Mobile operating systems. History of Symbian OS

Full reprint of the article. Why exactly here is the answer at the end. So: “Major platform update Windows Phone 7 is the most anticipated announcement of the MIX’2011 conference, which is currently taking place in Las Vegas. And there was something to look forward to. First, multitasking. Secondly, the Russian version. Thirdly, new software, in particular Skype, Angry Birds, etc. In addition to these three main points, Microsoft’s mobile platform will have a lot more in store this fall. Nokia also came to speak at MIX’2011, but first things first. Windows Phone 7 has only been around for six months, but has already become a noticeable phenomenon in the world of mobile platforms. Now there are more than 13 thousand applications for WP7 and about 100 appear every day, and IDC and Gartner predict WP7 second place after Android in four years. It's important to understand that WP7 has little in common with Windows Mobile, this is a completely new OS that most resembles Apple iOS in the iPhone. They say that it was the iPhone that became the prototype of Windows Phone 7 for Microsoft and the reason to radically change WP6.5.x. This is definitely the right path, since the old legacy was dragging Microsoft's mobile platform down. Today in Las Vegas at MIX’2011 plans for the future and details of the changes that were first promised to us back in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress 2011 were announced. The promised update is called Mango. There is an opinion that this name was chosen to show the superiority of Windows Phone 7 over iOS, because mangoes are sweeter than apples. In any case, this long-awaited update will bring many improvements to Windows smartphones. In particular, with Mango, devices running Windows Phone 7 will be able to run multiple applications at once. Some programs will be active, and others will be able to function in the background. This will be helped by Fast App Switching technology, which will manage the states and execution of running programs in a special way. I also note that new Live Agents are the overall concept for improvements to Live Tiles, Push Notifications and Deep Linking. Moreover, it will now be possible to update tiles, each application can create multiple tiles, and so on. And all this in real time. Applications in WP7 will run in the background as long as there are resources. Clear scenarios for multitasking are unknown, but in general system will be based on the availability of memory first. The background program that consumes more or has been inactive for a long time is “killed.” Details on how this will be done will appear in a month with the SDK. Whether resident priority classes and prescribed APIs will be forced to work is unknown. For the user, everything looks similar to Android - by holding down a key, the manager is available running applications, from which all manipulations are actually performed. The second important news is the Russian version of WP7. Now there is no Russification or official supplies of phones. Since the fall, the Russian language has become available, and it depends on the manufacturers when the smartphones themselves will go on sale. In addition to Russian, 15 new languages ​​are being added. The number of countries where you can buy Marketplace applications has also been increased - from 16 to 35. Of course, Russia is among them. But I’ll emphasize again: all this is only in the fall with the advent of Mango. The third thing that definitely needs to be mentioned is the new software. Thanks to socket support, Skype is now available. More precisely, it will appear only in the fall, because the Mango update will not be available earlier, and Skype will not work without sockets. But the long-awaited Angry Birds will be available very soon, on May 25th. The interface of both applications is already ready. Also, along with Mango, Windows Phone 7 smartphone users will receive a new Internet version Explorer 9. That is, smartphone users on WP7 will receive a browser with support for HTML5, Canvas and hardware acceleration, as in the desktop version of the Internet browser. Moreover, this is not a separate project, but completely developed by the same team that makes the desktop version. During MIX'2011, we were shown a comparison of the speed of HTML5 with Apple iPhone 4, Google Nexus S, and WP7 came out ahead. In addition, the version of Sirverlight has been updated - from 3 to 4. The capabilities of the latter were clearly demonstrated on 3D models. In addition to this, Mango will bring one and a half thousand new features for developers. This will allow you to create more interesting, high-quality software. In particular, there is support for additional sensors and the ability to implement augmented reality applications. The ability to package and deploy databases will be added SQL data CE. Additionally, Microsoft will merge XNA and Silverlight, making it easier to create mobile applications next generation. A package for developers will be released in May, and now the emulator is built into it. As for technical specifications, there are no changes yet. Accordingly, we can’t expect a price reduction for smartphones running WP7. In addition, you shouldn’t expect dual-core smartphones running WP7. Multithreading was shown, but no one is talking about parallelizing it yet. Multi-camera functionality is also not included in WP7, which means there will be no 3D smartphones for now. Nokia also performed at MIX’2011. But it looked, admittedly, very strange. A second-tier manager came out, thanked Microsoft for their cooperation and assured everyone of the bright future of the union. Just five minutes of fun and no information. It feels like something strange is really going on at Nokia. In addition to this ridiculous performance, the Finnish company also had a stand in the partners’ hall, where it showed off its Symbian smartphones. There they told me that WP7 devices from Nokia will only be available next year, but they will come with Mango and many other interesting features, we are waiting. To summarize, I can say that Windows Phone 7 is slowly but surely moving in the right direction. Today's announcement turned out to be very interesting, we got even more than we expected. Full-fledged IE9, multitasking and so on make WP7 a very promising platform. The only pity is that we have to wait until the fall for Mango, and this is only the OS, while the final devices depend on the wishes of the manufacturers. But if Microsoft sticks to the deadline this time, and Nokia really gives priority to WP7 and also hurries up with the release of devices, we will have a very promising new tandem in the mobile market.”

Symbian OS 9.4 operating system menu

Story

Over time, handheld computers became more and more powerful. By 1994, the 64 KB limitation of 16-bit systems was becoming a major obstacle to software development, and it was becoming clear that a system of this class would need to be portable to a wider range of devices. This is how the new Symbian OS system appeared. Retaining the best features of the previous Psion OS, it was intended to be fully 32-bit, portable to any hardware platform and architecture. This would allow Symbian OS to become open system, available for licensing by third parties mobile devices. For this purpose, an independent enterprise for creating software was spun off from the Psion group - Psion Software. New system was to become the standard for wireless information devices through licensing to a wide range of manufacturers in this industry. In April 1997, the first version of Symbian OS was released and was immediately created on its basis new product: Psion Series 5. Licensing of the new OS began even before its official release. Symbian OS with its efficiency and flexibility, as well as the high technical level of Symbian (formerly Psion Software) formed an extremely favorable basis for the creation of new system software for wireless devices. Psion Software was spun off from the Psion Group and changed its name to Symbian Ltd, becoming a joint venture between Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Psion. From the very beginning, the system was designed to be completely object-oriented. C++ was chosen as the implementation language as the most powerful and most functional object-oriented programming language to date.

October 2010: Along with the publication of positive financial results, Nokia announced a change in its strategy for the development of Symbian. From now on, the platform will be updated continuously, allowing users to install updates on their existing devices.

Nokia decided to abandon the release of Symbian^4, next version platform for smartphones, which was planned for release in 2011. Instead, the company intends to continuously improve the current version of the platform, adding new features to it step by step. The new approach will allow you to install updates on existing smartphones. That is, for example, if previously a user would have to wait for the release of the first mobile phones based on Symbian^4 in order to see this platform in action, now he can buy a Nokia N8 and wait for the corresponding update, writes Ars Technica. In the future there will be no separate versions of Symbian (^4, ^5, etc.), there will simply be the Symbian platform.

In addition, Nokia announced its intention to use the framework for developing Qt applications as the main one, both for Symbian and for its other platform - MeeGo. It is expected that this will improve the graphical interface of mobile devices and generally improve the quality of user experience - changing where Nokia loses the most to other vendors.

Nokia representatives assured that the company will try to save users from fragmentation (the presence of a large number of versions of the platform with which it is necessary to achieve compatibility). It is planned that all third-party software released up to a certain point will be compatible with Symbian updates that will be released in the future.

November 2010 The European Commission announced the allocation of €11 million as part of the state program to promote innovative economic development to support the Symbian platform. The same amount will be allocated by the SYMBEOSE (Symbian – the Embedded Operating System for Europe) consortium, IntoMobile reports. In total, an additional €22 million will be invested in the platform.

SYMBEOSE will focus on three goals. Firstly, the organization plans to make the development of Symbian devices easier by adapting the software to different chipsets. Secondly, the consortium will develop Symbian in the direction of embedded solutions ( household appliances, sensors, etc.). Thirdly, research will begin in the field of multi-threaded and cloud computing and other promising technologies for the mobile device market.

According to the official Symbian blog, the SYMBEOSE consortium includes 24 mobile phone manufacturers, operators, software developers and research centers from eight European countries. The Symbian Foundation and SYMBEOSE are separate organizations that will exist simultaneously and will not replace each other. The Symbian Foundation, a non-profit consortium founded by Nokia, leads the development and support of the Symbian platform for mobile devices.

Versions

OS Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a closed source operating system for PDAs in 1998 by Symbian Ltd. This platform was originally a follow-up distribution to EPOC Psion and ran exclusively on ARM processors (although there was an x86 variant).

Symbian has been used by many major mobile phone brands - Samsung, Motorola, SonyEricsson and, most notably, Nokia. A pioneer that created the smartphone industry, it was the most popular operating system for smartphones until around the end of 2010, a period of time when they were in limited use. Then its development was overtaken by the Android OS, as Google's developments quickly reached the mass consumer.

Operating system development

Symbian OS has been a shell system since 2001 and required an additional user interface (as middleware) to form a complete operating system. It then came into its own with the S60 (formerly Series 60) platform created by Nokia and first released in 2002. Since it was built-in on most Nokia smartphones, Symbian OS eventually became the most widely used smart mobile operating system.

UIQ was another "Symbian" user interface, mainly used by Motorola and SonyEricsson, while Japan also had the MOAP platform. The applications of these interfaces were not compatible with each other, despite the fact that each of them was built on Symbian OS. Nokia was the majority shareholder of Symbian and acquired its entire stake in 2008. After this, the non-profit Symbian Foundation was created with the goal of developing royalty-free software based on the S60. As a result of this work, Symbian ^1 (or S60 5th Edition) was released in 2009. The subsequent ^2 distribution was used only for the NTT DoCoMo media in the Japanese market. Symbian^3 was released in 2010, by which time it had become a completely open source platform. This version received significant updates in 2011.

The Symbian Foundation disbanded at the end of 2010, and Nokia regained control of OS development. In February 2011, Nokia, as the only remaining company that still supports Symbian outside of Japan, announced that it would use Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 as its main smartphone platform. Two months later, the OS was transferred to closed licensing. Despite the fact that support for the platform was promised until 2016, all developments since 2012 have progressed poorly. In January 2014, Nokia stopped accepting new or modified Symbian software from developers.

Nokia 808 PureView is official the latest smartphone Symbian from this manufacturer. However, NTT DoCoMo continued to release OPP (Operator Pack Symbian, successor to MOAP) devices in Japan, which still act as middleware on top of Symbian. Other Symbian OS phones that are widely used today are Fujitsu's F-07F and Sharp's SH-07F, released in 2014.

User Interface

Since its inception, Symbian has had its own graphics toolkit known as AVKON (formerly Series 60). The S60 was designed to be controlled using an interface tool-like (mini-QWERTY) keyboard. AVKON-based software is compatible with Symbian binary versions, including version ^3.

Symbian^3 includes the Qt framework, which is currently the recommended toolkit for new applications. Qt can also be installed on older devices running this OS.

The fourth distribution planned to introduce a new graphics library specifically designed for the touch interface, known as "UI Extensions for Mobile" or UIEMO, which was developed based on QtWidget. trial version was released in January 2010, but in October of that year Nokia announced that Orbit/UIEMO would not be coming to market.

How are things now?

Nokia currently recommends that developers use QtQuick with QML, a new high-level declarative user interface and scripting environment that allows development of both Symbian OS and MeeGo. It is available for existing third generation devices as a Qt update. As other applications gradually introduce the new user interface, the legacy S60 framework (AVKON) is pushed out and is no longer included in new devices, breaking binary compatibility with older Symbian OS S60 applications.

Browser

Symbian ^3 and earlier versions have a built-in WebKit-based browser. Symbian became the first mobile platform to use this application (in June 2005). Some older (Symbian OS) phones use Opera Mobile as their default browser.

Nokia subsequently released a new browser, Symbian Anna, with improved speed and a better user interface.

Multi-language support

Symbian has strong localization support, allowing manufacturers and third-party application developers to use their OS-based products to support global distribution. The current version of Symbian (Belle) supports 48 languages, which Nokia makes available on devices in language packs. They all have a common English or a locally corresponding dialect.

System characteristics

Symbian OS supports proactive multitasking and memory protection, just like other operating systems (especially those designed for desktop use). EPOC's approach to multitasking was borrowed from VMS and is based on asynchronous server events.

OS Symbian was created with three system design principles in mind:

• The integrity and security of user data is of utmost importance.
• The user's time should not be wasted.
• All resources are limited.

To better follow these principles, Symbian uses a microkernel, has a callback approach to services, and maintains a separation between the user interface and the engine. The OS is optimized for low-power battery-powered devices and ROM-based systems (such as features such as XIP and restart into shared libraries). Applications and the OS itself follow an object-oriented design: Model-view-controller (MVC).

Later iterations of the OS diluted this approach in response to market demands, especially with the introduction of the real-time kernel and platform security model in Symbian OS versions 9.3 and later.

Resource intensity

Particular attention is paid to resource conservation, exemplified by special programming idioms such as handles and cleanup stacks. Methods like these exist to save storage space. Additionally, all Symbian programming is event-based, and the central processing unit (CPU) switches to a low-power mode when applications are not directly related to an event. This is done using a programming idiom called active objects. Similarly, Symbian OS (9.4)'s approach to threads and processes is driven by reduced overhead.

Platform structure

The AllOver model contains the following layers from top to bottom:

• UI framework layer.
• Application services layer.
• Java ME.
• OS service level.
• General OS services.
• Communication services.
• Multimedia and graphic services.
• Communication services.
• Basic service level.
• Level of services and hardware interface of the kernel.

What does this mean?

The Basic Services tier is the lowest tier available for user operations. It includes file server and a user library, a plug-in platform that manages all plug-ins, storage, central repository, DBMS, and cryptographic services. It also contains a text window server and a text shell: two base services from which a fully functional port can be built without the need for any higher-level services.

Symbian OS has a microkernel architecture, which means that the minimum required is contained within the kernel to maximize reliability, availability, and responsiveness. It contains the scheduler, memory management, and device drivers, but other services, such as networking, telephony, and file system support, reside in the OS service or core services layer. Including device drivers means that the kernel is not a true microkernel. The EKA2 real-time kernel, which has been called the nanokernel, contains only the most primitive positions and requires an extended module to implement any other abstractions.

Compatibility

Symbian is designed to emphasize compatibility with other devices, especially removable media file systems. Early development of EPOC led to FAT becoming an internal file system (and remains to this day), but an object-oriented persistence model was placed on top of the underlying FAT to provide a POSIX-style interface and threading model. The internal data formats are based on the same APIs that create the data to run all file manipulations. This led to data dependencies and associated difficulties with data changes and migration.

There is a large networking and communications subsystem that has three main servers:ETEL ( telephone connection EPOC), ESOCK (EPOC sockets) and C32 (responsible for serial communication). Each of them has a plug-in circuit. For example, ESOCK allows different ".PRT" protocol modules to implement different network protocols. The subsystem also contains code that supports short communication links such as Bluetooth, IrDA and USB.

Interfaces and their support

There is also a large amount of user interface (UI) code. Symbian OS contained only the base classes and substructure, while most of the actual user interfaces were maintained by third parties. This is no longer the case. Three main interfaces - S60, UIQ and MOAP - were introduced into Symbian in 2009. Symbian also contains graphics, text layout and font rendering libraries.

All Symbian OS native C++ programs are built from three base classes defined by the application architecture: application, document, and application UI. These classes create the fundamental behavior of the application. The remaining required functions, the application view, model, and data interface are created independently and interact exclusively through their APIs with other classes.

Need for plugins

Many other components do not yet fit into this model - for example, SyncML, Java ME, which provides a different set of APIs on top of most OS and media. Many of them are frameworks and developers are expected to supply plugins for them from third parties (eg HelixPlayer for multimedia codecs). This has the advantage that the APIs for these areas of functionality are the same across many phone models, giving developers greater flexibility. But this also means that phone manufacturers have to do a lot of integration work to create a functional gadget with the Symbian OS.

Symbian includes a help user interface called TechView. It provides the basis for initial setup and is the environment in which many Symbian tests and sample code are run.

Symbian variants and platforms

Symbian, having advanced to OS version 7.0, has split into several graphical user interfaces, each of which is supported by a specific company or group of them. Unlike different versions of the Android OS, Symbian GUIs are called "platforms" due to more significant modifications and integration. Things became more complicated when applications (including Symbian OS games) developed for different platforms GUIs became incompatible with each other, which led to fragmentation of the OS.

Symbian is a company that provides an accessible, open-source operating system and licensing software for mobile devices.

Symbian was formed as a separate independent company in June 1998.

Symbian's head office is in the UK. Currently, its employee count exceeds 700 people. Five mobile device manufacturing companies use this operating system in their models. At least nine other participants in the mobile device market are planning to release models running this system.

Nokia has made an official statement about the open source codes of SymbianOS and its further development will be carried out according to the concept of software open to all users. It is planned that this solution will expand the number of developers and users of this operating system.

An interesting fact is that the statement about the open source codes of Symbian followed almost immediately after Google made a similar statement, “declassifying” the codes of the Android operating system. It is worth adding that some time ago Nokia officials stated that the company's policy does not exclude the possibility of starting production of mobile devices running Android OS.

Everyone knows that Symbian OS is a real gift for developers. The system is completely open, and anyone with some programming skills can try to improve it.

However, it should be noted that these wonderful opportunities for ordinary users will have little impact. Of course, after such a marketing move, the number of a wide variety of programs for owners of Symbian-controlled devices is growing exponentially.

Today, Symbian OS is a leader in its field, a multifunctional operating system that meets the modern requirements of most of the most popular protocols and standards. This program is also fully compliant technical level modern telecommunication systems. Symbian OS has a high-tech, multifunctional core, the distinctive feature of which is its ultra-compact nature. This is a property that is difficult to overestimate. Thanks to this property, it can be ported to almost any platform without significant costs.

Since Symbian OS fully supports Unicode, hence the operating system can be adapted for any language. Difficulties with encodings, inevitable in competing operating systems, are absent in Symbian OS thanks to adaptable expansion algorithms.

The ancestor of the Symbian OS is the EPOC operating system, which was created for the Psion PDA, which was popular at that time. Everyone has long forgotten about this brand of pocket computers, but the system used in it turned out to be so effective, simple and at the same time fast that it outlived its “carrier”, and, having undergone many changes and improvements, became what we know it as Symbian brand.

In the market of software for mobile devices, Symbian is distinguished by the fact that it combines the tradition of a time-tested, simple and reliable platform and the most modern technologies used in the development of such programs.

The Symbian operating system is a rare case of a microkernel platform that would be so popular and would have such a level of sophistication. At the moment, it represents one of the most advanced developments: for example, nanotechnology is already used in the ESA2 core model.

Typically, operating systems that are developed using the microkernel concept, over time, find themselves loaded with various “add-ons” that are responsible for solving non-core tasks.

The structure of Symbian OS is an excellent marketing strategy. Since this operating system was initially designed with the possibility of licensing from a wide range of manufacturing companies, it was guaranteed success with world leaders in the production of mobile devices.

Even when the concept of Symbian OS was just being laid, it already defined one of the most important conditions- free and simple transfer of the system to a variety of types of processors. Symbian OS developers were unable to achieve this effect. They found an alternative in the form of the main platform that would be used for Symbian.

Unlike operating systems such as Palm, Symbian OS is a truly functional, streamlined and powerful system.

The capabilities of Symbian OS are represented by many functions: linking dynamic libraries, resources for 3D graphics, operations with networks, output of graphic data, etc. The concept of Symbian OS is to separate the user interface and application logic. programs

The system is capable of working in real time with audio and video information, including video conferencing.

No matter how attractive Symbian OS is to software developers, it owes its success not to them, but to ordinary users who voted for her with their money. Symbian OS rightfully deserved the sympathy of these users.

So, why is this system so attractive to mobile device owners? Firstly, it is the ability to operate with large volumes of information. This is achieved through detailed applications and ease of typing on mobile device keyboards. Gadgets running Symbian OS are truly mobile, as they are miniature in size. This allows their owners to always have them with them and enter any information as the need arises.

Over the past decade, handheld computers (PDAs) have become one of the most prominent symbols of " information society"And although they are now being replaced by smartphones, these devices, in fact, only combine the functionality of a PDA and a cell phone (+ GPS navigation). Moreover, many PDA functions have long been delegated to very affordable mid-range cell phones price category. It is clear that all this equipment must run under an operating system that is in many ways similar to operating systems for PCs (after all, even a relatively simple mobile phone is also a computer). Today, the main operating system for mobile phones and smartphones is Symbian OS. Now, according to statistics, every third phone has this operating system, specially designed for mobile devices. According to experts, Symbian OS is good for everything, except for protection against virus attacks (this is an advantage on the side of Windows Mobile), which forces the use of special anti-virus software. Otherwise, Symbian fully justifies itself, which is why it has become widespread. However, most users of gadgets with Symbian OS have a very poor understanding of this operating system and its capabilities. Well, let's try to dispel the darkness of ignorance :-)…

General information

The market for operating systems for smartphones and communicators (let's agree to consider these terms synonymous), unlike the similar market for OSes for desktops and laptops, is quite open. However, there are also leaders here, with whom the world's leading smartphone manufacturers are associated and who, to a greater or lesser extent, strive to control the software market for wireless devices. Today the leaders of the race are:

Motorola, which produces products under its own brand for its smartphones (Linux-Java OS);
- Palm company and its Palm OS, installed on communicators Sony, Handspring, Samsung;
- Microsoft Corporation with branded “windows” - Windows Mobile;
- and, finally, very popular among users (largely thanks to Nokia) Symbian OS from the Symbian Corporation.

Various projects based on Mobile Linux are also quickly gaining momentum, but they have not yet seriously affected the overall balance of power in the market. For those who have had the chance to get acquainted with competitors' products, Symbian seems much easier to learn and use. The developers of this OS played on the laziness of Microsoft, which simply transferred desktop Windows onto mobile communicators, resulting in a very cumbersome system. Symbian, on the other hand, was created for smartphones and therefore adapted to their small size, low-resolution screens, while at the same time providing them with multitasking capabilities. Over the five years since the inception of Symbian, seven versions of the software have been released. Today versions 7, 8, 9 are used, which, by the way, are implemented without backward compatibility. But in any version, Symbian OS is a fully functional 32-bit operating system, created taking into account all the requirements of the telecommunications industry and supporting most modern standards and protocols - such as Bluetooth, GPRS, GSM/EGSM, HSCSD, CDMA. Starting with the sixth version, released in 2001, the OS is divided into two parts: the kernel and the graphics subsystem, which allowed mobile manufacturers to use proprietary graphical interfaces for their smartphones. Therefore, Symbian installed on devices manufactured by two different companies can look completely differently. Symbian OS applications feature very attractive graphical elements that allow you to master the intricacies of the OS even inexperienced user. Symbian also has a simple and user-friendly menu. The user has at his disposal standard graphical controls implemented in the EIKON library, including a toolbar and toolbars. Control is provided both from the keyboard and using a touch pen. Back in May 2002, an agreement was signed between Symbian and Opera Software, according to which Opera browsers are now used in the Symbian OS by default. Modern communicators (starting from the seventh Symbian series) install the eighth version of the browser, the main distinguishing feature of which is the ability to load up to nine windows simultaneously.

History of Symbian OS

Experienced users probably remember Psion handheld computers - the forerunners of modern PDAs. They were created by Psion and worked under the Epoc operating system developed in 1991. Over time, Psion's were forced out of the PDA market by competitors, and Psion, in collaboration with Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola, developed the EPOC 32 operating system, later renamed Symbian OS.

Chronology:
- June 1998 - Symbian LTD company. is being created as an independent private company owned by Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Psion. - 1999 - the company is recognized as the most promising in the mobile device market. Its co-owners include the Japanese corporation Matsushita (Panasonic).
- 2000 - Symbian receives an award from the UMTS Forum in Barcelona for the successful development of UMTS solutions as a component of the global information space. Sony and Sanyo license the Symbian OS operating system. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Symbian receives an award for technical innovation. The first smartphone based on Symbian OS - Ericsson R380 - enters the market.
- 2001 - a new version of the Symbian OS 6.1 operating system for GPRS devices appears. Siemens licenses Symbian OS. Symbian becomes a sponsor of the SyncML project. The first communicator Nokia 9210 appears. The first 2.5G mobile phone based on Symbian OS is announced - Nokia 7650. Fujitsu licenses Symbian OS.
- 2002 - Sony Ericsson becomes a co-owner of Symbian. The company will present a new version of the operating system - Symbian OS 7.0 - at the 3GSM world forum, and in February Symbian will announce the UIQ user interface. Sony Ericsson announces Sony smartphone Ericsson P800. Samsung licenses Symbian OS.
- 2003 - Samsung is one of the co-owners of Symbian. Symbian OS 7.0 is released in April and will be presented at Exposium03 in London. In October, Nokia announces the first phone with TV reception capability - Nokia 7700.
- 2004. Symbian OS 8.0 was announced in February. In March, Symbian becomes the leader in the smartphone market.
- 2005 - Symbian OS 9.0 was announced in February.
- 2006. The 100th commercial phone model was released in May. In November - the 100 millionth smartphone based on Symbian OS.

Although the birth of the Symbian brand occurred in June 1998, Psion, drawing on its extensive experience in the field of portable mobile devices, released the first release of the EPOC 32 operating system in April 1997, thereby marking the birth of a new generation of operating systems for mobile devices. Initially, the C++ language was chosen to write this OS as the most powerful and most functional object-oriented programming language at that time. Time has shown that the choice was quite successful and justified.

Symbian OS device

Without going into details, we can simply say that the system kernel, file server, memory manager and device drivers are located in the base layer of the operating system (Base). The Kernel manages system resources such as memory and is responsible for time slicing for applications and system tasks. Device drivers provide access to and control of various parts of the hardware platform - the keyboard, screen, infrared port etc. At a higher level, the system supports various communication capabilities such as TCP/IP, IMAP4, SMS and database management. Using Symbian OS components, you can access all the necessary functionality - such as multimedia, security, personal information, graphics and other elements of modern gadgets. Symbian OS components support data synchronization and internationalization.

Symbian OS versions

Developers have to release more and more new versions of Symbian OS for several reasons. Firstly, the hardware component is rapidly improving portable devices. New communication protocols are also emerging and the performance of previously developed technologies is improving - all of which requires support at the system level. The second reason is the prevalence of viruses, of which there are currently more than one and a half hundred under Symbian. Let's consider all versions in order.

Symbian OS 5.0-7.0

The first officially released version of Symbian was 5.0. Such devices as Psion Revo, Psion Netbook, netPad, Ericsson MC218 worked under her control. In the next version (Symbian OS 5.1) Unicode appeared. The Ericsson R380 worked under this version. Devices running Symbian OS 6.0 and 6.1 became the first generation of so-called open phones, that is, those with the ability to install software by the user himself - this was the Nokia 9210. It was also with these versions that the division of devices into families was introduced. Now there are three families of devices: keyboardless PDAs reminiscent of Palm and Pocket PC (Sony Ericsson P800), Pearl smartphones (Nokia 7650) and Crystal keyboard communicators (Nokia 9200 Series). Symbian OS 7.0 and 7.0s is a release of Symbian that came with all modern user interfaces including UIQ (Sony Ericsson P800, P900, P910, Motorola A925, A1000), Series 80 (Nokia 9300, 9500), Series 90 (Nokia 7710) , Series 60 (Nokia 6600, 7310). In the same year, the first self-replicating virus for mobile phones using Symbian OS, called Cabir, was discovered. It used Bluetooth devices to distribute itself.

Symbian OS 8.0

Symbian OS 8.0 was a version of the operating system with two different kernels - 8.0.a and 8.0.b, respectively. Version 8.0.a was selected by some manufacturers to maintain compatibility with older device drivers. Symbian OS 8.1 is a redesigned and remastered version of 8.0.b, which was also available in two versions: with 8.1a and 8.1b kernels respectively. The 8.1b version - with single-chip telephone support but without any additional layer of security - was popular among Japanese telephone companies. The following features have been added to Symbian OS 8.0:

Support for cheaper memory chips (set at the discretion of the manufacturer);
- the ability to create interfaces for voice recognition, encryption of streaming data, for working with three-dimensional applications and sounds; - support for WCDMA communication standard;
- ability to work with different protocols for video calls;
- ability to highlight e-mail, links, etc. for preservation and further work;
- files with rights from third parties cannot be sent to other devices - they can only be used on the device on which they were received or pre-installed (DRM);
- to achieve greater compatibility of devices with different screens, it became possible to edit the parameters of pictures before sending them, for example, via Bluetooth;
- Headset profile for Bluetooth.

Symbian OS 9.0

This version was released solely for internal use by Symbian. It improves the security and compatibility of versions 6 to 8. Symbian OS 9.1 version improved security - this was its main focus. Also introduced Bluetooth support 1.2 and OMA 1.1.2 control devices. Symbian OS 9.2 - support for Bluetooth 2.0 and OMA 1.2 control devices. Symbian OS 9.3 brought increased speed downloads and built-in support for communication equipment with Wi-Fi networks. Implemented support for the HSDPA standard, the UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) specification, which provides the ability to receive IP calls over Wi-Fi and automatically transfer the call to cellular network when leaving the Wi-Fi access area. Version 9.0 improves system performance, data access speed, and memory efficiency, but this requires sacrificing compatibility with previously created programs. Users at the time of release new version and, accordingly, they were faced with the lack of a new smartphone necessary programs and applications, the old ones did not run on the new devices at all. Also appeared new platform security - the so-called signature structure. All applications now had to be signed with a special numerical signature, and limited access was set for directories and folders.

Symbian OS for manufacturers and developers

Manufacturers are attracted by the fact that Symbian OS was developed from the very beginning with the aim of licensing for a wide range of telecommunications equipment manufacturers. At the very beginning of the creation of an operating system for mobile devices, the task was set to freely transfer it to different types of processors. The Symbian developers failed to cope with this task, but found an alternative option - they chose ARM processors as the main platform, which have an optimal performance/power consumption/price ratio and are licensed by companies such as Intel and Nokia. Another advantage of Symbian OS is its built-in multilingual capabilities. For mobile devices there are still no standards for screen size, keyboard structure, etc. Symbian has a clear separation between the graphical interface and other software components, which makes it easy to adapt the system to any screen size and resolution, absence/presence of a touch screen, and create devices with a “branded” appearance and hardware. For mobile software developers, the appeal of Symbian OS lies in the wide range of development tools it provides. Programs in standard C++ language are created on a PC using the Microsoft development environment Visual Studio and emulator. The main advantage of Symbian OS is that it is an open system, which means that the entire set of programming tools, as well as all necessary information available completely free of charge. It is not surprising that under such conditions the number of programs for the Symbian platform is simply enormous. Reverse side medals - an abundance of malware for Symbian OS.

Denis Lavnikevich