Android is a Linux-based operating system designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers, developed by Google in conjunction with the Open Handset Alliance.Initially developed by Android Inc, whom Google financially backed and later purchased in 2005, Android was unveiled in 2007 along with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 86 hardware, software, andtelecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.
Google releases the Android code as open-source, under the Apache License.The Android Open Source Project (AOSP), lead by Google, is tasked with the maintenance and further development of Android.Additionally, Android has a large community of developers writing applications ("apps") that extend the functionality of devices. Developers write primarily in a customized version of Java, and apps can be downloaded from online stores such as Google Play (formerly Android Market), the app store run by Google, or third-party sites. In June 2012, there were more than 600,000 apps available for Android, and the estimated number of applications downloaded from Google Play was 20 billion.
The first Android-powered phone was sold in October 2008,and by the end of 2010 Android had become the world's leading smartphone platform.It had a worldwide smartphone market share of 59% at the beginning of 2012,and as of third quarter 2012, there were 500 million devices activated and 1.3 million activations per day.
Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD, sometimes called Berkeley Unix) is a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by theComputer Systems Research Group (CSRG) of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995. Today the term "BSD" is often used non-specifically to refer to any of the BSD descendants which together form a branch of the family of Unix-like operating systems. Operating systems derived from the original BSD code remain actively developed and widely used.
Historically, BSD has been considered a branch of UNIX—"BSD UNIX", because it shared the initial codebase and design with the original AT&T UNIX operating system. In the 1980s, BSD was widely adopted by vendors of workstation-class systems in the form of proprietary UNIX variants such asDEC ULTRIX and Sun Microsystems SunOS. This can be attributed to the ease with which it could be licensed, and the familiarity it found among the founders of many technology companies of this era.
iOS (previously iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system developed and distributed by Apple Inc. Originally released in 2007 for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it has been extended to support other Apple devices such as the iPad and Apple TV. Unlike Microsoft's Windows CE (Windows Phone) andGoogle's Android, Apple does not license iOS for installation on non-Apple hardware. As of September 12, 2012, Apple's App Store contained more than 700,000 iOS applications, which have collectively been downloaded more than 30 billion times. It had a 23% share of the smartphoneoperating system units sold in the first quarter of 2012, behind only Google's Android.In June 2012, it accounted for 65% of mobile web data consumption (including use on both the iPod Touch and the iPad). At the half of 2012, there were 410 million devices activated.According to the special media event held by Apple on September 12, 2012, 400 million devices have been sold through June 2012.
The user interface of iOS is based on the concept of direct manipulation, using multi-touch gestures. Interface control elements consist of sliders, switches, and buttons. Interaction with the OS includes gestures such as swipe, tap, pinch, and reverse pinch, all of which have specific definitions within the context of the iOS operating system and its multi-touch interface. Internal accelerometers are used by some applications to respond to shaking the device (one common result is the undo command) or rotating it in three dimensions (one common result is switching from portrait to landscape mode).
iOS is derived from OS X, with which it shares the Darwin foundation, and is therefore a Unix operating system. iOS is Apple's mobile version of theOS X operating system used on Apple computers.
In iOS, there are four abstraction layers: the Core OS layer, the Core Services layer, the Media layer, and the Cocoa Touch layer. The current version of the operating system (iOS 6.0) dedicates 1-1.5 GB of the device's flash memory for the system partition, using roughly 800 MB of that partition (varying by model) for iOS itself.
Linux (i/ˈlɪnəks/ lin-əks[6][7] or /ˈlɪnʊks/ lin-uuks)[8][9][10] is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of Linux is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released 5 October 1991 by Linus Torvalds.[11][12]
Linux was originally developed as a free operating system for Intel x86-based personal computers. It has since been ported to more computer hardware platforms than any other operating system. It is a leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as mainframe computers andsupercomputers:[13][14][15][16] more than 90% of today's 500 fastest supercomputers run some variant of Linux,[17] including the 10 fastest.[18] Linux also runs on embedded systems (devices where the operating system is typically built into the firmware and highly tailored to the system) such as mobile phones, tablet computers, network routers, televisions[19][20] and video game consoles; the Android system in wide use on mobile devices is built on the Linux kernel.
The development of Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration: the underlying source code may be used, modified, and distributed—commercially or non-commercially—by anyone under licenses such as the GNU General Public License. Typically Linux is packaged in a format known as a Linux distribution for desktop and server use. Some popular mainstream Linux distributions include Debian(and its derivatives such as Ubuntu), Fedora and openSUSE. Linux distributions include the Linux kernel, supporting utilities and libraries and usually a large amount of application software to fulfill the distribution's intended use.
A distribution oriented toward desktop use will typically include the X Window System and an accompanying desktop environment such as GNOME orKDE Plasma. Some such distributions may include a less resource intensive desktop such as LXDE or Xfce for use on older or less powerful computers. A distribution intended to run as a server may omit all graphical environments from the standard install and instead include other software such as the Apache HTTP Server and an SSH server such as OpenSSH. Because Linux is freely redistributable, anyone may create a distribution for any intended use. Applications commonly used with desktop Linux systems include the Mozilla Firefox web browser, the LibreOffice office application suite, and the GIMP image editor.
OS X ( /oʊ ˌɛs ˈtɛn/),[8] formerly Mac OS X,[9] is a series of Unix-based graphical interface operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. OS X is designed to run exclusively on Macintosh computers, having been pre-loaded on all Macs since 2002. OS X, whose X is the Roman numeral for 10 and is a prominent part of its brand identity, is built on technologies developed at NeXT between the second half of the 1980s and Apple's purchase of the company in late 1996. It was the successor to Mac OS 9, released in 1999, the final release of the "classic" Mac OS, which had been Apple's primary operating system since 1984. Apple also uses 'X' in 'OS X' to emphasize the relatedness between OS X and UNIX. Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" running on Intel processors,[3] Mac OS X v10.6 "Snow Leopard",[4], OS X v10.7 "Lion" [7] and OS X v10.8 "Mountain Lion"[5] have obtained UNIX 03 certification. iOS, which runs on the iPhone,iPod Touch,[10] iPad, and the 2nd and 3rd generation Apple TV,[11] shares the Darwin core and many frameworks with OS X. An unnamed variant of Mac OS X 10.4 powered the first generation Apple TV.[12]
OS X originally ran on PowerPC-based Macs. In 2006, the first Intel Macs had a specialized version of Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger". In 2007,Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" was the first to run on both PowerPC and Intel Macs with the use of Universal Binaries. Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" was the first version of OS X to drop support for PowerPC Macs. Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" was the first version of OS X to drop support for 32-bit Intel processors and run exclusively on 64-bit Intel CPUs.
The first version released was Mac OS X Server 1.0 in 1999, and a desktop version, Mac OS X v10.0 "Cheetah" followed on March 24, 2001. Releases of OS X are named after big cats: for example, OS X v10.8 is referred to as "Mountain Lion".
The server edition, Mac OS X Server, was architecturally identical to its desktop counterpart, and included tools to facilitate management of workgroups of OS X machines, and to provide network services. Starting with Mac OS X v10.7, OS X Server is no longer offered as a separate operating system product; instead, the server management tools are available for purchase separately, and are preloaded on the server models of Mac Pro and Mac Mini along with OS X.
Microsoft Windows is a series of graphical interface operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft.
Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs).[2] Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market withover 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984.
The most recent client version of Windows is Windows 7; the most recent server version is Windows Server 2012; the most recent mobileversion is Windows Phone 7.5.
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform,although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market.It was launched in the second half of 2010, with a release in Asia following in early 2011.With Windows Phone, Microsoft created a new user interface, featuring itsdesign language called Metro. Additionally, the software is integrated with third party services and Microsoft services, and sets minimum requirements for the hardware on which it runs
Google releases the Android code as open-source, under the Apache License.The Android Open Source Project (AOSP), lead by Google, is tasked with the maintenance and further development of Android.Additionally, Android has a large community of developers writing applications ("apps") that extend the functionality of devices. Developers write primarily in a customized version of Java, and apps can be downloaded from online stores such as Google Play (formerly Android Market), the app store run by Google, or third-party sites. In June 2012, there were more than 600,000 apps available for Android, and the estimated number of applications downloaded from Google Play was 20 billion.
The first Android-powered phone was sold in October 2008,and by the end of 2010 Android had become the world's leading smartphone platform.It had a worldwide smartphone market share of 59% at the beginning of 2012,and as of third quarter 2012, there were 500 million devices activated and 1.3 million activations per day.
Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD, sometimes called Berkeley Unix) is a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by theComputer Systems Research Group (CSRG) of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995. Today the term "BSD" is often used non-specifically to refer to any of the BSD descendants which together form a branch of the family of Unix-like operating systems. Operating systems derived from the original BSD code remain actively developed and widely used.
Historically, BSD has been considered a branch of UNIX—"BSD UNIX", because it shared the initial codebase and design with the original AT&T UNIX operating system. In the 1980s, BSD was widely adopted by vendors of workstation-class systems in the form of proprietary UNIX variants such asDEC ULTRIX and Sun Microsystems SunOS. This can be attributed to the ease with which it could be licensed, and the familiarity it found among the founders of many technology companies of this era.
iOS (previously iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system developed and distributed by Apple Inc. Originally released in 2007 for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it has been extended to support other Apple devices such as the iPad and Apple TV. Unlike Microsoft's Windows CE (Windows Phone) andGoogle's Android, Apple does not license iOS for installation on non-Apple hardware. As of September 12, 2012, Apple's App Store contained more than 700,000 iOS applications, which have collectively been downloaded more than 30 billion times. It had a 23% share of the smartphoneoperating system units sold in the first quarter of 2012, behind only Google's Android.In June 2012, it accounted for 65% of mobile web data consumption (including use on both the iPod Touch and the iPad). At the half of 2012, there were 410 million devices activated.According to the special media event held by Apple on September 12, 2012, 400 million devices have been sold through June 2012.
The user interface of iOS is based on the concept of direct manipulation, using multi-touch gestures. Interface control elements consist of sliders, switches, and buttons. Interaction with the OS includes gestures such as swipe, tap, pinch, and reverse pinch, all of which have specific definitions within the context of the iOS operating system and its multi-touch interface. Internal accelerometers are used by some applications to respond to shaking the device (one common result is the undo command) or rotating it in three dimensions (one common result is switching from portrait to landscape mode).
iOS is derived from OS X, with which it shares the Darwin foundation, and is therefore a Unix operating system. iOS is Apple's mobile version of theOS X operating system used on Apple computers.
In iOS, there are four abstraction layers: the Core OS layer, the Core Services layer, the Media layer, and the Cocoa Touch layer. The current version of the operating system (iOS 6.0) dedicates 1-1.5 GB of the device's flash memory for the system partition, using roughly 800 MB of that partition (varying by model) for iOS itself.
Linux (i/ˈlɪnəks/ lin-əks[6][7] or /ˈlɪnʊks/ lin-uuks)[8][9][10] is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of Linux is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released 5 October 1991 by Linus Torvalds.[11][12]
Linux was originally developed as a free operating system for Intel x86-based personal computers. It has since been ported to more computer hardware platforms than any other operating system. It is a leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as mainframe computers andsupercomputers:[13][14][15][16] more than 90% of today's 500 fastest supercomputers run some variant of Linux,[17] including the 10 fastest.[18] Linux also runs on embedded systems (devices where the operating system is typically built into the firmware and highly tailored to the system) such as mobile phones, tablet computers, network routers, televisions[19][20] and video game consoles; the Android system in wide use on mobile devices is built on the Linux kernel.
The development of Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration: the underlying source code may be used, modified, and distributed—commercially or non-commercially—by anyone under licenses such as the GNU General Public License. Typically Linux is packaged in a format known as a Linux distribution for desktop and server use. Some popular mainstream Linux distributions include Debian(and its derivatives such as Ubuntu), Fedora and openSUSE. Linux distributions include the Linux kernel, supporting utilities and libraries and usually a large amount of application software to fulfill the distribution's intended use.
A distribution oriented toward desktop use will typically include the X Window System and an accompanying desktop environment such as GNOME orKDE Plasma. Some such distributions may include a less resource intensive desktop such as LXDE or Xfce for use on older or less powerful computers. A distribution intended to run as a server may omit all graphical environments from the standard install and instead include other software such as the Apache HTTP Server and an SSH server such as OpenSSH. Because Linux is freely redistributable, anyone may create a distribution for any intended use. Applications commonly used with desktop Linux systems include the Mozilla Firefox web browser, the LibreOffice office application suite, and the GIMP image editor.
OS X ( /oʊ ˌɛs ˈtɛn/),[8] formerly Mac OS X,[9] is a series of Unix-based graphical interface operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. OS X is designed to run exclusively on Macintosh computers, having been pre-loaded on all Macs since 2002. OS X, whose X is the Roman numeral for 10 and is a prominent part of its brand identity, is built on technologies developed at NeXT between the second half of the 1980s and Apple's purchase of the company in late 1996. It was the successor to Mac OS 9, released in 1999, the final release of the "classic" Mac OS, which had been Apple's primary operating system since 1984. Apple also uses 'X' in 'OS X' to emphasize the relatedness between OS X and UNIX. Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" running on Intel processors,[3] Mac OS X v10.6 "Snow Leopard",[4], OS X v10.7 "Lion" [7] and OS X v10.8 "Mountain Lion"[5] have obtained UNIX 03 certification. iOS, which runs on the iPhone,iPod Touch,[10] iPad, and the 2nd and 3rd generation Apple TV,[11] shares the Darwin core and many frameworks with OS X. An unnamed variant of Mac OS X 10.4 powered the first generation Apple TV.[12]
OS X originally ran on PowerPC-based Macs. In 2006, the first Intel Macs had a specialized version of Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger". In 2007,Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" was the first to run on both PowerPC and Intel Macs with the use of Universal Binaries. Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" was the first version of OS X to drop support for PowerPC Macs. Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" was the first version of OS X to drop support for 32-bit Intel processors and run exclusively on 64-bit Intel CPUs.
The first version released was Mac OS X Server 1.0 in 1999, and a desktop version, Mac OS X v10.0 "Cheetah" followed on March 24, 2001. Releases of OS X are named after big cats: for example, OS X v10.8 is referred to as "Mountain Lion".
The server edition, Mac OS X Server, was architecturally identical to its desktop counterpart, and included tools to facilitate management of workgroups of OS X machines, and to provide network services. Starting with Mac OS X v10.7, OS X Server is no longer offered as a separate operating system product; instead, the server management tools are available for purchase separately, and are preloaded on the server models of Mac Pro and Mac Mini along with OS X.
Microsoft Windows is a series of graphical interface operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft.
Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs).[2] Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market withover 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984.
The most recent client version of Windows is Windows 7; the most recent server version is Windows Server 2012; the most recent mobileversion is Windows Phone 7.5.
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform,although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market.It was launched in the second half of 2010, with a release in Asia following in early 2011.With Windows Phone, Microsoft created a new user interface, featuring itsdesign language called Metro. Additionally, the software is integrated with third party services and Microsoft services, and sets minimum requirements for the hardware on which it runs