Smartphones

[Name if Institute]Smartphones

Introduction

According to a conventional definition of the smartphone, this is a handheld device that integrates and incorporates mobile cell features with games, music and video player, camera and imaging tools, personal digital assistant (PDA) or any other information and entertainment devices. In today's technologically advanced world, mobile or cell phones devices are used for entertainment purposes as much they are for basic cell phone services, i.e., to make and respond to calls and for sending and receiving text messages. One added benefit that today's smartphones offer is that they allow you to add applications to the device according to your preferences and needs.

Today, most smartphones have the features that were previously found only on PDAs such as address book, calendar and memo pads. But one major difference in a regular mobile phone or PDA and the smartphone is that the user of latter can usually operate all the functions of the phone using just one hand whereas the former requires the user to use both of his or her hands while operating the device (Ilyas, & Ahson, 2006). Today, iPhone, Android and Blackberry smartphones are the most popular smartphones in the world.

As expected, the widespread rise of smartphones attracted the attention of computer enthusiasts who generally use sophisticated techniques to exploit the vulnerabilities of these phones. Many studies show that smartphones are increasingly becoming the attractive platform for malware and virus attacks often intended to serve criminal purposes. The paper attempts to explore the most popular smartphone platforms mentioned above and viruses/malware that exist for each smartphone operating system, assessing the need for anti-virus software for those devices.

Discussion

iPhone

iPhone is one of most popular smartphones in the world. It is based on iOS mobile operating system which is developed by Apple Inc. iOS was released in 2007 for iPhone and iPod, a music player by Apple Inc. Later on, the operating system has been extended further to support other devices such as Apple TV and iPad, a tablet computer which was also designed by Apple. Unlike other mobile operating systems, the iOS is licensed to be installed on non-Apple devices. iPhone iOS currently holds nearly sixteen percent share of the smartphone market

The iOS's graphical user interface is designed utilizing the concept of direct manipulation using the multi touch gestures from the user. The control elements of the iOS interface comprises of buttons, sliders and switches. The core ...