Mobile Operating system

A mobile operating system (mobile OS) is the operating system that controls a smartphone, tablet, PDA, or other mobile device. Modern mobile operating systems combine the features of a personal computer operating system with touchscreen, cellular, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS mobile navigation, camera, video camera, speech recognition, voice recorder, music player, Near field communication, personal digital assistant (PDA), and other features.

Common software platforms:

Android from Google Inc.(open source, Apache)

• Android was developed by a small startup company(Android Inc.) that was purchased by Google Inc. Android is an open source, Linux-derived OS backed by Google; Used by Intel, HTC, ARM, Samsung, and Motorola.
• Programmed in  C, C++, Java.

BlackBerry OS from Research in Motion (closed source, proprietary)

• This OS is focused on easy operation and was originally designed for business. Recently it has seen a surge in third-party applications and has been improved to offer full multimedia support. Currently Blackberry's App World has over 50,000 downloadable applications; used in BlackBerry Phones
• Programmed in  Java.

iOS from Apple Inc. (closed source, proprietary)

• The Apple iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and second-generation Apple TV all use an operating system callediOS, which is derived from Mac OS X.
• Programmed in  C, C++, Objective-C.

Symbian OS from the Nokia and Accenture(open public license)

• Symbian has the largest share in most markets worldwide, but lags behind other companies in the relatively small but highly visible North American market. It has been used by many major handset manufacturers, including BenQ, Fujitsu, LG, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony Ericsson.
• Programmed in C++.

Windows Phone from Microsoft (closed source, proprietary)

• Microsoft unveiled its next-generation mobile OS, Windows Phone. The new mobile OS includes a completely new over-hauled UI inspired by Microsoft's "Metro Design Language". It includes full integration of Microsoft services such as Windows Live, Zune, Xbox Live and Bing, but also integrates with many other non-Microsoft services such as Facebook and Google accounts
• Programmed in  .NET (Silverlight/XNA).

webOS from HP (certain parts open sourced)

• webOS is a proprietary mobile operating system running on the Linux kernel, initially developed by Palm, which launched with the Palm Pre
• Programmed in  C.

Reference:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_operating_system