Today the mobile phones all have operating systems compared to earlier embedded systems used. There are number of mobile phone operating systems today; Symbian OS, Windows mobile, Palm OS and Linux to name a few.
The Symbian OS has a major advantage over these embedded operating systems which is modularity - there is runtime linking between dynamically linked shared libraries on the device, and an emphasis on plug-in architectures. This makes complex phones quicker to develop, though this is sometimes offset by the complexity of Symbian OS C++ and the awkwardness of going to another company for an OS (instead of doing it in-house).
Symbian OS has been subject to a variety of viruses, one of which is 'Cabir'. These spread by transfers from phone to phone via a Bluetooth link. So far, none have taken advantage of any flaws in Symbian OS - instead, they have all asked the user whether they would like to install the software, with somewhat prominent warnings that it can't be trusted.
A common question is whether Symbian OS is "open". It is not open in the sense of Open source software. However, nearly all the source code is provided to Symbian OS phone manufacturers. It is also open in the sense that it supports Open Standards available.
The following are the devices which use Symbian OS:
Opera is one the leading developers for browsers for mobile phones at the moment. They have a huge variety of different versions for different platforms of mobile phone operating systems.
Opera Mini® is a fast and easy alternative to Opera's mobile browser, allowing users to access the Web on mobile phones that would normally be incapable of running a Web browser. This includes the vast majority of today's WAP-enabled phones.
Opera Mobile® is the fastest, most secure browser available for S60 and Windows mobile handsets.
Opera Platform® is a powerful and flexible application framework for mobile phones. Using this you can quickly and affordably create advanced mobile Web applications that give users instant access to online resources. It also enables you to integrate the phone's local applications with online content ranging from regular Web sites to advanced business support systems. It can be used to integrate it with CRM softwares and reporting systems.
Although the Opera browser is free for PCs only trial versions are available for download to bring Opera on your Mobile.
Almost any phone these days are J2ME compliant. These phones are in all the price ranges from hundred dollars to thousand dollars and any phone you have can be easily assumed to have J2ME capabilities.
The Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) is a key element of the Java 2 Platform, Mobile Edition (J2ME). MIDP provides a standard Java runtime environment (JRE) for today's most popular mobile information devices, such as cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
MIDP for Palm OS is a J2ME implementation based on the CLDC 1.0 and MIDP 1.0 specifications, optimized for Palm OS 3.5.
There are various benefits of these toolkits like user interface capabilities, extensive connectivity, Multimedia and gaming options, Over-the-Air-Provisioning and End-to-End Security.
With the increase in mobile phone Operating systems, the functionality has increased many fold, and so has the amount of things you can do with the phone. The mobile phone now is not used just to make and receive calls but to do many other things. A list of such applications of the mobile phone can be made.
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