Mobile Operating Systems

The Process manager decides which processor gets to run the process. Then it is the memory manager’s duty to allocate memory resources for the processing to take place. It keeps control of the primary memory and allocates on availability. The device manager tracks the availability of the devices that are summoned to run the program and allocates accordingly. The File manager works in close contact with all the other managers. It supplies data to the process manager for the processing to take place. It supervises the physical directory allocation through reserving memory for storage.

A mobile operating system is system software that helps to run the mobile devices like smartphones, tablets or smartwatches. These mobile operating systems allow the devices to run programs and applications. The mobile operating system boots up when the device is switched on and presents the complete graphical user interface to the user. The mobile operating systems also provide the functionality to manage wireless and cellular connectivity features. A majority of these Mobile OS software is hardware specific and offers very little flexibility in this aspect [1]. Few most famous examples of Mobile OS are Google Android, Apple iOS, Symbian and so on. However, there is never ending debate on the choise of superiority between Android and iOS [2]. Below, Google’s Android operating system is explained in details with keen attention to its user centric features.

Android is mobile operating system software. It was previously developed by Android Inc. and was later bought in by Google. The Android OS is based on the LINUX framework. This OS was primarily designed to provide support to the smartphones and tablets. However, it is more than just an OS; it is a software package that also comprises of the key-applications and middleware. The Android OS and its applications and modules have been updated several times over the past years. Android is an open source platform, which means that any individual or organization can take the source code and model them to create their own custom OS [3]. Even the android application source codes are retrievable for cloning and upgradation. Having started from android version 1.1, the society is now craving for Android version 8.0 Oreo, with numerous next generation features and an outstanding interface for all kinds of users [4].

 The major features that the Android OS provides are:

• It is an open-source multi-operational mobile operating system.
• It provides numerous general operational features such as:

1. Messaging
2. Auto Correction and Dictionary.
3. Web browser
4. Voice-based features
5. Video-based features
6. Multi touch facilities
7. Screen capture
8. Multitasking
9. Multi language support
10. Storage and media support, and so on.

• It provides crucial connectivity features as:

1. Mobile network connectivity for calling and internet browsing.
2. Bluetooth support.
3. Wi-Fi connectivity and Tethering [6].

The hardware aspects of the Android OS include cameras that are worthy of capturing and recording both pictures and videos respectively, touchscreen interface, GPS, gaming controls, accelerometers, pressure and proximity sensors, accelerated 2D and 3D graphics components and so on [7].

Introduction to Android OS

   Every novice user of an operating system must be aware of the following key concepts of the OS:

1. System Interface: The OS interface helps the user and the programs to communicate and perform operations accordingly. The GUI (Graphical User Interface), the Command line interpreter and the System-call interface are the three general levels of interfaces that the OS provides. The GUI works at the upper level of the interface model. The user interacts with the OS and its applications through the icons, menus and options that are provided by this level. The command line interface is for advanced users. This level allows a text-based interface to interact directly with the OS. Finally, the system-call interface are used by the programs to communicate with the processor, for their functioning.
2. Process manager: With multi-processing becoming a key feature in today’s operating systems, the process manager is needed to manage the execution of processes as per their urgency, requirements and processor availability.
3. Memory Manager: Memory manager is there to control the allocation and de-allocation of the memory resources.
4. File Manager: The file manager works directly on user commands or interaction. It allows the users and processes to create, modify, move and delete files and directories.
5. Device Manager: The OS through this concept manages the devices installed with in the system. Every device type has their respective device driver for assistance in device management by the OS [7].

 Any banking organization shall find batch-mode processing extremely useful. At the day’s break, all data collected during the business hours are to collected into several databases across the system, in batch cycles.

Time-sharing allows multiple users and applications to share various computer resources, simultaneously. This allows the applications or programs to be allocated with their demanded resources respectively in time slots. These time slot based resource allocations are done simultaneously, thus it enhances multiprogramming. This allows the users to work seamlessly on multiple applications, at the same time. This proves to be a mode for interactive computing [8].

Both LINUX and Windows OS are essentially the same however they behave differently. Both have a graphics based user interface that assists the users in quite a similar fashion. They both have their own web browser that provides the users to browse the internet and most importantly, they allow multiprocessing and all other OS concepts in the similar way. Nevertheless, the differences that they posses are clearly understandable with a little research into the core of the two systems.  Linux being open source gives its users the access to its source codes, which is a significant difference between the two. The command line interface is the main attraction of the Linux OS. It provides multiple command line options and is more versatile than the windows version of it. However, it is considered that the windows OS is more suitable to run different software and programs whereas, the Linux OS is more robust and secured.

References

[1] Kamboj, Vipin, and Hitesh Gupta. “Mobile operating systems.” International Journal of Engineering Innovation & Research 1, no. 2 (2012): 115-120.

[2] Ahmad, Mohd Shahdi, Nur Emyra Musa, Rathidevi Nadarajah, Rosilah Hassan, and Nor Effendy Othman. “Comparison between android and iOS Operating System in terms of security.” In Information Technology in Asia (CITA), 2013 8th International Conference on, pp. 1-4. IEEE, 2013.

[3] Singh, Rajinder. “An Overview of Android Operating System and Its Security.” Int. Journal of Engineering Research and Applications 4, no. 2 (2014): 519-521.

[4] “Android”, Android, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.android.com/. [Accessed: 02- Jan- 2018].

[5] Nimodia, C., and H. R. Deshmukh. “Android operating system.” Software Engineering 3, no. 1 (2012): 10.

[6] Yap, Kok-Kiong, Te-Yuan Huang, Masayoshi Kobayashi, Yiannis Yiakoumis, Nick McKeown, Sachin Katti, and Guru Parulkar. “Making use of all the networks around us: a case study in android.” In Proceedings of the 2012 ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Cellular networks: operations, challenges, and future design, pp. 19-24. ACM, 2012.

[7] Silberschatz, Abraham, Peter Baer Galvin, and Greg Gagne. Operating system concepts essentials. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2014.

[8] Kulkarni, Santosh, and Prathima Agrawal. “Introduction.” In Analysis of TCP Performance in Data Center Networks, pp. 1-15. Springer, New York, NY, 2014.