The Competition Between Apple and Android

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There are several competitors in the mobile technology field, but Apple and Android are the clear leaders of the pack. They both have comprehensive app markets and high cell phone sales. There are some differences, however, that might eventually make one do better than the other.

Apple

One reason why Apple has done so well in the cell phone industry is because of their iPod. For a long time, the iPod was the best device for listening to music. Apple combined the concept of their iPod with a cell phone to create the iPhone. To date, the iPhone is still the best smartphone for listening to music.

Apple’s app market is another reason why they are able to compete so well. Every one of their apps is tested before it is released to the market, making them have one of the most secure platforms for users.

Android

Android may have entered the competition late, but they are now strong competition. Their app market is growing at a phenomenal rate, and you can find pretty much any app on Android that you can find on Apple.

One reason why Android is so popular is because they have a huge selection of phones. This is because their operating system is open-source, making it easier for developers to launch new phones. For instance, you can buy an LG Android phone, an HTC Android phone, and more. This is a huge advantage for Android because they may beat out Apple based on their large selection of phones.

The competition between Android and Apple is still raging, and it will be interesting to see which competitor comes out on top. Will it be a battle between app markets, phone options, or something else?

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Apple Versus Android Affects Us All

 

Image representing Apple as depicted in CrunchBase 

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The advent of the smartphone goes past the usual hyperbole involving new inventions. The device has the potential to alter nearly every aspect of human life. The technology has already replaced mainstays such as voice recorders and alarm clocks. In the future, smartphone might even replace wallets –complete with picture of kids.

 

The biggest question the future of the smartphone faces might be, which operating system will the majority of people use? The smartphone market in the United States is currently dominated by Apple and Android. Google owns and operates the Android, which has been the more flexible of the two systems.

Android phones are made by several companies, which Apple has keep its operating system only on its in house products. There are advantages to both methods. It is easier for developers to test applications on Apple products, while the abundance of the Android has allowed it to rapidly catch-up with Apple.

Android robot logo. 

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Which system will dominate the highly rigid Apple or the more open Android? Apple recently announced that it would collect 30 percent of fees from applications that require subscriptions. This move angered developers, and it displayed the type of power that smartphone operates hold. Losing out on Apple customer’s business is worst that putting up with Apple’s heavy demands.

Smartphones are a vital part of the economy and people’s personal lives. As reliance on smartphones grows the importance of a company’s philosophy grows. Even though Apple might be an innovator, its rigid practices might turn against it.

In the fight for the smartphone market, customer service and perception will matter. In the fight to be the dominant operating system the winner will affect the lives of virtually everyone.

 

 

 

 

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What You Should Consider Before Selecting a Linux Distribution?

BEIJING, CHINA-OCTOBER 23: The new operating ...
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Most of those who want to try Linux for their personal or business use face the challenge of figuring out the Linux distribution best suitable for their needs. There are few prime factors that can help you understand which Linux distribution is suited the most to your requirements. These factors are:

Availability and compatibility of software:
You should know the purpose of using the computer before choosing a Linux distribution to install on it. In the actual fact, you should be aware of what software applications you are going to run on the computer running a Linux operating system. You can easily find out which distributions of Linux can run the software application you wish to use after the installation. It is completely pointless to install a fancy and popular Linux distribution if there is no compatibility between the operating system and your software application.

Ease of use:
Although, almost all the popular distributions of Linux are quite user friendly at this age, it is still quite important to see how easy is it for you as a user to be able to use it. The reason why you should consider ease of use as a parameter is the co-existence of console version of Linux along with a Window-based GUI (Graphical User Interface). Many people switching from Microsoft Windows to Linux are usually not very comfortable using the console terminal of Linux. You should know your competence level on Linux based on your usage of computer.

Availability of hardware:
Hardware is a very important factor in deciding on the Linux distribution for installation. You should be aware if your favourite Linux distribution is compatible with your hardware. For example, LinuxPPC does not run on the machines based on regular x86 architecture, while it runs on the Apple based old computers.

A good consideration of these factors will help you understand better about your own Linux machine. These factors are also quite useful in order to choose the distribution of Linux that meets your exact needs without causing operational issues at later stages.

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Choose Your Linux Flavor Based on the Available Hardware

Box cover shot of Red Hat Linux 5.2
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As with most of the software applications, it is equally important to assess the compatibility of your hardware with the Linux distribution you wish to install. Indeed, one of the most important factors in deciding the Linux distribution for the installation is the hardware compatibility. Before you plan to install Linux, you should be well aware if the distribution is made to run on the hardware you have. This is also an important factor because of the several different distributions of Linux unlike Microsoft Windows and Mac operating systems. Because of a huge variety of Linux distributions, it’s often difficult to say how reliably each particular distribution has been tested before coming to the real use.

There are some Linux distributions that are specific to a particular hardware, e.g. LinuxPPC cannot run on the widely available x86 based computers and can only run on the older Apple based computers. Similarly, various kinds of Sun hardware (a SPARC processor or a modern UltraSparc) need different versions of Linux for their optimal usage.

Also, there are certain Linux distributions that are apparently known to be optimized for few processors, e.g. AMD Athlon processors. Such Linux distributions can of course run on the other CPU’s such as 486, 586 or Intel Pentium processors, but they will deliver the best performance if ran on an AMD Athlon CPU. However, it is sometimes the case that these special Linux distributions may not be so reliable only because they are tested by a smaller number of people.

Many of the Linux distributions have a collection of software for generally available computers. Most commonly available kernels are for the x86 family of Intel processors. These distributions have large community efforts invested in their testing and development, which is why they are known to be quite reliable and widely accepted for the enterprise usages too. The most popular kinds of Linux distributions today are, Debian, Core Fedora, UBuntu, SuSE, Red Hat Linux, Madriva to name a few. You should select a Linux distribution considering the hardware, compatibility of frequently used software and your comfort level using Linux.

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Open-Source Operating Systems Revolutionizing Mobile Computing

Today, the world is becoming smaller due to the round-the-clock and quick connectivity between the computing devices. The current generation in the era of I.T. development is of mobile devices, such as netbooks, mobile phones, smartphones, PDA’s, tablet PC’s and notebook computers. With increasing computing powers, increasing wireless connection capabilities, and reducing screen sizes, advanced developments in operating systems were also bound to take place. Linux, being one of the leading operating systems, impressed the world with its capabilities to run on the mobile platforms.
Although, there are several operating systems optimized to run on the mobile devices, such as smartphones, touch screen based phones, and netbooks. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, Apple iPhone OS, Symbian OS, Palm OS, and Google Android etc. are few of the bestselling operating systems that have proven their worth with their strong followership among the mobile consumers. Prevalence of open source and freely available software among these operating systems can be easily manifested by the growing popularity of operating systems, such as Google Android, Symbian, Nokiaâ’s Maemo, and Palm’s WebOS in the recent quarters.
Undoubtedly, Apple iPhone jumpstarted a new era in mobile computing technology and came bundled with lots of goodies, in terms of a wealth of mobile based applications. However, the Linux based open source OS, Google’s Android is now proving to be a real rival to Apple’s proprietary iPhone. Essentially, the reason for its growing popularity is the freedom with which, developers can contribute to the application development for Android. They need not buy or learn any proprietary software or programming language and Android’s development kit fits nicely with developers existing tools and utilities.
Witnessing the success of open source software, such as Linux and its flavors for the mobile devices, mobile industry giants like Nokia got an inspiration and open-sourced their popular operating system, Symbian. Looking the success and growing consumer base of the devices powered by the open-source operating systems, it seems fair to say that future of I.T. lies with open source software and proprietary software vendors might soon look to change their business models and open-source their software applications.

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Samsung Galaxy Adds Android’s Power to Your Palm

Samsung Galaxy
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Among the cut-throat competition to develop products equipped with the latest technologies, Samsung unveils the Samsung Galaxy smartphone. It is one of the high-end smartphones powered by Android and built by Samsung. While many consider it as a Samsung’s attempt to remain in the frontline with modern mobile products, some think of Samsung Galaxy as an economic alternative to Apple’s iPhone 4. Reviewers and experts may have varying opinions, but here are some interesting features which make Samsung Galaxy an interesting product and even, a good buy:

- It’s the slimmest Android-based phone available in the market till date. This does not have much to do with the computing power, but is a feature often appreciated by the people with good aesthetic sense.
- AMOLED (Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) powered impressive 3.2 touch screen is not only capable of displaying striking colors, but also results in a significant reduction in energy consumption and an increased battery life.
- A high quality and highly sensitive camera capable of taking pictures of up to 5MP resolution. Of course, you cannot expect this to be a replacement for a dedicated digital camera. Nevertheless, its auto-focus capability makes it a good camera capable to taking good photographs for a smartphone. Only negative point is the slow recording of the picture after the click of camera. It reduces the speed of clicking consecutive snapshots.
- It boasts of all the latest connectivity options, such as USB, Bluetooth, HSPDA7.2, GPS, Wi-FI, quad-band EDGE/GPRS etc. making it a device equipped with the latest in technology.

Overall, if you are looking for a reasonably priced and reliable smartphone, which can bring Linux-based Android’s power to your palm, Samsung Galaxy just fits your choice. Its capability to run most of the Android-based open source free and paid applications, a powerful processor, speed of browsing, and long battery life really makes it a competent candidate in a market with the presence of strong-selling HTC Desire and Apple iPhone4.

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Android and iPhone OS – the Linux-Based Market Leaders for Mobiles

In this age of fast and compact computing devices, several I.T. giants have delved into the development of mobile based operating systems. Microsoft Inc., being a leading vendor in the PC based operating systems, came up with WinCE followed by Windows Mobile editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Along the same path, evolution of mobile based flavors of Linux kept pace in addition to the development and establishment of Linux as a core computing platform. These developments are still going on and have given birth to an entirely new age in the wireless computing market.

The latest and two most successful mobile operating systems are Google’s product Android and Apple’s product iPhone, which are based on Linux. These operating systems are meant to run on specific mobile devices and are becoming revenue generating sources for several mobile handset manufacturers. Google Android can run on the mobile devices manufactured by several companies whereas iPhone OS is specifically designed to run on the Apple iPhone and Apple iPad devices.

There are several differences in their look and feel, capabilities, functionalities, features, compatibilities, and of course, their users. However, the thing that remains common and is the least known to most of the mobile users is that they both are built on a Unix core. This is not to say that the software developed on Linux or Mac can directly run on Android based phones or iPhones. Android and iPhone OS are two well-customized operating systems that are optimized to run on specific hardware and can support only the application specifically designed for them.

In addition to their common core operating system, their popularity in the current market is another commonality between Android and iPhones. These both operating systems have millions of mobile applications available for download today. These operating systems have been getting richer with the wealth of capabilities and applications developed by numerous developers from all over the world.

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Comparing Cell Phone Plans Online

Since 1991 the Linux Operating System has been an ever increasing force in the Operating System landscape. Linux is one of the most important and popular operating available, falling just behind Windows and Apple OS. Where Linux differs from these corporations is in its corporate ownership. Linux isn’t owned by a single corporate entity or brand like Microsoft and Apple. Instead it is built on a collaborative platform that is shared between a variety of companies and individuals — making Linux the best selling shareware in the world.

Linux spreads its operations between 1,000 developers contributing from at least 100 different companies. Linux operating systems can be found in a variety of products, making it the most versatile operating system on the market. Linux operating systems can be found in laptops, GPS systems, televisions, SONY readers, and TiVo Digital Video Recorders. Many cell phone manufacturers, such as Motorola and Google Android, run on Linux operating systems. Many phone companies are expanding their cell phone plans to include more Linux run Smartphones. Many popular web devices such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, Linked In and others rely on Linux to run their sites.  In fact, even the New York Stock Exchange is run by a Linux operating system.

Linux is rolling out several exciting new features that will contribute to the further development of the PC and Mobile Internet Devices (MID) found in Smartphones. The BIOS for laptops and computers is being installed with a Linux operating system that allows the user to turn on the computer in a matter of seconds without the long lag time between turning on the computer and using it — something that has long plagued PCs.

Linux, with its unique business model and extremely easy and reliable operating system, is a sure bet when it comes to choosing an operating system.

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