huge pressure from Apple and Android, and turned to developing smart mobile OS, launching a new operating system BlackBerry 10. Now it seems that this is nothing more than a doomsday catastrophe for BlackBerry.

The worst of the three-way split is Microsoft. Although Microsoft has dominated the desktop OS, it has never made a difference in the mobile OS field. Before 2000, there was the Windows CE (WinCE for short) mobile operating system. HP, Philips and other brands manufactured handheld computers based on WinCE, and because there was no unified model, they were often called "Palm-style handheld computers", which was very shameful. Later, Microsoft launched the Pocket PC (pocket computer) and launched a new version of the mobile operating system Windows Mobile in 2003 for this type of device.

This type of handheld computer is shamefully called a Palm PDA

Microsoft's actions were not too late, and even later launched the Lumia mobile phone with Windows Phone system to compete with Android and Apple. But in the end, the mobile OS Windwos Phone still came to an end and stopped updating. Under the strong pressure from Apple and Android, the humble market share of Windows Phone seems insignificant.

Windows Phone market share is negligible, data from Gartner

Later, the world of mobile operating systems changed dramatically. Windows Mobile system could not reverse the situation. The former rulers Palm and BlackBerry experienced the struggle of restructuring and turning to the Android camp. In 2010, HP acquired Palm for $1.2 billion. Since then, the HP brand has replaced Palm, and webOS has become one of the operating systems of HP PDAs; in 2013, LG acquired the webOS team from HP and used it on LG smart TVs; in 2015, TCL purchased Palm patents from HP and tried to rebuild the glory of the Palm brand. Palm is no longer the Palm it once was. It is more like an inherited legacy. The BlackBerry 10 operating system also failed to save BlackBerry. Instead, it launched Android phones in 2015; in 2016, BlackBerry stopped product development and switched to brand licensing, which means that the bloodline of BlackBerry has come to an end.

Palm, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile weren't the only casualties; when Apple and Android smartphones arrived, no mobile operating system was spared.

●Mobile OS World War

In the millennium, mobile phones transitioned from feature phones to smartphones, and mobile operating systems became popular. Nokia and Symbian were the brands that must be mentioned. Although Nokia comes to mind when Symbian is mentioned, we still have to emphasize that it was not a mobile OS developed specifically for Nokia, but a closed-source operating system developed by the Symbian Business Association for PDA devices in 1998. Samsung, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson have all launched products based on the Symbian system, but Nokia and Symbian began to dominate the world.

Saipan once occupied more than 60% of the market share but destroyed its own future

The Symbian operating system has countless advantages, especially the Symbian S60 interface launched by Nokia in 2002, which has created generations of popular smartphones. Intelligent system, easy-to-use interface, support for third-party developers, strong localization capabilities, as of 2006, Symbian S60 supports 48 language interfaces, and Symbian S60 has played a great role in Nokia's global sales.

Based on the Symbian S60 system, Nokia created a smartphone legend, including the popular E71 phone

However, the closed-source, region-locked, and digital certificate features of the Symbian S60 system gave users a headache. I still remember hanging out in the Symbian Chinese forum to unlock, download installation packages, and crack digital certificates in order to buy a Nokia phone, the E63. My enthusiasm was exhausted in the repeated attempts and uncertain results of the flashing process. Nokia was eventually resold and branded, and the Symbian system almost stopped maintenance and updates in 2012.

The Symbian forum dospy, which was once popular because of Nokia, has changed a lot

At the beginning of the millennium, Apple developed the iOS operating system based on BSD Unix and launched the first generation iPhone in 2007, which amazed the world. Later, everyone saw how successful the iPhone and iOS were. It can be said that iOS revolutionized smartphones and mobile OS, and Google should be the first to realize this.

In 2007, Google took the lead in establishing the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), whose members include Google, HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Samsung, LG, etc. Later, it expanded to more than 30 well-known chip manufacturers, mobile phone manufacturers, software developers, telecom operators and service providers, and China Mobile also joined. The OHA Alliance is committed to solving the problem of "how to make a better mobile phone" and formulating industry standards. This laid the foundation for the rapid formation of the Android system ecosystem and its dominance.

The Open Mobile Alliance (OHA) has a strong membership list

Speaking of Android, it was not originally designed for smartphones, but was developed by Android based on the Linux kernel for mobile devices, such as portable digital cameras. In 2005, Google acquired Android and turned to the development of smartphone operating systems, and released the Android 1.0 system in 2007.

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Android creator Andy Rubin was later acquired by Google

Android is widely welcomed by programmers due to its open source nature, and Google Play, the Google App Store, has attracted a large number of programmers from all over the world to write Android apps and easily upload them to the shelves for global Android users to download and use. Soon Android surpassed iOS to become the most widely used smartphone operating system, and it runs on hundreds of smart devices with the help of open source software license agreements. If iOS opened the Pandora's box of mobile smart operating systems, then Android is the one who killed other mobile OSes with his own hands.

Look at this picture again. Android is the terminator of mobile OS.

In addition to Palm, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Nokia and Symbian, there are many others who have lost to Apple and Android. Samsung's own Bada OS stopped updating in 2012. At that time, Samsung was operating both Android phones and Bada OS phones. Eventually, Bada OS gave way to Android phones. In 2010, Nokia and Intel decided to merge the Linux-based Maemo and Moblin operating systems into MeeGo. At one point, smart devices based on the MeeGo system were very close to being launched, but in the end, Nokia turned to Microsoft and the Lumia series was born to replace MeeGo, which was stillborn.

Samsung's Bada OS didn't last long

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Nokia N9 uses MeeGo system

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The Lumia series' Windows Phone operating system has persisted for a long time

The current rulers are Apple and Android, but who can guarantee that they will still be the same in the next decade after 2020? Mobile OS has always been a process of the younger generation pushing the older generation forward. At present, the future operating system may be a cross-platform operating system that unifies PCs, laptops, tablets, mobile phones, TV boxes, wearable devices, etc. Google is already developing a system called Fuchsia, and Huawei's Hongmeng and Aurora operating systems have been reported but no details are available.

Google's next-generation operating system Fuchsia is revealed

Huawei's Hongmeng operating system remains mysterious

Maybe a new company will emerge, but it is not known. As ordinary people, we only need to know some stories behind mobile smart operating systems while enjoying the convenience brought by them.