I understand iPhones and Droids. And how one can download and run an app to do just about anything.

What about other smart phones that does not run on apps, how do they work? Basically ww.htttp? Yes, I understand some websites won't work on phones, but for the most part, it will be just as good, right? So whatever program the phone comes with, that's the "special" app to run it (like facebook). I can't add my own, correct?

Is this a good basic understanding between the app phones and the non-app phones?

Example:
Samsung Impression.
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cel...SGH-A877RBAATT

 

Depending on the "smart" phone, you can still install certain apps that are available to that certain phone. These certain phones use proprietary operating systems (usually built by the companies that are based on Linux) which usually allow Java based apps to be installed and have their own app store (of course not as massive as iOS or Android's). When Symbian was king, Java based apps were plenty because Symbian was capable of running Java apps and if you wanted to, create your own and sideload it to the phone. Apps for the most part are just containers for websites and are usually unnecessary. Most phones, without dedicated apps can still access the websites through their mobile versions. Sure, you don't get the full functionality but that's expected. However, most of these other smartphones died once webOS, iOS and mainly, Android took off.


A lot of companies who were making these proprietary operating systems for their phones decided to go the Android route because it was free unlike Windows Mobile and iOS which require licensing fees to develop for and were restrictive. It also cut costs for their own R&D in said proprietary systems and allowed them to focus on just hardware while Google took care of the software side of things. Google also allowed the manufacturers to change aspects of the Android so long as they released their source code for the community as stated by GPL.