In this blog post, we will look at the growth background of the smartphone market and the major operating systems and core technologies that are leading the way.
With the advancement of communication technology, our lives have undergone many changes. In particular, smartphones can be said to be the communication device that has changed our lives the most in recent years. Smartphones are devices that make our lives more convenient through data communication and GPS. In particular, they allow us to perform various tasks through applications. This article focuses on providing useful information for those considering purchasing a smartphone.
The prototype for the current form of the smartphone was created by Nokia in Finland. At the time, Nokia was the company with the largest market share in the mobile phone market in 2004. However, Nokia decided that the smartphone it had developed would not be successful in the market and abandoned the plan. However, in 2007, Apple launched the iPhone, based on the system of its previously released iPod touch, thereby pioneering the smartphone market. Since then, various operating systems such as Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Phone, as well as smartphones like the Galaxy S and Optimus, have been released. In particular, Apple has pioneered and led the smartphone market by prioritizing design—as Steve Jobs once said, “Design is not just about appearance; it’s about functionality”—while also providing outstanding performance.
Smartphones are primarily categorized based on their operating systems. While there are various operating systems such as Android, iOS, Symbian, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone, the two that currently dominate the smartphone market are Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. These two operating systems differ significantly in terms of openness and closedness. Android is a smartphone operating system based on the Linux computer operating system. Linux is an open-source OS, allowing users to modify and customize it as needed. Android, similarly, can be customized, enabling manufacturers like Samsung and LG to adapt the operating system to their own specifications. In contrast, iOS is a proprietary OS developed by Apple, characterized by its closed nature. This closed nature is particularly evident in iTunes, the program used for syncing and managing content on iOS devices. Android allows free file transfer via USB, but iOS requires synchronization through iTunes for file transfer.
This openness and closed nature have their respective advantages and disadvantages. Apple’s iOS is only installed on its own smartphones, so the types of devices are very limited. Therefore, it is easy to optimize applications for each device. This can be a disadvantage in terms of market share, as only a limited number of devices are released. On the other hand, Android is used by various smartphone manufacturers, resulting in a wide variety of devices. However, even if the OS version is the same, the performance of the devices may vary, so it is necessary to optimize applications for all types of devices. Nevertheless, the advantage is that a wide range of smartphones with different sizes, performance levels, and prices can be released, allowing for significant growth in market share.
In addition to the points mentioned above, there are other differences between the two operating systems. Android can be described as an operating system designed to implement a small PC. It aims to maximize the implementation of PC-like multitasking in a mobile environment. One of the initial issues with Android was speed, as proper multitasking requires hardware performance, which was lacking in early smartphones. In contrast, iOS is an operating system designed from the ground up to be suitable for a mobile environment. When one application is running, other applications temporarily pause. While iOS is an operating system focused on optimization, a drawback is that developing applications requires Apple-sold computers like MacBooks. Additionally, as a later entrant, Android has fewer applications compared to iOS. This means users have fewer options, but Android is quickly closing this gap thanks to its open-source nature.
Next, let’s look at the CPU, which plays an important role in smartphone performance. Computer CPUs are mainly manufactured by Intel and AMD. Before the advent of smartphones, CPUs for electronic devices were almost exclusively manufactured by Intel and AMD. However, these CPUs had the drawbacks of high power consumption and excessive heat generation, as they were designed for computers with a constant power supply or laptops with large batteries. To address the need for smaller laptops, Intel developed the ATOM CPU, but it was based on standard computer CPUs and did not achieve significant success. However, the landscape began to change when ARM introduced a new low-power CPU architecture. Companies that had struggled to grow due to Intel and AMD’s dominant market share in the PC CPU market began developing CPUs based on this new architecture.
Currently, the main companies producing smartphone CPUs include NVIDIA, which had focused on graphics card development, Texas Instruments (TI), Samsung, Apple, and Qualcomm. Intel also produced small devices using ATOM CPUs, but was unable to overcome their limitations and currently only produces CPUs for netbooks. Apple’s iPhone is equipped with a CPU developed in-house, and Samsung also uses its own CPUs in its flagship models.
Samsung and Apple’s CPUs are highly regarded for their superior performance compared to CPUs from other smartphone manufacturers. NVIDIA’s CPUs have been criticized for their high heat generation and power consumption since their days as graphics card developers, and their early mobile CPUs also received similar criticism. Texas Instruments’ mobile CPUs are known for their high efficiency with low power consumption, making them suitable for a wide range of smartphones. However, Qualcomm’s CPUs hold the largest market share in the smartphone CPU market. Qualcomm is a company that develops and manufactures communication module chips, producing a single chip that enables communication and smartphone control. This allows many manufacturers to reduce weight, thickness, and power consumption by using Qualcomm’s CPUs. In particular, Qualcomm’s CPUs are optimized for simultaneous use of 4G LTE and 3G, making them the preferred choice for many 4G smartphones. However, Qualcomm’s CPUs currently on the market are considered to be somewhat inferior to those of other companies in terms of performance.
Now let’s take a look at displays, which are what users see and touch the most. Recently, TVs have been changing from cathode ray tubes to PDPs, LCDs, and LEDs. However, LCDs and AMOLEDs are mainly used in smartphones. LCDs work by changing the transmittance of liquid crystals in response to voltage changes to produce colors. A drawback of this method is that the pixels themselves do not emit light. Therefore, a backlight is used to emit light through the pixels to produce colors. Since colors are produced in this way, power consumption is the same regardless of the color. In contrast, AMOLEDs incorporate thin-film transistors in each light-emitting pixel to control light emission. This enables the creation of highly detailed screens, and when displaying black, the light-emitting elements can be turned off to reduce power consumption. However, this is less than OLED, which is the foundation of AMOLED, but not less than LCD. Additionally, the manufacturing process is complex, resulting in insufficient production volumes. Samsung leads the development and production of AMOLED and primarily uses it in its own smartphones. In particular, due to the complex manufacturing process, Samsung uses the pentile arrangement instead of the RGB (red, green, blue) method, where each pixel displays all three colors. In the pentile arrangement, one of the three colors originally required for each pixel—green, which the human eye is most sensitive to—is retained, while the remaining red and blue colors are alternately arranged. This method reduces pixel density, thereby increasing production efficiency. Additionally, Samsung’s AMOLED displays have a slight yellowish tint when displaying white. To address this, a blue pigment is added to the protective glass layer, resulting in white when viewed by the human eye.
Let’s take two representative smartphones as examples. One is the iPhone 15 Pro running iOS, and the other is the Galaxy S23 Ultra released by Samsung. These two models represent the top-tier devices of the two leading operating systems in the smartphone market as of 2024. When comparing the performance of each smartphone, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is equipped with a 3.36GHz octa-core CPU, 12GB RAM, and a 6.8-inch display (3088×1440, Dynamic AMOLED 2X). On the other hand, the iPhone 15 Pro is equipped with a 3.78GHz hexa-core CPU, 8GB RAM, and a 6.1-inch display (2556×1179, Super Retina XDR OLED). When comparing device performance, the Galaxy S23 Ultra excels in multitasking and high-performance gaming thanks to its high-end specifications. On the other hand, the iPhone 15 Pro offers a stable and efficient user experience based on iOS’s optimized performance.
Nowadays, users hardly experience any inconvenience from the operating system. Therefore, users can choose a smartphone based on their personal design preferences and operating system preferences. The current smartphone market holds immense potential for growth and is poised to become a major market that could replace the traditional mobile phone market. Just as computers and the internet have become deeply integrated into our daily lives, smartphones will also become an essential device in our everyday lives.
