Over the past decade, smartphones have taken the world by storm
and recently, tablets have entered into the arena as well. These
mobile devices are having a significant impact on our lives and
are in fact redefining the way we access information and
communicate with others. This is due to not only the hardware
but the specialized software that these devices run and most
importantly, their operating systems. In what follows, we will
take an informative tour of modern mobile operating systems,
their different types and usage across smartphone and tablet
platforms. Just like a PC can run different operating systems
(like Windows, Linux, BSD etc.) or different versions of the
same operating system (like Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
etc.), most smartphones can also run different versions of the
operating system they were made for and in exceptional cases,
they might even be able to run operating systems they weren’t
made for. In general however, an Android phone will only run a
version of Android while an