Difference Between Android and Symbian

The entrance of the Android operating system into the smartphone market has ruffled more than a few feathers. Not just because it is backed by the Internet giant Google, but also because of the exuberant acceptance of many to the new platform. Compared to the industry giant Symbian, Android is very new with just a handful of handsets under its belt. Symbian roughly has 44% of the market while that of Android is about a tenth of that. But in terms of growth, Android far exceeds Symbian as the former has grown exponentially in just a couple of years while the latter has constantly been losing market share for quite a while now.

Since Symbian has been around for quite some time, it was in use with ordinary phones back when smartphones are not yet very common.  It was designed to work on phones that have typical keypads and QWERTY keyboards. On the other hand, Android was designed from the very beginning to work with touch capable devices and includes all the tools to take advantage of the GUI and the touch screen interface. Rather than navigating through multiple menus, many of Android’s features can be reached with a few taps on the screen.

Although there have been updates to Symbian to add new features like touch functionality, its core has remained the same for quite some time now. The lack of major changes means that Symbian is quite outdated when it comes to new trends and technologies. Although the initial versions of Android was full of bugs and lacked many features, Google has maintained a brisk update schedule to address the issues. The latest version can now compete with other smartphone operating systems.

The Symbian OS has almost become synonymous with Nokia mobile phones because it is used mostly on the aforementioned phones. Although there are a few manufacturers who use Symbian every now and then, the great bulk is still with Nokia. With Android there is no single phone manufacturer that clearly dominates the production of Android phones. The competition between manufacturers to produce the best Android phone is also one of the reasons why development maintains a very fast pace.

Summary:

1. Android is fairly new and has a smaller market share than the older Symbian
2. Android is designed around touch capable devices while Symbian is designed around keypad devices
3. Symbian is somewhat outdated while Android is constantly updated
4. Android is used by many phone manufacturers while Symbian is almost exclusive to Nokia