Clash of the Titans: Battle of the Mobile Operating Systems

iOS6 vs Android Jelly Bean vs Windows Phone 8 vs Blackberry 10

Blackberry has finally come out with a new OS which seems like a complete overhaul of the previous generations. But is it enough to compete with the might of already established iOS and Android along with the emerging Windows Phone 8? We will find out when we compare the above.

Introduction

iOS 6: Apple has always followed a lock down approach and this is evident by the simple tile based interface of iOS. The screen has icons and folders. The interface is very simple to use.

Android Jelly Bean: Android has always given users maximum control over their devices and hence presents you with a plethora of options and ways to customize your mobile for uniqueness. It follows a home screen design with different screens sporting live widgets.

Windows Phone 8: Windows arrived late to the Mobile scene but is an emerging OS and is very simple for first time users of smart phones. It follows the metro style tile interface.

Blackberry 10: Blackberry 10 takes its design cues from both android and ios and adds its own twist to it. It has a gesture based interface making you slide your fingers across your device in various directions.

Messaging and Internet

Android Jelly Bean: Android has apps like google talk and Chrome browser already installed to facilitate messaging and Internet browsing but one can always go to play Store and install from a plethora of third party apps available for messaging(like WhatsApp, Skype etc) and browsing(like Firefox, Dolphin etc). Performance of the default browser Chrome is nice as it is a scaled down version of the desktop Chrome but it varies from device to device as some of the mid range and lower range devices experience certain amount of lag.

iOS 6: iOS has its own answer to BBM which is iMessage. iMessage is an app which allow iOS users to send and receive texts from all iOS users for free. The default browser is Safari which is again the scaled down version of the desktop Safari. Its performance is quite linear as the devices tend to be high end which means the performance would be same if you have an iPhone 4 or iPhone 5.

Blackberry 10: Blackberry 10 has its own popular messaging app known as BBM which allows all Blackberry users to communicate with each other. It has a Blackberry Hub which integrates all the social network updates, calls, emails, messages etc in one place. It has its own browser which looks similar to Internet Explorer found on Windows 8 devices and performs well. It supports flash also which was missing from BB7.

Windows Phone 8: It has introduced its Windows Live Messenger which allows you to go online and do instant chat with anyone. The browser used by Windows Phone 8 is IE10 which is quite good and performs well. It comes with features like phising filter and SmartScreen service.

Apps

Android Jelly Bean: The Play store has a variety of apps, most of which are free. The quantity of apps is great accounting to over 700,000+ apps.

iOS6: The App Store also has more than 700,000+ apps and the app store is nicely presented.

Windows Phone 8: It misses out on numbers but the library is growing.

Blackberry 10: This is a new OS and needs time to cope up .Blackberry stresses on quality hence the quantity is not there right now.

Maps

Android Jelly Bean: It uses the very obvious choice i.e the Google Maps which are very efficient and brings a whole lot of features like 3D navigation, Street view, turn by turn navigation etc. Google now adds even more functionality to it.

Windows Phone 8: It surprisingly ditches the Bing Maps and uses the Nokia Maps as its mapping solution. Nokia maps is pretty decent and does the job nicely without all the fancy features which are present in google maps.

iOS6: Apple decided to ditch Google’s Map solution for its homegrown Apple Maps which didn’t turn out as well as Apple thought. It was even so bad that the CEO of Apple Tim Cook made an announcement regarding the same and advised people to use competitor’s solution.

Blackberry 10: Blackberry has worked with Tom Tom to provide the Maps solution which does the job but only just. It is very light on features and not very impressive visually.

Conclusion

It is very difficult to decide which OS is better as every individual has its own set of priorities and choices.

Those who have a well setup Apple ecosystem like iPads, iPods, MacBooks etc may be more interested in the iOS 6 offering as it integrates everything seamlessly.

While Windows Phone 8 follows a metro style tile based simple UI, It is very good for first time smartphone users as it is very simple to learn and very straight foerward.

Though being simple was once the USP of Apple’s OS which lured users to smartphones isn’t the same anymore as people want more and more freedom in respect of personalization. Those wanting this kind of freedom will be looking for Android as it provides freedom to customize along with a huge apps list(Play Store) and rich features.

Now it’s the turn of Blackberry 10 which has a very limited target audience mostly in the business sector to take on the already established systems. As it is just launched, it is hard to say anything about its takers but it will find a hard time competing with Windows Phone 8 whereas iOS and Android are way beyond.

Winner

Although it is tough to decide, the fight is mainly between iOS and Android due to sheer fact that they are very well established and provides very rich functionality. If I would be the judge, It would be Android for me as it gives more freedom to customize and wealthy features combined with power.