A Tiny PC \_ _/ What's Wrong? \_ _/
Dirty Little Secret \_


by Eric Lin
February 3, 2005

Your mobile phone is not all that different from your PC. It looks
different, and acts different, but it shares many of the same
components. They both have processors, memory and chipsets. On top of
that, both have firmware (or BIOS, for you PC users), an operating
system (OS), and even applications. Although smartphones have better
publicized and more accessible operating systems and accompanying
applications, all phones use them.

Operating systems lend the same strengths to mobile platforms that
they do to desktops, but it stands to follow that they also suffer the
same weaknesses. They are large and complicated, and just as with
desktop OSes, they are sometimes released with a bug or two.

Most modern desktop systems include automatic updaters that check for
new software versions automatically. Although they may be buggy like
PCs, most phones cannot go out and check for software updates by
themselves to fix those bugs. Often times the user must check to see
what, if anything, is available should a problem arise. This guide
should give you a good idea of whether potential problems are
software-related, and what sort of update options are available now,
as well as how technology is evolving to update future handsets.

Next Page: What's Wrong? >

http://www.phonescoop.com/articles/firmware/index.php


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"Until last October, Christ had a very limited involvement in my life. I believed in God; I just never had to prove I believed. Belief is an absence of proof."
-- Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling


› See More: Software Updates: Working out the kinks