What’s a mobile operating system?

You can think of a mobile operating system like the brains of your phone or device. The operating system is what controls what happens when you push certain buttons or icons on the screen or off. For example, Apple’s iOS operating system tells the phone to display the phone keypad when you touch the phone icon. On Windows Phone, it’s the operating system that displays the tiles on the home screen and controls what information is displayed on those tiles.

Even though every mobile operating system is different, they all follow some basic rules. For example, when setting up an email account, every mobile operating system requires you to enter some of the same information – your name, email address, and password. Some mobile operating systems can use this information to automatically obtain the rest of your customized settings, while others require you to enter that information manually.

Help me set up my mobile phone or mobile device

If you’re looking for instructions on how to set up your mobile phone to access your email, calendar, contacts, and tasks, we’ve provided several resources to help you. For information on the different mobile phone operating systems, see Mobile Phone Features.  If you’re not sure what mobile phone operating system you have, we also have a self-help page. We’ve recently made dramatic changes to the Mobile Phone self-help page. Here are just a few of the changes we’ve made to our documentation to make it easier for you to get the help you need.

• Mobile operating system specific instructions:  There are an incredible number of different mobile phone models available around the world and new models are being released every week. Despite the number of mobile phones there are, there are only a few mobile phone operating systems. While there are differences between each model of phone, the basic instructions you’ll use to set up your account are similar for all phones that use the same mobile operating system. Whether you have an iPhone, an iPad, or an iPod Touch, you can use the same instructions to set up your e-mail.
• International phone models:  Mobile phone models vary by geographic region. By grouping our instructions by mobile operating system, we are able to support a wider variety of mobile phone models, including those available in Europe and Asia.

Over the next few months, we will be adding more detailed information about additional mobile devices, including tablet computers.