the development of mobile software applications.doc

The development of mobile phones operating system has encouraged the development of mobile software applicationsWei ZhangEAP6110Eve Sawyer-McCareyAugust 13, 2012 Although in worldwide the most used mobile phones are the so called second-generation mobile phones, the whole industry is moving to a band new phase that people can use more advanced mobile software application. The functionality of the phone is becoming more powerful. The current development can be comparable to the palm computer. And the development of mobile operating system has encouraged the development of mobile software applications.As opposed to the first-generation phones which came out in 1985 and only used for voice calls, the second-generation mobile phones are able to receive data that allow users to receive and send mails and connect to internet.1 Beside the advance on hardware, the third-generation mobile phones upgraded voice and data transmission speed, which bring a world to us. In order to fit the enchantment on hardware and network speed, it is obvious that the operating system of mobile changed significantly.In 1990s, the first-generation mobile phone came out. Frank Nack, a professor, refers in his article that “Towing, taxi, and trucking services used the first mobile communication systems, which involved a dispatcher at a central base station communicating to business radio systems. These simplex systems only let one party talk at a time.” 2 From Franks article, its clear that the operating system of this mobile phone just provide the platform for users to operate.Second-generation mobile phones (2G) are the most common mobile phones. Often, these phones use the GSM or CDMA, a mature standard, with a stable quality of the call and standby time. Tianzhou Chen quotes that in order to meet the needs of data communications, some intermediate standards on the second generation mobile phone are supported, such as support for MMS, GPRS and WAP services, Internet services, as well as a variety of Java programs.3 Generally speak, the second-generation mobile phones provide some specific software applications which need extra space and preassembled program on operating system.With the development of communication and computer technology, new technologies are adapted in communication devices. 3G is the abbreviation of the 3rd Generation, the third generation of communications technology, relative to the first generation analog standard cell phone (1G), in terms of the second generation of digital mobile phone (2G). Jianye Liu states that 3G is the new generation of wireless communications and Internet multimedia communications system.4 It can handle images, music, video streaming and other forms of media, including web browsing, conference calls, e-commerce and other information services system. After the come out of the third generation mobile technology, the whole industries develop prosperity. 4G is short for the fourth generation mobile communication technology, is a set of 3G and WLAN and be able to transmit high-quality video images and image transmission quality comparable to high-definition television technology products. 4G systems to 100Mbps speed 2000 times faster than dial-up, upload speed can reach 20Mbps, and can meet almost all users of wireless services. Mobile phones which can support 3G and 4G technology are so call smart phones. There mobile phones need a quite different and advanced operating system which not only can support basic functions but also preassembled some global-acknowledged protocols.From a strict point of view, there is not a clear sense of operating system during the period which mobile phones first come out. Mobile phones only need to meet the call function and need not so complex computing power. Besides, the mobile phone platforms are closed, and various mobile phone manufacturers were doing their own mobile phones, used their own proprietary software. Thus, there is not a general purpose operating system, and this is a bit like the original mainframe era. Chen xin, a professor in computer science of a university, believes since then, the variety of mobile phones came out, more and more tasks had become increasingly complex. A closed system is clearly unable to meet this demand, so the smart phones and mobile operating system came into being.5 Symbian operating system is an example of early third-generation mobile phones operating system and formerly known as British Psions EPOC operating system, its original idea is to design a simple and practical mobile phone operating system. Although Symbian uses EPOC as a base, its architecture includes multi-tasking, multi-running threads and memory protection. Symbian saves memory and clears the stack can effectively reduce the consumption of resources, the technology is also used in the phone memory and memory card. Symbian programming using the event-driven, when the application does not handle the event, CPU (central processing unit) will be shut down, thus making Symbian system is energy efficient. These technologies make C + + development on symbian become complex. However, many Symbian devices also support Python, QT, and J2ME development. Symbian is merely the early smart phones operating system, but progress of mobile system make mobile phones be able to achieve some special functions such as background control, multi-thread operate. Without doubt these progresses provide an absolute different experience for users. Except Symbian system, there is some other operating system of mobile phone. Frode Sivertse, a mobile software developer, stated that “Linux itself offers standardized APIs to be used by programmers. It is already well known that the Unix/Linux community has one of the largest service/application developer bases. This is where the key to Linux success will lie; With an open kernel, already used for years, with developers knowing it inside out, they have the potential to extract the money from this industrys future main income: services and applications.”6Based on the advantages of Linux mobile operating system, a new kind of mobile phones operating system is developed. Android mobile phone platform are based on Linux as the core. With the rapid development of the Android as an open operating system, this mobile phones operating system allows developers to use a variety of programming languages to develop Android applications, instead of previously only using Java to develop Android software applications. And thus it is welcomed by many developers to become the true sense of the open operating system.From these examples of mobile phones operating system, it is clear that the operating system of mobile phones affect the applications. How can the operating system of mobile phones encourage the development of mobile software development? The phone software applications are software installed on the phone which used to improve the deficiencies of the original system and personalized. With the development of science and technology, the functions of mobile phones are more and more powerful. And with the development of operating system of mobile phone, the way programmers develop the application also changed.Due to there was not a true operating system and the functions of mobile phone were so simple, merely application could be found on the first-generation mobile phones. The only function of this mobile phone was to receive mobile voice. Similar to the simple radio duplex radio, the calls were locked in a certain frequency. So there is no application were developed. As I mentioned before, there are some difference between the first-generation and the second-generation. Global System of Mobile communication is known as GSM, is currently the most widely used mobile phone standard. More than 200 countries and more than 1 billion people are using GSM phones. Compared to the previous standard, the biggest difference is that the signaling and voice channels are digital. Thus, GSM has been seen as the second generation (2G) mobile phone systems. This bought us a new way to communicate called short message. Short message service, which short for SMS, are text or digital information which are sent or received directly through phone or other telecommunications terminal. In order to meet these needs, beside the development of operating system, some new application should be developed and preassembled on the mobile phones. The operating system of second-generation mobile phones was adapted to fit the global system of mobile standard. Due to the mobile phones can receive and send digital signals, the application that receive and send short message has been developed. It show a clear idea that the development of science and technology bring the development of hardware and give out a new standard, the set up of new standard and the development of hardware will require programmer to develop new application which make the device achieve new functions.In recent years, the industry comes in to boom and develop rapidly. Due the development of science and technology, there are several kinds of operating system come out, and both of them are used for smart mobile phones. Here is an example. IOS was first published in this weeks Macworld Expo on January 9, 2007, then in June the same year published the first edition of IOS operating system, the original name for the iPhone runs OS X . IOS system architecture is divided into the following four levels: the core operating system (the Core OS layer), the core service layer (the Core Services layer), the media layer (the Media layer), the Cocoa Touch framework layer (the Cocoa Touch layer). Compared to the other intelligence platform, IOS platform is the most closed that only apple device can use. But due to large share of mobile markets and convince of this operating system, the IOS is now one of the best operating system in the world. It also allows users to develop the application which can run on this platform. Xcode with the integrated development environment is a program that Apple provides developers for the development of Mac OS X applications. Whether developers use C, C + +, Objective-C or Java programming, scripting in AppleScript, or trying to transfer from another coding language, developers will find Xcode can build it fast. Each operation is quick and easy. Apple provides the user with a full set of free Cocoa application development tools (Xcode). This is means different with old process of mobile software development; the user can develop the application for themselves. They also can sale these applications on the store where Apple provide for users to download applications. It pushes the process of mobile software application development to users directly, which means not only programmers can develop the software application but also the users can develop too. Besides provide a new user experience, it will definitely encourage the development of mobile software application. Except providing tools for user to develop application by themselves, there are also another kind of operating system which open the core source and based on this user can develop their own operating system for mobile device. Which also an example of mobile phones operating system and share market with IOS is Android. Android is a Linux-based open source operating system, mainly used in portable devices. Android operating system originally developed by Andy Rubin, primarily support the phone. Android as an important part of the Google corporate strategy, will further promote the anytime, anywhere information to provide everyone with the goals of this enterprise. We found that the global number of mobile phone users have never used any Android phone. Googles goal is to make the (mobile communications) does not depend on the device or even platform. For this purpose, Android will complement, not replace Google has long pursued a strategy of mobile development: partnership, the development of useful, attractive mobile services through the mobile phone manufacturers and mobile operators around the globe. and promotion of these products.The android mobile operating system open source, all users can find the core code of the operating system. And according to users or mobile phone manufacturers needs, any changes can be made on this operating system and build up a new operating system that focus on special functions. This means the users or mobile phone manufactures not only can develop the mobile software application but also they can develop the operating system of the mobile phones for special functions. At this level, the some special operating system may focus on special functions such as safety, by the use of the tools provide by the operating system developer the application on this mobile devices can be developed in their own ways. This significantly promote the development of mobile software application by provide the special operating system for mobile devices.From another point of view, the progress made in technology and science also will have some bad effect on our lives. Delac, G, a professor in university of Zagreb, refer that “Since we consider the mobile applications to be the most convenient method for performing malicious attacks, we analyze the security model implemented by two widely spread platforms: the Android by Google and the iOS by Apple. The analyzed mobile platforms differ in their approaches to enforcing application security. The Android isolates applications in order to prevent them from interfering with other applications or the operating system. On the other hand, the iOS applications are screened for malicious intentions by code reviewers, thus allowing implementation of simpler security mechanisms. In order to demonstrate how Androids permission based security model could be breached, we present a fictive mobile application.”7 From this quotation, it is clear to see an emerging problem about the safety in mobile devices. The mobile software will give out personal information of users that had a bad effect on user daily lives by use the open interface of mobile operating system. Although there are some security problems, what is significantly can be seen is that the development of mobile operating system, from no true operating system in the first-generation phones to the open source operating appeared in smart phones, encourage the development of mobile software application. The operating system is basement of a mobile phone, and the platform of mobile software applications. The changes on operating systems of a mobile phone can be easily found on the mobile software application. The ai