The momentum of the ‘alternative operating systems’ is slowly but steadily increasing. Today David Powell, Telstra’s general manager of Device Experience posted an entry on their company blog entitled Mobile operating systems of the future. Im this blog he says
In recent months, we have been working with the industry to evaluate new mobile operating systems currently being developed. This ensures that we stay at the forefront of new technology developments and continue to provide our customers with the best of what the market has to offer. Two technologies we have been looking at most recently are FireFox OS and Ubuntu.
Telstra are Australia’s largest telecoms provider with over 14 million users and a member of the Ubuntu Advisory Group that guides the developing OS. Their interest in these burgeoning operating systems shows the very real significance that the tech and telecommunication industry gives to providing customers with more choice in both their handsets and the way these handsets work.
The main two operating systems, Android and IOS, have been duking it out for several years now with no discernible loss to their own customer base but with clear losses being felt by Windows Phone and Blackberry, the only other real contenders out there. As such there is a serious feeling of stagnation with both of these dominant tech giants and the recent iterative updates of Android 4.3 and impending IOS 7 only supporting the sense of a lack of innovation.
Ubuntu, Firefox Os, Tizen OS and Sailfish OS are all designed to run HTML 5 apps as standard and have unique selling points specifically differentiating themselves from Google or Apple. Emerging in a close time frame to one another ensures that app developers will be able to design for one system but be relevant and usable by all four.
Two developer phones are already available from Firefox with a more advanced phone designed for consumers on pre-order. The Sailfish Jolla phone is scheduled to be in customer hands by fourth quarter of 2013 and the Ubuntu Edge is scheduled to go into production in May 2014 (as long as they raise the appropriate finance from their recent crowd-funding drive). We do not have confirmation of the first Tizen phone yet but as this OS is backed by Intel and Samsung we are sure to hear big things quite soon
To have FOUR new operating in various stages of production shows we have exciting times ahead. Do you have a favourite of these four ‘newbies’? Do you think any particular one stands out from the others? Do you think it is all a waste of time and no-one will usurp Android and Apples position? Let us know in the comments section below.
My personal favourite is Sailfish OS, so much so I’ve pre-ordered the Jolla phone! Can’t wait for it to be arrive…
I find this quite exciting for a number of reasons. Firstly, isn’t it just fantastic that all these free and open OS’s are being developed? It’s really quite a boon to the mobile space, and hopefully it will encourage manufacturers to just do the hardware (much like PCs), and leave the OS choice up to the end-user. I’m pretty sick of having to hack things just to get the software the way I want it.
Secondly, it gives the proprietary world a bit of a kick in the pants. Microsoft and Apple I’m talking here. Why would anyone pay extra for what these companies provide, just so they can be more restricted? Well, people do and will continue to do so, but if these OSs are as good as I think they might become, it’ll change the face of mobile computing as we know it, and considerably.
Finally, I truly hope that none of the devices which use these OS’s will be blighted by the patent wars that manufacturers of Android had to put up with. For most Android devices sold, they pay licence fees to Microsoft, and mostly for (what would look to most consumers) completely unreasonable patents. The less the likes of Microsoft are propped up by sales of other technologies the better.