Aliyun Cloud OS powered K-touch smartphone

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By Ragu. Posted on 26 August 2011.

Alibaba, a china-based company has released its Cloud OS for smartphones which is running on K-Touch W700 smartphone in China and it would extend to overseas soon. Google has taken cloud computing to the next step with its Chromebook, by virtualizing the OS and Apps. Hence Alibaba’s Aliyun OS is not new to the cloud OS market but to cloud-based smartphones. It is definitely a next step forward which virtualizes the mobile OS compatible with many web apps and Android apps too. For the Android apps lovers, switching to Aliyun Cloud OS would not be a loss for them as they can still enjoy android apps via a Waterloo-style emulation layer

With the handset priced just above $400, the end users do not have to install apps on their handsets; instead they click bookmarks or icons on their mobile to connect to the apps running in the cloud. The users can store and pull out data from virtual servers and they are offered 100GB of cloud storage expandable for its initial users. When there is an update on the software, the developers update in the cloud and the users do not have to keep an eye on it. They only need to have a cloud account and mobile internet to use the apps on their mobiles. Alibaba is developing its English version hopefully to be released by the end of this year. The only disadvantage can be the internet that needs to be well-connected while using the cloud apps. However, 3G and rising 4G support faster connectivity but within the coverage area.

The Specifications for K-Touch W700 other than its Cloud OS include Tegra2-A9 chipset with dual-core processer with 1GB clock speed per core, 512MB RAM, 3.8” touchscreen with multi-touch functionality and resolution of 480x800 pixels. The memory can be extended up to 32GB with a microSD and 100GB of cloud storage is available for its initial users. It has a 3MP front camera for video calling and a 5MP camera on the back for photos and videos with CMOS sensor, auto-focus and digital zoom. It supports Bluetooth, WIFI, EDGE, GPRS and HSPA.

As this is the first Cloud-based smartphone, it cannot be compared to other smartphones for that they use a different OS and need different hardware configuration to run the non-cloud OS but the advantages of using a Cloud-based smartphone can be compared over the Android and iPhone OS. The users for Android, iPhone and other operating systems can still enjoy the cloud services like Dropbox, Sugarsync, iCloud, CloudDrive and other cloud storage services from their mobile phones but they have apps running on their handset which requires a better hardware configuration. This concept of running the apps in the cloud makes the users rely more on the internet but only at the time when there is nothing survives without internet. When the mobile phone internet users are moving from microSD or inbuilt memory on their handsets to virtual storages, this can be the time have their apps virtual.

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