The Mobile Phone Operating System - part 4

A few weeks back One Mobile Ring started 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.

Once upon a time the mobile OS was just there to facilitate dialling someone, messaging someone and just holding contact details. These days 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 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. This is in addition to what they can now do with the phone, with the plethora of applications available today. 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 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 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.

On the third feature BlackBerry OS was the topic of choice, with how its evolved over the years and the origin of the fruit name. Included was how Research In Motion started out with two-way pagers, whilst moving on to colour screen handsets. One Mobile Ring also covered how the BlackBerry OS progressed to handle 2G networks, and also when they were first used as actual mobile phones and not just email devices. From there, we brought the piece up to date with BlackBerry OS 5 and the latest BlackBerry 6 OS with the most recent handset - the Torch 9800 touch screen, with a slide out Qwerty keyboard.

One Mobile Ring is now taking a look at one of the old boys of the mobile phone OS world, with the one of the biggest companies behind it - Microsoft's and Windows Mobile, or as it's now known, Windows Phone. As per usual we'll be taking a look at the mobile phone OS, with where it's come from, how it's evolved to what it is today.

The Windows operating system for mobile devices has been around in one form or another since the mid-nineties, with Microsoft being the platform developer for over 15 years. This OS has been used in many mobile devices and phones over this time from Compaq in the early days, to nearly every known electronics manufacturer since. It was even used as the operating system behind the Sega Dreamcast gaming console.

The first operating system for mobile devices was known as Windows CE. Version 1.0 came out in 1996 and was found on handheld devices around at the time. These were products such as the Hewlett Packard 300LX and Compaq C120, both of which looked fairly identical with their monochrome screen and booklet size, which opened out to produce a keyboard with a display. These ran a very basic version of a Windows 95 looking OS, with applications such as Word and Excel for mobile office use - without a need for a bulk laptop. As a first entry into the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) world, Windows CE, also known as HandHeld PC, was successful for Microsoft. There was a minor update to 1.01 in the following year with better support for newer Office file formats, but the big change came at the end of that year with Windows CE 2.0.

Some of the earlier products could be upgraded to the new 2.0, but there were models arriving towards the end of 1997 that came with the OS on-board and with colour screens too. This iteration of the Windows mobile platform brought with it full VGA and cellular capabilities, on nearly an identical form factor as the first generation of devices. Windows CE 2.0 had an appearance of the Windows 98 desktop OS, where more manufactures had now developed more devices to run this mobile operating system which was also known as HandHeld PC 2.0.

Windows CE 2 had some revisions over the next few years, with some separation of the OS under the name of Palm-PC. More and more of the handheld devices that were seen at this time were PDA products, instead of palm tops. Windows CE 2.01 started this off, where it was also known as Palm PC 1.0 with a QVGA resolution and a stylus operated touch screen - this carried on in a similar fashion, until 1999 with CE 2.11 or Palm-Sized PC 1.2.

Windows CE 2 or the Palm PC OS was now being used by nearly every known manufacturer with names such as Compaq, Casio, Fujitsu, Hewlett Packard, LG, NEC, Samsung and Sharp all selling multiple products.

Windows CE 3.0 arrived in April 2000 and was heralded in with another name for the OS, Pocket PC 2000. This version, as did past iterations, reflected the desktop operating system at the day - Windows 2000. This version of the mobile Windows platform was used as the basis of Handheld PC 2000, Pocket PC 2002 and Smartphone 2002 - with the latter being of great interest to us and where we'll pick up next time.

Originally published at OneMobileRing.com