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Furthermore, the entire combination of mobile sensors, broadband connectivity,
and GPS capabilities is providing an environment conducive to augmented reality
applications.
Graphics quality has been one of the research lines in recent years for mobile
phone manufacturers. The high battery cost of graphics hardware had been hinder-
ing the innovation for some time. This issue was also preventing the interaction
with the social networks, since graphical capabilities are mandatory for a successful
interaction with Internet services. But this problem has been solved due to the
advantages of creating a new compact platform for mobile devices.
Multimedia quality is also a strong focus in research lines. New models come
with high-quality sensors, offering excellent image quality. This feature also
requires specific software to take advantage of the sensor's potential.
The hardware industry in recent years has been researching the deployment of a
compact and functional platform for mobile devices. Thanks to the advantages of
those deployments, manufacturers have found a way to integrate all the hardware
components in compact mother boards (graphical hardware, networking modules:
bluetooth, 802.11a/b/g/n radio, and multimedia components) all-in-one. For this
reason, it is difficult to find any significant difference between hardware compo-
nents and different models. Over the last 2 years, the hardware war has focused on
the appearance (device design) and software capabilities (mobile operating sys-
tems, software deployment platforms, and software distribution).
We should highlight that, due to the increasing use of social networks through
mobile platforms, smart phones need continuous connection with Web applications.
This use has pushed mobile phone operators and mobile phone manufactures to
offer new ways of data transmission with low cost and low-power consumption.
Moreover, some mobile phone operators and mobile phones manufactures have
established bilateral agreements to offer mobile phone solutions integrated with
broadband data plans.
11.4.2 Software Anatomy
11.4.2.1 Mobile Operating Systems
Due to improvements in hardware, mobile operating systems have been a partner of
those new hardware capabilities. For several years, mobile operating systems were
focused on limited functions, such as managing the communications modules, and
offered limited capabilities in data transmission. This situation caused a frozen
period in the software field concerning the operating systems in mobile phones,
whose only alternatives were Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, and Palm OS. After
the advances in the hardware industry, mobile operating systems as Symbian and
Windows Mobile began to have other competitors including RIM (Blackberry),
IOS (Apple), and Linux (Maemo, Bada, Limo, and Android). These alternatives in
mobile operating systems created a war between software manufactures and
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