The Mobile Phone Operating System - part 3

Three weeks ago One Mobile Ring began a feature about the mobile phone operating system; where it's come from, how it's evolved to what it is today - all surrounding the various platforms found on different handsets.

Today, the mobile phone's operating system is a necessary evil when it comes to the handset. The OS is needed in order to provide the vital link between the handset's hardware and the other hardware the phone has to contend with - its owner.

Once upon a time, the mobile OS was just there to facilitate dialling, messaging and to hold contact details. Now, the OS has evolved into something else, with functionality that could very well rival the desktop PC - if not at least be comparable with the way it operates.

The hardware behind the OS is also key, especially in the developments the phone has seen over recent years. These advances are in the data speeds, processor technology, touch screen abilities, and the graphical prowess of the more higher-end smartphones.

The operating system plays a vital part in delivering all this goodness to the end user, along with what they want to achieve with the mobile. All of which is a far cry from just dialling, messaging or using an address book on a mobile.

On the first feature, we turned our attention to the Symbian operating system, with its ties to Nokia and its history dating back to the late 1980s with Psion handled devices. We also covered the many versions and iterations the platform has been through, along with the success that other phone manufacturers such as Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung's have had with the OS.

On the next edition, One Mobile Ring covered one of the youngest phone operating systems around, which only celebrates its two-year anniversary on a mobile phone in October this year - Android. We included its ties to Google and the history with HTC, along with the different handsets manufacturers and OS versions from ‘Cupcake' to ‘Froyo'. OMR covered what each new release brought to a handset, with a look to the future and the upcoming ‘Gingerbread' 3.0 iteration.

This week we focus on the choice email device OS behind the Research In Motions handsets, the BlackBerry OS.

RIM has been around since the early 80s, although not really in the messaging market until the mid-nineties with a two-way pager known as the RIM 900 or the Inter@ctive Pager. It wasn't until later on in that decade the words BlackBerry began to appear, with their smaller RIM 850 pager-esque device appearing in late 1999 running the BlackBerry OS 1.

This more or less looked like a pager from yesteryear with a small oblong screen, only with a Qwerty keyboard and keys that were reminiscent of small berries - BlackBerries, hence the brand name. This device was capable of two-way messaging, only it arrived in a much smaller chassis than the bulkier RIM 900. This operated over the cellular network, where Research In Motion also introduced around this time their BlackBerry Enterprise Server which bolts into known email servers and delivers email over the airwaves. BES is at the heart of the BlackBerry success story, even before the larger PDA handsets came along or the phones that we have today.

BlackBerry OS 2 came out the following year, on similar pager looking devices where RIM started producing larger bigger screened PDA looking models - with a similar appearance to the Palm Pilot handhelds.

Two years down the line, Research In Motion had abandoned the pager devices for the more traditional BlackBerrys with the larger display with a Qwerty keyboard in a robust, durable plastic case. These ran version 3.0 and were the first handhelds to be officially known as BlackBerrys, with names such as the RIM BlackBerry 5810. The screens were still monochrome, running from a 2.6-inch display or a 3-inch version, depending on what model where the applications were now written in Java.

Messaging and messaging alone were still the core functions of the handset and its OS, as it wasn't until the 2002 anyone could actually make calls. The 6710 model was the first BB with a GSM/GPRS built in radio - a good 10 devices into the entire Research in Motion series.

During this period of development, third party applications began to appear for the handsets along with the keyboard design being licensed by Palm and others. The first BlackBerry web client appeared too, in the form of the BlackBerry Internet Server. This was both a way for the early devices to surf the web, whilst also providing access to non-corporate Internet email.

2005 saw the advent of the BlackBerry 7000 series and version 4 of the OS arriving on handsets, with colour screens and more features to a more rounded operating system. These devices brought in basic colour TFT displays, multi-band GSM network access but some still had the appearance of the older bulkier models with the tracker-wheel used to scroll through emails. RIM's SureType Qwerty-keyboard-in-a-T9-keypad technology started to make an appearance in a few of the 7000 series models, with candy bar designs that predate the Pearl models.

The turning point for BlackBerry devices came in the early 2007s, with version 4.2 of their OS and the BlackBerry 8000 series of handsets - the Pearl and Curve mobile phones. These phones brought in a more consumer friendly OS for the first time, with less of a corporate look. The new phones reflected the OS, where their appeal, look and feel were no longer that of the businessman but of the younger audience. These were the 8120 Pearl candy bar form factor and the 8310 small, but familiar Qwerty keyboard based design.

This OS and series of phones brought in cameras for the first time, WIFI, GPS and then Bluetooth became a staple function of the phone. These handsets also saw the abandoning of the trackwheel that had been part and parcel of BlackBerrys for many a year. The Peal trackball was now the new standard on the RIM devices, as the main way to navigate around the OS and its features.

There were a few OS revisions over the next year or so, without any major changes other than just to herald in a handset. The most notable iteration during this time was 4.6 and 4.7, which accompanied the BlackBerry Bold 9000 and the BlackBerry Storm 9500. The hardware and software now offered the ability to address a 3G network and for the very first time in RIM's history, this provided better access to email and faster surfing speeds than ever before.

Research In Motion were never too forthcoming as to what each new OS or revision brought to the phone, until version 5.0 came out and the next version - the BlackBerry 6 OS.

Version 5 of the OS first appeared on the update to the original Bold, the 9700 and the BlackBerry 9550 Storm2. RIM noted OS 5 brought in better and more accurate typing, improved browsing and better access to more features of their BES 5 server. There were other enhancements around the whole UI to the OS, which was much easier to use as was 4.7, both of which leant more towards the consumer as their target market.

Recently, BlackBerry announced a new phone in the Touch 9800 and a new OS at the same time, whilst switching the naming convention around to their operating systems. The new RIM platform for their upcoming handsets is now known as ‘BlackBerry 6 OS', instead of BlackBerry OS 6.

Research In Motion for the first time began referencing the operating system as a separate entity to the phone, as it's now a more significant piece of engineering than a necessary evil to linking all the hardware together.

The UI in BlackBerry 6 OS has been dramatically overhauled to embrace the touch screen, although the Storm mobile phones had touch screens there really wasn't anything the OS couldn't do than a non-touch screen BlackBerry OS could.

It's now a much more visual experience and an easier to use OS with more fluid navigation whether using the touch screen, trackpad or keyboard. BlackBerry 6 offers multiple views for better organising of applications and content. Icons on the home screen are presented in 5 customisable views, which can be navigated with a simple swipe - much like other touch screen platforms.

There's a powerful universal search tool accessible from the home screen, where any content can be searched - either on the handset, the web or in BlackBerry App World.

BlackBerry 6 also has a new WebKit-based browser, which renders web pages very quickly along with a double-tap zoom feature that intelligently wraps text in a column - or just pinch to zoom in.

This is just a few of the new items in the latest OS, which has been missing from all the past versions and now could make the BlackBerry stand up against Android and the iPhone in terms of usability and as an attractive proposition to the masses.

As a foot note, RIM has shipped 115 million BlackBerry handsets to date where in Q2 of this year alone they sold over 12 million devices  - up 45% from the same time frame last year, which sets a new record for the company.

Originally published at OneMobileRing.com