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01NOV
The Ultimate Smartphone Shootout – Symbian vs
Android vs Windows Mobile vs BlackBerry vs
iPhone
By Guest Author on 1, November, 2010 13 Comments
Ok, so you want to buy a smartphone. Great choice. Modern smartphones gives you
robust email integration, great organization capabilities (notes, calendars et all),
great internet browsing experience, and above all, great extensibility through
applications. They are mini personal computers that you can carry around in your
pocket.

Now, the next question is, which one ? The engine behind a smartphone is
itsOperating System (OS). This presents you with 5 great choices, each with its
own pros and cons.
First lets see a few charts to set the context:

Symbian is the most popular operating system with about 40% share in all
handsets sold (as of Q2, 2010). RIM (BlackBerry), Android and iPhone OS
follow behind with about 20% share each.

Market share of Smartphone Operating Systems (Source: Gartner, August 2010)

Yet, the developer ecosystems of iPhoneOS and Android are much more active.
iPhone OS has the most apps available for it – over 200,000, while Android is
second with over 70,000 apps (as of Q2 2010). Such a large range of app
availability means that you are never short of new things to do with on these
smartphones.

Number of Apps Available in App Stores (Source: Mobile Developer Economics, 2010 and Beyond)

Ok, now that the figures are out of the way, lets hit the road and consider each OS on
the 2 most important parameters – user interface (how does the OS ‘feel’),
and application availability (i.e. how many applications are available to extend
the functionality of the phone – think news, social networking, dictionaries,
productivity and other apps).
User interface is more important for most users, so it will be ranked on a scale of 10,
while application availability will be ranked on a scale of 5. The sum of these two
scores will be the final score for each OS.

Please note that we are only considering the operating systems for touch
screens(which form a majority of the smartphones these days) – in fact, operating
systems such as iOS (iPhone OS) and Android are designed only for touch screens.
Now, lets look at each OS in detail. If you are interested in only the final scores, skip
to the bottom of this article.

Symbian
The oldest smartphone operating system. If you have owned a Nokia smartphone,
you are probably familiar with this OS.

Symbian was earlier a separate company but was acquired by Nokia in 2008. Today
virtually all Nokia smartphones as well as some of the smartphones from the likes of
Sony Ericsson, Samsung and LG are based on this OS. Lets rank it on the important
parameters

User Interface (for Symbian S60) : 6/10

How do we put this ? As far as touchscreen phones are concerned, Symbian is robust
and reliable, but its not really quite as intuitive as Android or iPhone OS.

Things which would require a 1-2 taps on Android tend to require 3-4 on Symbian
with its often redundant sub menus. Still, its pretty solid, and doesn’t take much time
to get used to.

Here is a look at the Nokia X6, based on the Symbian S60 Fifth Edition.

User Interface (for Symbian 3) : 7/10

The new version of Symbian – Symbian 3 – available in the newer Nokia
smartphones including N8 – revamps the ageing OS a bit, and improves the user
interface, bringing in multiple personalized home-screens, pinch to zoom
functionality etc, but still falls short of the more modern operating systems like
Android in terms of intuitiveness.

Here is a look at Nokia N8, based on Symbian 3.

Application Availability : 2.5/5

Being the oldest among the big smartphone platforms (and the most popular), there
is a decent variety of applications available for Symbian. The new Ovi Store makes it
easy to browse and download apps straight on your Nokia smartphone. And a
renewed push to the developer ecosystem (including introduction of carrier billing in
several countries) indicates that Nokia is prepared to give a good fight in the face of
hard competition.

That said, however, the variety of applications, currently available, still falls way
short when compared to Android or iPhoneOS (see chart).

Android
Anything from the house of Google is bound to generate hype and interest, so in a
sense Android was always destined to be successful. But it would be this successful,
not many imagined. With great overall performance, and simple, sensible
functionality that is the hallmark of virtually all Google products, Android has caught
on the imagination of mobile manufacturers like no other OS.
User Interface : 9/10
Android interfaces by the likes of HTC and Sony Ericsson have been praised
unanimously as being beautiful and intuitive. Even the plain vanilla interface
adopted by some manufacturers is pretty good, and makes up for its lack of flair with
simplicity of use.

So Android gets a clear thumbs up here. It would have been foolish to expect
anything else from Google anyway – they are great at designing brilliantly usable
interfaces.

Here is a video demo of HTC Desire, running on Android.

Application Availability : 4/5

So far the only platform to come even remotely close to challenging the number and
variety of apps on iPhone OS, the Android application market has grown by leaps
and bounds ever since its release. In fact it gets a leg up on the iPhone app store in
terms of the ratio of free applications to paid applications.
 Free vs Paid Apps (Source: Distimo Report, Jun 2010)

In fact some of the really good apps for Android are those already on the phone and
created by Google itself – the troika of Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Maps, are
brilliantly designed and sync flawlessly with your online accounts.

For instance, all your phone contacts are synced with your Gmail contacts, in effect
you always have a backup of your phone contacts in your Gmail account, so
absolutely no worries on that account, if your phone ever gets lost or stolen.

Windows Mobile 6.5

The mobile OS by Microsoft has been a decent, robust choice for businss phones.
Although often criticized for a dull interface, recent phones by the likes of HTC have
managed to, at least partially, turn that perception on its head, with slick and
intuitive interfaces built on top of the Windows Mobile platform.
User Interface : 6/10
Although the Windows interface brings with it robustness, it still fails to match up to
the best in class in terms of easy of use.

Here is a look at the Samsung Omnia 2 with Windows Mobile

Application Availability : 3/5

Like Symbian, Windows Mobile has fallen way behind in the app race, even with its
head start. Still it has a decent app variety backing it up, and the Windows Market
Place provides an easy way to download and install apps.

Of course, one great thing is that Windows Mobile also packs Office mobile, which
means you have reading/editing documents, spreadsheets and presentation straight
out-of-the-box, which is obviously great if you need access to such files on your
mobile.

Windows Phone 7
The most anticipated development in the smartphone market in recent times has
been the launch of the new version of the mobile OS from Microsoft. Called
‘Windows Phone 7?, its beautifully designed, and radically new interface has
impressed one and all with its focus and simplicity of use. It represents a fresh start
for Microsoft in this domain, and the initial reviews indicate that they are right on
target.

User Interface : 9/10

Introducing new elements such as ‘live tiles’ (links to applications and features that
are dynamic and update in real time – for example, the tile for an email account
would display the number of unread messages) and ‘hubs’ (for example, the Pictures
hub shows photos captured with the device’s camera and the user’s Facebook photo
albums) , Windows Phone takes a new, fresh approach to a smartphone, managing to
achieve both functionality and ease-of-use together.

Here is a demo of the Windows 7 User Interface (phones will be commercially

launched by the end of 2010):

Free vs Paid Apps (Source: Distimo Report, Jun 2010)

In fact some of the really good apps for Android are those already on the phone and
created by Google itself – the troika of Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Maps, are
brilliantly designed and sync flawlessly with your online accounts.
For instance, all your phone contacts are synced with your Gmail contacts, in effect
you always have a backup of your phone contacts in your Gmail account, so
absolutely no worries on that account, if your phone ever gets lost or stolen.

Windows Mobile 6.5

The mobile OS by Microsoft has been a decent, robust choice for business phones.
Although often criticized for a dull interface, recent phones by the likes of HTC have
managed to, at least partially, turn that perception on its head, with slick and
intuitive interfaces built on top of the Windows Mobile platform.

User Interface : 6/10

Although the Windows interface brings with it robustness, it still fails to match up to
the best in class in terms of easy of use.

Here is a look at the Samsung Omnia 2 with Windows Mobile

Application Availability : 3/5

Like Symbian, Windows Mobile has fallen way behind in the app race, even with its
head start. Still it has a decent app variety backing it up, and the Windows Market
Place provides an easy way to download and install apps.

Of course, one great thing is that Windows Mobile also packs Office mobile, which
means you have reading/editing documents, spreadsheets and presentation straight
out-of-the-box, which is obviously great if you need access to such files on your
mobile.

Windows Phone 7
The most anticipated development in the smartphone market in recent times has
been the launch of the new version of the mobile OS from Microsoft. Called
‘Windows Phone 7?, its beautifully designed, and radically new interface has
impressed one and all with its focus and simplicity of use. It represents a fresh start
for Microsoft in this domain, and the initial reviews indicate that they are right on
target.

User Interface : 9/10

Introducing new elements such as ‘live tiles’ (links to applications and features that
are dynamic and update in real time – for example, the tile for an email account
would display the number of unread messages) and ‘hubs’ (for example, the Pictures
hub shows photos captured with the device’s camera and the user’s Facebook photo
albums) , Windows Phone takes a new, fresh approach to a smartphone, managing to
achieve both functionality and ease-of-use together.

Here is a demo of the Windows 7 User Interface (phones will be commercially

launched by the end of 2010):

Application Availability : 2/5

Being a completely new OS, old Windows Mobile apps will not be able to work on the
Windows Phone 7. That means the OS has to take a fresh start, and will not have a
well loaded app store to begin with. However, Microsoft is pursuing developers
aggressively (Twitter, Ebay and IMDB apps have already been developed), and you
can expect a lot of action in this space shortly.

BlackBerry OS
The big daddy of business phones – RIM – relies on the sturdy BlackBerry OS to
power its handsets. Its strength, like that of the Symbian OS, is more in its
robustness, than ease of use.

User Interface (BlackBerry OS 5) : 6/10

Like the Symbian interface, BlackBerry OS is smart, and gets work done, but not as
fast, or as intuitively as Android or iPhone OS.

Here is a look at the BlackBerry OS 5 user interface on the BlackBerry Storm 2

User Interface (BlackBerry OS 6) : 7/10

The new version of the BlackBerry OS is a significant upgrade – with a more
functional home-screen, social feed apps, a better browser and a more touch-friendly
interface in general. BlackBerry Torch is the first phone to utilize it so far, and more
phones will be launched shortly.

Here is a look at the new user interface on BlackBerry Torch.

Application Availability : 3/5

Like Symbian, Windows Mobile has fallen way behind in the app race, even with its
head start. Still it has a decent app variety backing it up, and the Windows Market
Place provides an easy way to download and install apps.
Of course, one great thing is that Windows Mobile also packs Office
mobile, which means you have reading/editing documents,
spreadsheets andApplication Availability : 2.5/5
Again app availaibility is not as great as some other operating systems. But you will
certainly find all the major apps there (no serious developer would give the
BlackBerry a miss, with its lucrative business consumers). The BlackBerry App
World provides easy access to these apps.

Like Windows mobile OS, BlackBerry also usually packs capability for
reading/editing documents, spreadsheets and presentations straight out-of-the-box,
catering to its major market of business users.

iPhone OS (iOS)
The iPhone was that one revolutionary device that changed the way we looks at
phones. Forever. Never had the simple phone been transformed into something so
brilliant, and so beautiful.

User Interface : 9/10

Apple is the expert at designing beautiful and intuitive interfaces, and they hit the
jackpot again with the iPhoneOS. Successive versions have improved usability even
further. Really you have to use the iPhone to grasp the beauty of the software.

Here is a look at the iPhone 4 user interface.

Application Availability : 4.5/5

With the highest number of apps amongst any app store, Apple is the clear leader
and offers an astounding choice of apps to iPhone users (see chart). There is an app
literally for everything! News, reference, sports, weather, shopping, tv, movies,
games, notes, organizers, social networking – virtually every possible category is
loaded with hundreds of apps.

Final Scores
Here is a look at final scores.

Smartphone User Interface Application Availability Total

Operating System (On Scale of 10) (On Scale of 5) (On Scale of 15)

iPhone OS 9 4.5 13.5

Android 9 4 13
Windows Phone 7 9 2 11
 Smartphone User Interface Application Availability Total
Operating System (On Scale of 10) (On Scale of 5) (On Scale of 15)

Symbian 3 7 2.5 9.5

BlackBerry OS 6 7 2.5 9.5
Windows Mobile
6.5 6 3 9
Symbian S60 6 2.5 8.5
BlackBerry OS 5 6 2.5 8.5
The iPhone OS and Android emerge out as the clear winners. Its tough to
decide between them, but you can’t go wrong with either of those two. They are both
intuitive and well designed. Windows Phone 7 is the new kid on the block to watch
out for. It presents a completely fresh, new interface that is great at getting things
done quickly, and should appeal to a large segment of users looking for no-nonsense
phones.
BlackBerry and Symbian are solid operating systems in their own right, and have
large (and loyal) user bases. But in an objective analysis they tend to fall behind a
little when compared to the best-in-class. They will need to ramp up their game a bit
(which they do seem to be doing with their latest versions), to stay among the top
contenders in the long term.

On the whole though, this is an exciting time to buy a smartphone, with a large
variety of good products to choose from. And as the competition heats up further,
continue to expect a lot more action in this space.
[Reproduced from the PhoneCurry Blog; PhoneCurry is a website that helps Indians
decide which phone to buy ]

About Guest Author

The article has been contributed by guest author. If you would like to share your
opinion/insights/write a guest post, please get in touch [ashish at pluggd.in]
View all posts by Guest Author →
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13 Responses to The Ultimate Smartphone Shootout –
Symbian vs Android vs Windows Mobile vs BlackBerry
vs iPhone

1. Martin Hill says:

November 1, 2010 at 12:12 pm
I would argue Android should be scored significantly lower than iOS on a number of
counts.

App Availability:
AppBrain has found that 45,000 of the 100,000 apps in the Android Marketplace are
spam apps. In addition, over 50 Android Banking apps on the Marketplace were
found to be phishing malware as a was Movie Player app that turned out to be a
premium SMS texter trojan.

In addition, Android OS is severely lacking in big name game titles released by some
of the largest mobile Game publishers:
* Gameloft – 136 games for iOS vs 12 games for Android
* Capcom Mobile – 27 games for iOS vs 4 games for Android
* EA – 74 games for iOS vs 0 for Android
* Ngmoco – 42 games for iOS vs 0 for Android
* Pangea – 24 games for iOS vs 0 for Android
* Popcap – 5 for iOS vs 0 for Android
* ID’s new Rage game is only being produced for iOS

And total number of games:

iOS = 38,000 vs Android = 13,000

Although Popcap and EA have said they will start porting some games to Android
soon, this disparity is not likely to change much with iOS developers making 50x the
income ($1 billion) compared to Android ($21 million) over a similar timeframe and
with piracy ranging from 50-97% on Android.

The situation is the same for business apps and other genres. The Android App
market just does not compare to iOS.

-Mart