Types of Mobile Operating Systems in Latest Smart Phones

Smart phones, Smart Operating System or perfect combination of both? Now, choosing a smart phone is not the only hectic job you have, but choosing the right OS too is a difficult choice. Over the last couple of months we’ve looked smart phones, a few times but haven’t really spent much time in looking at the different mobile operating systems (m-os). Here’s a quick tour of the main players in this segment which will help you to get a brief idea on various operating systems including windows, blackberry, Google’s android, Apple’s iOS, Symbian and also Palm …

Windows Mobile or Windows Phone
These handsets run a mobile operating system designed by Microsoft. The bundled software with these units lets you open, create and edit Microsoft Office files as well as run thousands of third party applications. Their connectivity with Microsoft Exchange servers is excellent but web browsing still has room for improvement. A 2009 survey by CFI Group showcased that the Windows Mobile users had the lowest level of customer satisfaction when compared to users of other smartphones. Out of a possible 100 points, Windows Mobile was only rated with a mere 66, compared with BlackBerry’s (73), Palm Pre’s (77), Google’s Android (77), and iPhone’s (83). And also a bottom line, with Microsoft not many things come for free! J. With its latest operating system of series 7 in place, time will only tell that how popular it will be in comparison with other mobile operating systems.

BlackBerry

Blackberry started all from its messenger service and now it’s a full fledge mobile phone maker. If you expect to receive lots of e-mails and SMS then BlackBerry is still the best messaging platform for mobile workers. Web browsing works but can be a little frustrating as BlackBerry reformats websites to reduce the bandwidth they use. However, the future versions of the BlackBerry OS will ship with a Web kit-based browser so that part of user experience (UE) should be greatly enhanced. One of the BlackBerry’s big advantages is that the service is very data efficient. Everything is compressed and encrypted so it works well even when connectivity is limited to a 2G network. Research In Motion (RIM) appears to be on the verge of making a strategic about-face by making a transitional change in its Black Berry devices from its in-house mobile operating system to the QNX OS that’s powering its new Play Book tablet PC.

But at this critical environment, when Apple’s i-Pads and i-Phones are flying off the shelves like hot cakes and Google’s Android-based smartphones are selling even faster, any move from Research in Motion (RIM) can make to jumpstart demand and encourage developers to start writing new media-rich apps would be a good first step toward restoring some popularity to the BlackBerry brand. But still with Blackberry specific data/internet plans it still only rules office guys and not college going youngsters due to high data charges.

Android

Here comes the latest album thriller these days. As the new kid on the block, Google’s Android operating system has made a huge splash in the mobile OS segment; after all it’s from a Google’s family. Already embraced by developers, there are many third party apps to cover almost every user’s needs. Google’s android is a differentially new, so it managed to attract huge fans but as time goes by it will surely be a stable kid. But for now, among all the Mobile O.S, Android is a rock star, but please be ware, kids are always attractive, so the bottom line is BEFORE GOING FOR ANDROID, DON’T FORGET to try it. Like it, Own it is the only one liner comes in my mind. No doubt, this has become the darling of the masses.

Apple iOS

Ahh. Apple! The iPhone probably offers the best overall package of mobile functions although it’s not necessarily the best at anything. While BlackBerry has the best messaging and Windows Mobile and Android offer superior business support for Office files, the iPhone is easy to use and its web browser is still the best for mobile browsing although the lack of Flash support is a real problem. Many of the features taken for granted on other platforms like a unified Inbox for multiple email accounts and multitasking are coming in the soon to be release iPhone OS 4.If you are a person who wants to experience touch at its best and love the pinching of pictures then iPhone is for you.

Symbian

This is operating system used by Nokia and Sony Ericsson. While Symbian is very common, there are many different versions of it so applications that work on one handset may not work on another. However, it is purpose-built for phones and is reasonably easy to use. The flop show of Symbian is only due to its lack of fight back in terms of improvements; it seems that Symbian has lost all imagination and invention. Going for Symbian now at this stage is like choosing a second hand car J as Symbian continuously failed to rope in interesting and innovative changes in its user interface. Be it a 10k priced phone or 50k phone all the interface remains the same.

Palm

Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) is a mobile operating system which was initially developed by Palm.Inc, for personal digital assistant (PDAs) in 1996. From then it is with the glint of a tear in our eyes that look back at Palm. For a long time, the Palm OS was the standard when compared with other mobile operating systems. The software was fast, reliable and there was an incredibly active developer environment which was praised by everyone. At some point, the fire of innovation dimmed and eventually went out with Palm’s hardware ending up running Windows Mobile phones instead. In my view, that was the beginning of the end for Palm operating system. Hopefully, Hewlett Packard will take over Palm and we’ll see some great new hardware and kick-ass software innovations sooner than later.

How Much Bandwidth usage do Youtube Streaming videos take

use a USB Data Card for accessing the Internet on my Laptop and the share computer is used as a WiFi Hotspot to Share the Internet Connection with my Apple iPad. While using the iPad most of the time i use the Youtube App to view different videos. Now the main worry i have is how much bill i will have to pay at the end of month because a friend told me that Youtube if viewed for more than 6-8 hours every day would use around 1Gb of bandwidth, is this true? Also if i just open a few videos and then don’t watch them, still does the ISP


charge me for loading the videos under Broadband Usage? Please clear some of these questions which are mainly related to Youtube Bandwidth Usage Calculations.



There are millions of Videos uploaded on Youtube by different users and most of these videos are uploaded by the users which were recorded either using their Mobile Phones, Digital Camera’s, Handy Cams, Web Cams etc all of which record in different quality. A average Video file takes around 10Mb space for 1 minute of video stored in it, while this may again differ based on the quality and compression aspects. Now if you view the same video which is of 15 minutes duration uploaded to a video hosting website, the approximate amount of bandwidth you would consume would be around 150Mb. The bandwidth is calculated on the total amount of data downloaded and uploaded from your computer, while in this case the only upload from your end would be the video viewing requests you would put and this normally ranges in a few Mb.



Next you need to understand the Different b/w Downloading & Streaming Video because all the videos which you find on Youtube are the Downloading Videos version where in the video file which is uploaded by the users are downloaded to the computers through the website. This means that when you access a Youtube video page there won’t be much bandwidth usage but when you click on the Play Button and then wait for the video to load, the file is being downloaded to your computer in background which you can also find in the browser’s temporary files folder.



Youtube Video Speed Comparison



Lets assume that you find a few interesting HD Videos on Youtube and instead of viewing them one by one and waiting for them to load in your web browser, what you actually do is open all these videos in say around 10 different tabs. Press the Play button once for the files to start loading and then press on the Pause button so that the download progress is continued and once its completed at the end you can easily play and view without any issues.



10 Loading Videos * Each 10 Minutes Size * 90Mb[Approx Size] = 900 Mb of data being downloaded to your computer which in turn is counted under the bandwidth usage. Even if you later close all these windows without viewing the videos, the bandwidth is still billed by your ISP because the data was actually downloaded to your computer. This is the same case when you download youtube videos to your computer using any external tools. You need to perform a Speed Test to find out the actually interned speed you are being offered by the ISP because the higher connection speed you have, the quicker these videos would load on your computer.



Average Video Speed Comparison



The main problem is that these days the Internet Service Providers offer their customers with very high speed connections but with limited data downloads, which means that if someone gets a 3Mbps Internet connection they also need to confirm the amount of bandwidth data they can use in a months period because accessing video hosting websites can easily shell up the monthly costs.



According to Wikipedia, the maximum amount of data transfer would be around 300 Kilobits per second. This means that if we calculate this amount in the form of KiloBytes you need to divide it by 8, making this at 300/8 = 37.5 Kbps. Now this means that every second there would be a download of maximum 37.5 Kbps of data to your computer which comes to around 37.5*60 = 2.25Mb/minute or say 2.25 * 60 = 135Mb per hour.



If a video is already downloaded once in your browser and you want to view it again, then you dont have to worry about the bandwidth because the file is already downloaded to your computer and is stored in the cache of the browser. You can also copy the file from these temporary files and save to your PC for future views, in order to bypass the loading time and broadband costs. According to the above estimations it does not mean that you will be charged with 135mb of bandwidth every hour, if you keep the youtube.com website open because this again depends on the quality of the videos and if its some plain cartoon or low graphical version then the size would be lot lower than this, something in the range of around 30-40% only.



Hope all the above listed different points and sample statistics would give you a clear picture on the total broadband bandwidth usage you would get charged for when you view youtube videos online.