A mobile operating system is designed to control a mobile device such as a smartphone and is similar in principle to the operating systems that controls a desktop computer or laptop. In the UK, the smartphone market is dominated by Apples' IOS, Googles' Android and Blackberrys' RIM. The worldwide share of OS Handheld market is split as follows according to recent Gartners statistics:
- Android – 33%
- Apple 16%
- RIM 14%
- Symbian 31%
- Others – 6%
A clear trend is the surging growth in the number of mobile operating systems that are developed for smart phones rather than traditional features phones. These figures show the worldwide market share of the different operating systems and any consideration of these figures needs to bear in mind that Symbian use in smartphones is very limited and it will soon be made obsolete as a platform as Nokia turns to Windows Mobile OS instead. However, in the UK, Apples IOS is still dominant. However, since these figures were taken in October 2010, Google's' Android has continued on its ascendency and overtaken RIM. Research by Intelligent Environments show that iPhone users are more likely to spend more time using their phone and also more likely to spend more money on applications. This could be a result of the different personalities that attract with Apple marketing its products as high end, luxury goods while Android is built upon an open source method and this low cost model is more likely to attract users who are less included to pay for apps .
Moreover Britain is unique in that Blackberry remains an extremely popular mobile choice and only slightly behind Apple with a 36.22 per cent share of the market. But the Blackberry users are much less included to download and use apps. RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis confirmed that Blackberry App store sees around 1 / 20th of the download level as iPhone App store and contains around a 1 / 20thof the amount of apps to download. Most Blackberry user use Blackberry for the email and phone function and do not put in the same level of time and enthusiasm into their phones as iPhone and android users. We can conclude from this information that IPhones' IOS is still the most important market for application development partly because it still holds the largest market share in the UK for smart phones and also because of the relationship that iPhone users have with their phones. It means that the app is much more likely to be downloaded and used frequently. But watch this space as Android are closing this gap and with the increasing proliferation of Android and as the amount of high end Android users increase this will also mean that they are more likely to spend more time downloading and using apps. Have a look on the following link for more information on mobile applications development