As smartphone users continue to debate the relative merits of Google Android and Apple iOS, a new operating system has entered the market, offering a Chinese-developed alternative to software of foreign origin.

The operating system, known as China Operating System, or COS, was developed by the Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with Shanghai Lian Tong Network Communication Technology Inc.

The system has a number of key selling points, its developers say, including applicability to a wide range of computer-based hardware, not just smartphones, and the claim that it fixes a range of existing programming bugs and errors.