They’ve already conquered our smartphones, tablets and other nomad electronic devices, well now these mobile operating systems are about to take over in even more everyday items, everything from cars to home automation.

In the movie « Her », the character, played by Joaquin Phoenix, falls in love with an artificial intelligence system. Voiced by the delicious Scarlett Johansson, the system is everywhere never leaving the hero, as he speaks to her via his smartphone, desktop and other portable devices.
We're not yet in this ambiguous future, but the rise of mobile OS is an impressive phenomenon, as is the current domination by the two leading actors. Their success means that there is a risk will allow them to enslave their respective ecosystems. That was the case, for example, with repeated conflicts between press editors and the Apple Digital Newsstand. Apple charged them a 30% commission to be sold through iPads and others with no transmission to editors of data on their clients. The result? The French ‘Syndicat de la presse magazine’ stopped the relationship after boycotting the service for 4 months in February 2012, while the magazines of the Mondadori Group stopped stopped this method of distribution in December 2013.

A Google-Apple duopoly...

In 2013, one billion smartphones were sold – a record - and 93.8% were either Android or iOS. In fact, 78.6% run under Android (69% one year ago, source: IDC) and 15.2% on iOS (lower than the 18.7% of 2012).

Far behind, there is the Windows Phone which had only a share of 3.3% of smartphones sold in 2013 (though still better than the 2.4% of 2012). There are other operating systems, fallen stars (BlackBerry) or newcomers (especially open source: Ubuntu Touch, Firefox OS) that hope to get a place in this very unequal market.
The same dominant actors are found in tablets (source: Gartner): of the 195 million sold in the world in 2013 (116 millions in 2012), 61.9% run on Android, 36% on iOS and 2.1% on Windows.

...tomorrow on the road

But after the era of mobile computing, there will be that of the embedded and pervasive computing, and each one of these actors is preparing the ground. Apple announced at the Geneva Motor Show of March 2014 the next launch of CarPlay, which will connect iPhones (5, 5c and 5s only) and in-car systems. It will allow customers to see the functions of the iPhone on the dashboard of their vehicle. Already Volvo, Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz are interested, but others are too, like BMW, Ford, PSA Peugeot-Citroën.
What's next? Well Google is already well-known for its passion for the autonomous car, whereby the driver becomes just a passenger and is able read his newspaper while the vehicle drives him safely around. The firm has been driving prototypes since 2010, and these have driven hundreds of thousands of kilometers without accident.

An appetite like a horse

Waiting for their possible generalization, Google announced in January, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) of Las Vegas, the creation of the Open Automotive Alliance. With GM, Honda, Audi, Hyundai and Nvidia, Google will present end of 2014 the first Android cars. The services currently available on smartphones and tablets will be viewable on the dashboard too. This rise in the automobile sector worries other actors, like that director of the C2C car rental website CitizenCar, who wondered in 2012 if “after taking control of our screens with Android, are they preparing to do the same with our cars?”

For better or for worse, there is huge potential for a closer link up between telecoms, IT and automobile. In December 2010 already, the CEO of Renault, Carlos Ghosn, said that “the electric car is a platform” on which “we install systems and applications”.
In the same way, the coming boom of connected watches and home automation applications (lighting, temperature etc.) will generate enormous data streams, all in theory for our greater good; but there is a risk that their storage and processing benefit just a few greedy companies who’ll end up profiling us better.
So, does mobile computing promise a brave new world or a technological nightmare? Let's hope that our future OS will still be more like the Samantha of « Her » than the dangerous HAL of 2001, A Space Odyssey