A lot of talk is given over to who is "winning" the war for mobile operating system (OS) dominance. Will Android crowd out Apple? Is Apple untouchable thanks to the App Store? Will Windows Phone shake things up? It's easy to forget that none of these options existed 4 years ago. This is an industry that puts small, cute devices in people's pockets, devices that connect people with their family and loved ones. That means its open to customer fickleness, rage, despair and downright lust. For the manufacturers, it's worth remembering that Motorola sold 120 million units of their RAZR mobile only 4 years before they were forced to sell to Google. Nokia is lost in the wilderness after 20 years of everyone else being "an alternative to Nokia".
For the makers and designers of the operating systems, the situation is even more volatile. Apple's iOS is not quite 5 years old. Android is 3. Windows Phone is due any day now. CompareMobilePlans looks at three also-rans who once looked unbeatable.
Symbian
Status : Pretty Much Dead
Still one of the most popular OS in the world, thanks to the fact that it's been around a long time and is still sitting on a whole heap of old phones. Symbian is familiar to most people as the OS for Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones. It began life as an independent, open-source foundation, which Nokia eventually took control of. Until 2007, most people didn’t realize they were operating a Symbian phone, simply because there was little to compare it to. When the iPhone came around, suddenly people started to notice that their phone had an operating system, and that it was old. Nokia released Symbian to the control Accenture, another tech firm, to concentrate on Windows Phone as of September 2011. While support for Symbian should continue for some time, it is doubtful the platform will release any more versions, and will one day go the way of Betamax and HD-DVD in the graveyard of abandoned technologies.
BlackBerry OS
Status: Dying
Before Apple came along and created iPhone lust, the term “CrackBerry” had been thrown about for Research in Motion’s (RIM) line of business oriented smartphones. Reliable, safe and running the miles-ahead BlackBerry OS, the phone was a necessity for entrepreneurs and business people. In just a few short years, The BlackBerry phone and OS are fighting for their lives. Tiny bits of the BlackBerry OS, such as BBM (BlackBerry messaging, a chat client) and BlackBerry Email have made their way to other phones and platforms, suggesting that if RIM does go down, you can expect the best parts of their clean and fast OS to be picked over by the competitors. The latest stable release, BlackBerry OS 10, shows promise of being a good touch-interface OS, but that may not be enough to keep the patient alive.
WebOS
Status : Dead
The descendant of PalmOS, the first touchscreen OS for PDAs. Palm, the creator of the OS, closed shop in 2009 and sold out to HP, who have done precious little with the newly named WebOS. An attempt to launch into tablets with the Touchpad failed horribly, until HP started selling them for $99 in a massive fire sale. The Touchpad briefly became the world’s #3 selling tablet, with HP losing money on every single one. HP quickly turned around and said they'd be getting out of hardware altogether, leaving many to wonder if WebOS would ever find a home. HP has recently released the OS into Open Source, meaning anyone can use it as they please. But will they? Android offers features that make WebOS redundant. The only advantage it had was a clean, fluid, pleasant interface, and that simply will not be enough.
Honorable Mention
Meego
Status: Stillborn
Alas. In between Nokia abandoning Symbian and hitching their wagon to Microsoft's star, they tried a dandy, lightweight little OS called Meego. Released on the N9 (which as of this writing is Nokia's best available smartphone), Meego runs fast, does what it needs to and doesn't get in the way. With Windows Phone coming along, Meego will be abandoned. Maybe some day, someone else will come along to pick it up. Probably not.