• Symbian3 platform - full description

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    04.07.2010 20:48:16

    Two years ago, the latest version of the operating system was released Symbian- it was the S60 fifth edition. It was she who was first used to work on touch phones. It is clear that it is very difficult to make an ideal OS for controlling fingers or a stylus on the first try, so there was a need for a more thoughtful and advanced system that would be ideal for these purposes. This provoked the emergence of a new platform, which was called Symbian^3. First, a little about the errors that were present in the previous version and which had to be fixed in the new one. Firstly, it is impossible to select one action with just one click - often it was necessary to first make several clicks in succession, and this took a lot of time. Secondly, gesture control was not implemented. Thirdly, the shell did not work as often as we would like, although in some cases this was a problem of the device itself and its processor speed and RAM. There were a number of other minor flaws, but we considered these to be the main ones. Now we will move on to a sequential description of the main points in the new operating system Symbian^3.

    Implementation of the Symbian^3 interface

    In order to get to the main menu, just one click is now enough, the same goes for opening individual menu items. If the number of items does not fit on one screen, a scroll bar appears on the right. The faster you swipe the screen, the faster the list will scroll and vice versa. For quick search Inside the lists, a search is implemented by the first characters of its name - this is true both for the phone book and for a number of other lists.If you open several applications at the same time, you will need to switch between them while working using the central navigation button of the device; this option is also listed first in all context menus"Options". You will be notified by circles above the icons in the main menu of your smartphone that several programs are running at once.The main menu is now notable for the fact that the items can be sorted, in addition to the fact that they can be presented in the form of a matrix or as a list. The user is also allowed to create custom folders in the main menu, but the folder icon will be standard and cannot be personalized. Such folders, for example, can be used for applications that were personally installed by the user.The icons in the main menu are well-drawn, and they are displayed using various animation effects that depend on the selected theme. In fact, the icons used here are the same as in the previous version, so you can’t expect any modern style from them.In order to copy text (no matter what menu you are in), you need to select required text and run your finger over it. By the way, this is why in text display mode scrolling can only be done on the right side of the screen, otherwise the text will simply be selected and copied.

    Symbian^3 desktop view

    In the work area of ​​a smartphone running Symbian^3, there are three separate desktops. Switching between them occurs by swiping left and right - just like in touch screens. On phones Nokia You can choose a different wallpaper for each desktop.Desktops are mainly designed to accommodate numerous widgets. Widgets appeared in Nokia not so long ago - they were first used in a phone, and now they can be seen almost everywhere. Each widget can be present on several screens simultaneously. The screens are also designed for application shortcuts, remote software functions, messages, news feeds and the like. All widgets have a small drawback - even if they are designed to display text information, it cannot occupy more than two lines, which is not always convenient in some applications (for example, in a widget that displays the contents of an email inbox).During an incoming call, the screen displays a picture associated with this particular subscriber, as well as several virtual control buttons.

    Implementation of the Symbian^3 phone book

    While the smartphone is in standby mode, smart dialing is possible - you can select one letter, and the device will display a list of contacts that begin with that letter.Each contact can be associated with any number of record fields; the only limitation can be the size of the device’s internal memory. The set of fields is standard, as on other platforms. You can also personalize calls and pictures of subscribers. You can sort fields in the phone book either by first name or last name. Subscriber groups are also implemented; each group can be associated with individual signal call. There is also a voice call, but working with it requires some preparation and getting used to. This function works for contacts recorded in both English and Russian. The phone book can be archived - this is in in this case and it will be backup information.

    Symbian^3 call lists

    In Symbian^3, as in other platforms, this section hides missed, sent and accepted calls. The user can specify for what period call information should be stored. Calls can be filtered, their duration and time of occurrence can be viewed.

    Social tools

    To work with social networks on phones Symbian^3 appeared separate button with the same name. It calls a utility that can easily find the user in those social networks, in which the owner of the device is registered. For example, it could be Facebook or Twitter, which are popular today.

    Working with messages

    Symbian^3 phones support the creation of text and multimedia messages, this is done centrally from a menu item called Message. As in latest phones Samsung, the device can automatically detect the type of message after it is created, so the user does not initially need to make any choice. When creating a message, you can use three various sizes font. You can display messages on the screen either in a classic way or in the form of a chat (dialogue). There is also an email client that supports POP3/IMAP4/SMTP/MIME2 standards.

    Musical capabilities of Symbian^3

    A widget is placed on the desktop to control music playback; you need to activate it manually - after starting the player, it does not automatically turn on. The player itself has remained virtually unchanged since the previous version of this operating system. All the same features remain, including sorting songs by genre, artist, album, composer, and creating custom playlists. Settings can be made using the eight-band equalizer, which supports manual settings, and also take advantage of the expanded stereo base. The bitrate of songs while playing music is unimportant.Podcasts – component player, which was previously a separate program. You can open podcasts either from the main menu of the audio player or download them externally. All podcasts are formed into one library, which can then be searched or synchronized with other devices.To customize the music, a set of equalizers is used, each of which is eight-band. There are six preset values, all of them can be edited according to your own tastes. There is also a stereo widening and Loudness function.

    Photographic Opportunities

    Implementation of working with a camera in Symbian^3 implemented almost the same as in previous versions of this operating system. You can work and view photos separately, and video files separately. The photo gallery is presented in the form of small thumbnails; when you hover over it, a small window appears in which the name of the photo is written. There is a viewing function in the form of a slide show, the mode of which can be configured background music and page speed. You can view images both vertically and horizontally; for scaling, a ruler is provided that works on the “pich-to-zoom” principle.To process images received from the camera, you can use the built-in editor, which allows you not only to change the image using several filters, but also to add clipart drawings, emoticons, and change the size and orientation of photographs.

    Video capabilities

    There is a separate section with the same name for working with video. All filmed videos fall here, and they can be classified into the following categories: last watched, last filmed, videos from YouTube, videos from the Ovi Store and other videos. Supported codecs include the following: H.264, MPEG-4, VC-1, Sorenson Spark VGA, Real video 10 QVGA. What is not supported is DivX/XVid, but the problem can be solved by purchasing separate players for specific phone models.You can edit videos directly using your mobile phone - add tags and titles, special effects, create cuts from different videos, make slide shows and create video sequences from them.In those phones that support TV, there is a separate item for these needs, here you can watch your favorite TV shows.

    Phone search

    In the operating system Symbian^3 The search system is very well thought out. Previously, a separate utility was responsible for this feature, but now it is an integral function of the OS. For each country, the search resource that is most popular in that country is used. For us, this is, naturally, Yandex. In addition to searching in global network, you can search inside the device in many categories, some of which are even included in the main menu.

    Organizer

    As in previous versions, the organizer includes a calendar and a set following applications: converter, calculator, voice recorder, notes, clock. There is also a file manager in which you can perform operations of copying, moving, deleting files - both on the memory card and in the internal memory of the device. Device Manager represents SyncML synchronization. You can transfer data (phone book contacts, calendar, etc.) from one phone to another using the Data Transfer utility.

    Settings

    In the phone settings section Symbian^3 you can select one of the themes, screen saver, icon type, typing language, screen brightness, assign joystick deflection to a call individual applications, commands for soft keys.To work on the Internet, GPRS parameters and connection security are configured.This also includes date and time settings and auto-lock settings.For touch screen Auto-rotate parameters and sound accompaniment for this event are selected.

    Browser

    Browser operation Symbian^3 remained identical to previous versions of the operating system. As before, there are certain problems with memory allocation. It runs on the WebKit engine (it was taken as the basis for Safari). Its settings include zooming (including with your fingers), storing a list of visited pages, auto-remembering visited websites, and storing favorites. New links can now be opened not only in the main window, but also in a new one. Cookies and the user’s personal data (login and password) are remembered. There is a separate reader for reading news.The new operating system has been improved in many ways, but much has been left behind. There is a noticeable increase in the speed of applications, which is reflected in the increased amount of memory on new devices on which it is installed Symbian^3. The negative aspects include an insufficiently redesigned browser and external design (themes, icons, animation effects). The new OS cannot be called a revolutionary breakthrough; rather, it is a good work on bugs, which, however, does not deserve the highest praise.

    Unlike many operating systems, Symbian has not been ported to mobile devices since personal computers, and was originally created for them. This leads to some advantages of Symbian OS - it is optimized at the kernel level for operation on energy-critical devices with a minimum amount of memory and low processing power. Below are the main facts and milestones in the development of Symbian OS.

    • Symbian OS traces its origins to the 16-bit single-user multitasking operating system EPOC, developed by Psion for its SIBO (Sixteen Bit Organizer) family of portable computers in 1989. The name EPOC doesn't mean anything, but legend has it that EPOC is short for "Epoch", or an abbreviation for Electronic Piece Of Cheese. The EPOC operating system was written in assembler (Intel 8086) and C, supported the development of applications in C and OPL using the IDE OVAL (Object-based Visual Application Language), and also had graphical interface(thus beating Microsoft Windows 3.0). In 1991, the Psion Series 3 PDA was released running EPOC OS, equipped with 128 KB of RAM and an Intel 8086 compatible processor.
    • Subsequently, the EPOC OS was completely redesigned, and in mid-1997 the EPOC/32 OS was released, first used on the Psion Series 5 PDA with 4-8 MB of RAM. The new operating system was developed for processors with ARM architecture and made it possible to create applications in C++. The 16-bit version of EPOC was renamed EPOC/16 (after some time it began to be called SIBO), and EPOC/32 to EPOC. Psion subsequently split into Psion Computers, Psion Enterprise and Psion Software. The operating system was developed by Psion Software. The EPOC OS was constantly improved: devices running EPOC Release 2, EPOC Release 3 (often referred to as ER2 and ER3) appeared on the market. However, there was no EPOC Release 4.
    • In June 1998, Psion Software, Nokia and Ericsson created Symbian Ltd. Her tasks included developing a new world-class operating system for converged devices based on PDAs and phones.
    • In May 1999, to the shareholders of Symbian Ltd. Panasonic joined, and soon the EPOC Release 5 OS was announced (now unofficially called Symbian 5.0), which contained the Java ME virtual machine. A year later, its improved version EPOC 5u (ER5u or Symbian 5.1) was used in the Ericsson R380 device. Since version 5.1, Symbian uses Unicode strings by default. Later Symbian Ltd. enters into an agreement with Sybase to use their database access technologies in mobile devices.
    • In 2000, Sanyo and Sony became Symbian licensees. Symbian 6.0 (first official release) and Symbian 6.1 were announced.
    • In 2001, the Symbian Press company was founded, Nokia released the 9200 communicator on the Series 80 platform running Symbian 6.0 and the 7650 smartphone on the Series 60 platform running Symbian 6.1. Symbian OS is licensed by Siemens and Fujitsu.
    • In 2002, co-owners of Symbian Ltd. become Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson. Symbian OS is licensed by Sendo. The UIQ platform based on Symbian 7.0, focused on the use of touch screens, is announced.
    • In 2003, devices running Symbian 7.0 based on the UIQ, Series 80, Series 90 and Series 60 platforms appeared.
    • In 2004, Symbian OS was licensed by NTT DoCoMo, Lenovo and Sharp, and Symbian 8.1a and Symbian 8.1b (with the new EKA2 kernel) were announced. Shareholders of Symbian Ltd. buy out Psion's share. Work is underway within the company on Symbian 9.0.
    • In 2005, Symbian Ltd. licenses the use of the Microsoft Exchange Server Active Sync protocol. The release of Symbian OS 9.1 was released with a security module that requires mandatory certification of installed applications. In the same year, devices appeared with a new operating system (under the UIQ3 platform).
    • In 2006, Symbian 9.2 and Symbian 9.3 appeared with an improved memory management mechanism (demand paging), built-in support for the WiFi 802.11 and HSDPA protocols. A certification program for Symbian Accredited Developer (ASD) developers and a program for interaction with universities in the field of training Symbian Academy specialists are being created. The 100 millionth smartphone running Symbian OS has been sold.
    • In 2007, POSIX and SQLite format libraries were ported to Symbian. Support Announced multi-core processors, and also digital television in DVB-H and ISDB-T formats.
    • In June 2008, Symbian Ltd. celebrates its tenth anniversary. The creation of the Symbian Foundation is announced, an organization designed to develop a new open, unified platform based on Symbian OS. Within a year, Nokia buys all shares of Symbian Ltd. and transfers Symbian OS to the Symbian Foundation. Following this, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, NTT DoCoMo and Samsung are transferring the resources and source codes of the S60, UIQ and MOAP(s) platforms to the Symbian Foundation. The 200 millionth device running Symbian OS has been sold.
    • At the beginning of 2009, it was announced that support for the UIQ platform would be discontinued. Devices running the S60 platform 5th edition based on Symbian 9.4 have appeared. Later, Symbian 9.4 and S60 5th edition were combined under the name Symbian^1 through the efforts of the Symbian Foundation and chosen as the starting point for the further evolution of Symbian OS as open system. The preparation plan for Symbian^2 and Symbian^3 has been published.
    • Published in October 2009 source code microkernels EKA2 Symbian OS.

    Over the entire history of Symbian OS, more than 250 device models running it have been released from a dozen and a half manufacturers, totaling over 250 million.

    In general, the history of the development of the OS took place quite calmly, without serious legal conflicts or legal wars. Participants of the legal forum believe history of Symbian OS is an example of thoughtful and competent IT business management.

    And phones are rightfully considered Symbian. Until 2008, its development was carried out by a consortium of the same name. With the sale of the full stake, consumer demand for the OS also expanded. The reason for this was the expansion of production and contracts with leading brands on the planet.

    From origins to perfection

    In the mid-1990s, mobile systems left much to be desired. Multimedia capabilities were reduced to a minimum, the engine was monolithic, applications were limited to single, banal instances (calendar, calculator, etc.). Everything changed radically in 1997, when a number of companies signed a cooperation pact in the development of a universal OS. This is how the Symbian consortium was founded. It was led by the heads of the brands Nokia, Ericsson, Psion and Motorola.

    Towards the end of the 1990s, the first OS Symbian 5 was born. Its platform was supported by Psion computers, as well as Ericsson MC218 and netPad devices. Soon the developers supplemented the line with the EPOC5u system for Unicode integration. The turning point for the consortium came with the release of OS version 6.0. Based on it, the first branded Symbian smartphone- Nokia 9210.

    In subsequent years, mobile systems began to develop at an extraordinary speed. In 2003, developers pleased users with Symbian OS 7 and its extended version. This system could support most popular platforms: UIQ, Series 60 and 80, FOMA and others. By mid-2004, Psion and Motorola unexpectedly left the consortium. However, this did not affect further production in any way. At the end of the year, Symbian 8 appeared, which could support 2-core devices.

    Next version OS - 9.0 - has significantly expanded the brand's influence on the global market. Were used in the development latest technologies, which no other company had. This allowed us to move away from the integration of the EKA1 core. OS 9.2 introduced the ability to work with OMA Management and Bluetooth 2. Version 9.2 supported the HSDPA interface and Vietnamese characters.

    The new Symbian OS 9.4 was released in the spring of 2007. Its main distinguishing feature was its support for touch control. It was also more optimized, so it was suitable for weak phones, saving battery power up to 30%. It is worth noting the accelerated interface with support for DVB-H and VoIP.

    Mobile revolution and the end of an era

    In December 2008, the rights to software Symbian was taken over by Nokia. After a month, all applications and OS mobile phones began to come out with the Nokia prefix. First of all, the new owners of the consortium transferred the OS from the usual S60 platform to the x86 processor. Used for testing Intel system Atom.

    The new OSs were high-quality and fast, but many users did not like the fact that they remained paid. In November 2009, Samsung terminated its contract with Symbian. This greatly damaged the authority of the consortium. This is often why in February 2010 the decision was made to make the Symbian line completely free and open source. In the fall of the same year, Sony Ericsson also left the merger, moving to its main competitor, Android.

    Gradually, sales of devices running the OS of a well-known consortium began to be reduced to a minimum. In 2011, the official website of the brand was completed. Rumors began to circulate about the discontinuation of new OS releases. At the end of 2011, a new Nokia Belle axis was announced, which became the prototype of the updated Symbian. Over the next two years, OS users were content with only rare updates. In 2013, the project was transferred to support mode. No further developments are planned in the near future.

    Characteristics

    OS Symbian is considered the successor to the well-known EPOC32 line, which was developed by Psion engineers in the mid-1990s for pocket computers. In 1999, most of the system was modernized. The developers pursued the goal of optimizing the code so that the OS would function normally even on the weakest devices.

    Programmers managed to achieve outstanding results thanks to improved caching. This allowed not only to save a significant portion of memory and battery power, but also to speed up the operation of applications. This is all due to a new approach to programming. An object-oriented method was used in the development of the architecture. In versions 9.x, a reliable protection mechanism appeared at the API level. In addition, Symbian employees were able to allocate RAM in accordance with application priorities.

    It is worth noting that for a long time The main programming language remained C++, which supported Java and the PIPS libraries. As for Nokia Symbian OS, it combines everything best qualities and characteristics of the main competitors Windows Mobile And Google Android.

    Main modifications

    At the moment, there are several operating systems for phones based on Symbian developments. First of all, this concerns UIQ. This OS is an integral part of Motorola and Sony Ericsson smartphones. The main difference between this system and others is the support. All rights to the OS belong to Sony.

    The Series 60 system was once the basis for all Nokia telephone devices. For a long time it was licensed by Siemens, Samsung, LG, etc. It was originally developed for phones with a keyboard. New version Series 80 has become the calling card of the Japanese company. The platform was also created for phones with a keyboard.

    MOAR OS has gained high popularity in Asia. Currently, this platform produces products from such famous brands as Fujitsu, Sharp, Mitsubishi and Sony Ericsson.

    Non-standard OS modifications are used by Nokia 77xx series smartphones.

    Comparison of leading operating systems

    OS Symbian is widely used in budget devices. The system has become the hallmark of the Nokia brand. The Belle and Anna updates reinvigorated the Japanese company's line new life. Nevertheless, today new smartphones on this OS are no longer released. According to the characteristics, the system is designed conveniently. If it were not for the popularity of Android and iOS, Symbian products would still be in trend. U Nokia smartphones colorful multimedia center and fast engine. Almost everything is supported modern applications and interfaces.

    Phones to Android based today they lead in terms of popularity all over the world. And this despite the fact that the OS is quite young. The first version was released into wide production only 6 years ago. Owns the rights to software product The system attracts with its colorfulness and efficiency. The latest OS versions contain many new useful functions and services. Today smartphones from such brands as HTC, Samsung, Motorola, etc. are coming out based on Android.

    Apple iOS is the second most popular OS among mobile platforms. The interface is convenient, understandable, and functional. Unlike all other manufacturers, Apple focuses not on activity. That is why all updates concern functionality, and not new multimedia features.

    Windows systems for mobile platforms are not as in demand as for computers. It's all about the inconvenient interface. For inexperienced users It is difficult to understand the existing functionality. Often the most important options are hidden far away in the menu. And while Windows 7 still had a colorful, user-friendly interface and optimized requirements, Eight was simply a failure. The only thing that saved the new OS was proper marketing.

    MOAP and Nokia S90 platforms

    The OS data was released independently from Symbian software products. The MOAP platform was created for devices commissioned by the Japanese telecom operator DoCoMo. On its basis, users for the first time had the opportunity to use the 3G service. Today they work on the basis of MOAR Panasonic phones, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, etc.

    The Series 90 platform from Nokia developers was subsequently integrated into the Symbian OS version 7. The prototype of the system was the S80 OS from Psion. As for the Nokia S90, thanks to it it became possible to support screens with an expansion of up to 640 pixels. It was a big leap forward. The S90 interface is similar in functionality to the Internet Tablet. In 2005, it was decided to introduce the platform's developments into Symbian S60 for Nokia branded smartphones. This step allowed the company to take off in the global touchscreen phone market.

    Symbian S60 platform

    This software product remained unattainable for competitors for a long time. As a result, brands such as LG, Lenovo, Samsung, Panasonic and others licensed the platform for their own needs. The development of the OS was carried out in collaboration with the companies "Electrobit", "Mobika" and others. The operators Orange and Vodafone were additionally involved in the delivery of the product.

    Symbian OS S60 is a standard smartphone software that supports Python, Java and C++ languages. The functionality includes updated libraries for telephony and multimedia, PIM tools. The maximum resolution supported by the platform is 360 by 640 pixels.

    The main disadvantage of the system is the strict certification mechanism, which significantly limits the capabilities of users.

    Symbian S80 platform

    This product has become a real flagship Nokia phones. OS Symbian 9.x was developed on its basis. The platform has been put into production since 2000. Specializes in communications communicators. Can support non-standard display formats, such as 640 by 200 pixels. The functionality includes a built-in qwerty keyboard.

    The platform remained without updates for some time. After 2005, it entered the development of a new universal OS, which was used in the Nokia E90. It is worth noting that the platform interacts with J2ME applications and TLS and SSL interfaces. The system has a built-in full-fledged Opera browser and file manager with integrated electronic fax. Latest updates allowed access to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

    UIQ Platform

    This is the most powerful and expensive technology developed by Symbian. The platform is a quartz-based one aimed at improving the graphics component. UIQ powers the operating system kernel additional components. Due to this, telephone devices become multifunctional and open to any possibilities.

    The platform interacts with third party applications and is focused on touch control. Software part written in C++. There is support for Java applications. UIQ technology made it possible to achieve a display depth of 4096 colors. Newer versions of the platform have expanded this to 18 bits. The updated UIQ 3.2 interacts with services such as MMS Postcard and OMA IMPS.

    Software platform supports Visual Studio, Eclipse, Java API, Carbide. Improved Wi-Fi integration technology. Built-in widgets, browser, multimedia applications, etc. are available.

    Symbian OS devices

    Most mobile phone models that operate on Symbian OS are smartphones and other devices from Nokia. There are more than three dozen such devices. These are 5230, 5800 Xpress, C7-00, and simpler models, such as Nokia E72, N93 and others.

    Also, at one time, Symbian OS was in demand in Sony devices Ericsson. These are models such as P900, M600, Vivaz, W960, etc. Other brands include Motorola A1000 and Samsung i8910.

    If Symbian did not have such eminent competitors as Android and iOS, the number of devices supporting its OS would be much greater.

    Games and applications for Symbian

    All major multimedia programs are built into the system. This is both a video player and music service, and imaging applications. In Symbian OS, programs occupy a small part of the phone. This was done specifically to relieve the internal memory. IN standard functionality there is an Opera 9.5 browser and a utility that monitors system updates.

    Among the games, we can highlight the well-known Angry Birds, OpenTTD and Cut the Rope, as well as Adventures of Tintin and Fruit Ninja.

    Symbian OS an operating system for cell phones, smartphones and communicators, developed by the Symbian consortium, founded in June 1998 by the companies: Nokia, Psion, Ericsson and Motorola. Later, the following companies joined the consortium: Sony Ericsson, Siemens, Panasonic, Fujitsu, Samsung, Sony, Sharp and Sanyo. Of course, now this system is dying and there are fewer and fewer devices on it, but it deserves to be told about itself, because at one time it was what it is now Android.

    The Symbian OS operating system is the successor to the EPOC OS. But in 1998-2000, most of the operating system was rewritten for optimization program code for operating the OS on devices that have a limited amount of resources. Symbian OS developers have managed to achieve significant memory savings, improved program code caching, and therefore faster running of programs under Symbian OS, while taking into account reduced power consumption requirements.

    Starting with Symbian OS 9.x, a very important security mechanism has appeared that allows you to delimit APIs in accordance with the rights of individual applications. The main application development languages ​​for Symbian OS are: C++, OPML, and there is also support for Java applications.

    At the time of 2010, the most common (by number of devices) version was Symbian OS Series 60 3rd Edition and 5th Edition. Since autumn 2010, Symbian system Only Nokia equips its smartphones with OS. Before this, this OS was also used by companies such as Samsung, Sony Ericsson and some others. At the moment, the production of smartphones with Symbian OS has been discontinued and now dominate Android and iOS.

    In general, Symbian and Nokia disappeared together, thanks in part to everyone’s “favorite” company, Microsoft. The Nokia company itself has not gone anywhere, it simply sold to Microsoft the part of the company that dealt with mobile devices, while it itself continues to operate and has two key divisions: Nokia Networks– supplier of telecommunications equipment and Nokia Technologies– develops advanced technologies and licenses the Nokia brand to third-party companies.

    On the Internet you can find more firmware modified by enthusiasts under various models Symbian phones/smartphones. For example, I reflashed my old Nokia 5230 and new firmware I was surprised by its great functionality, I would even say that it came closer to Android, not quite of course, but better than it was originally. So look for the firmware for your phone/smartphone, Yandex will help you.

    And if Nokia had been more agile, who knows, perhaps Symbian OS would have remained the dominant operating system on mobile devices and Android would not have conquered the market so easily. And Nokia would remain the flagship on the market and not Apple and Samsung. But history does not know subjunctive moods and it happened as it happened.

    If you are interested in a more detailed story, watch the video from Dmitry Bachilo about Nokia and Simbian. He told everything in more detail and I don’t see the point in repeating it.

    Symbian OS is an operating system for cell phones, smartphones and communicators, developed by the Symbian consortium, founded in June 1998 by Nokia, Psion, Ericsson and Motorola. Later, the following companies joined the consortium: Sony Ericsson, Siemens, Panasonic, Fujitsu, Samsung, Sony, Sharp and Sanyo.

    On June 24, 2008, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DOCOMO officially announced the merger of Symbian OS, S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) to create a single open mobile platform. Together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone, the non-profit organization Symbian Foundation was created. Nokia announced the purchase of the remaining shares of Symbian Ltd. that it does not own, after which it will be possible to provide the source code of the system to members of the Symbian Foundation. This step should help promote Symbian OS on the market mobile systems. Currently, the Symbian Foundation has 40 companies.

    Characteristic

    Symbian OS is the successor to the EPOC32 operating system developed by Psion for its pocket computers. In 1998--1999 a significant part of the system was rewritten to optimize the code to run on devices with limited resources. The developers managed to achieve significant memory savings, improved code caching and, as a result, faster programs, with reduced power consumption requirements. From a development point of view, the distinctive feature of the system is its completely object-oriented architecture (at the API level). Starting with version 9.x of the system, a serious protection mechanism appeared - API delimitation in accordance with application rights (capabilities). The main application development language is C++, with Java support available. There are also PIPS libraries for porting applications from other OSes.

    In 2005, Symbian OS Series 60 3rd Edition was released, based on the new EKA2 kernel, which led to a breakdown in backward compatibility with programs written for previous versions.

    At the moment, the most common (by number of devices) version is Symbian OS Series 60 3rd Edition and 5th Edition (Symbian).

    Since the fall of 2010, only Nokia has equipped its smartphones with the Symbian OS system. Before this, this OS was also used by such companies as Samsung, Sony Ericsson and some others. At the moment, the production of smartphones with Symbian OS has been discontinued. Symbian OS's main competitors were operating systems Microsoft systems: Windows Mobile (Pocket PC Edition) and Smartphone Edition and Windows Phone, as well as operating Google systems Android, and Apple iOS.

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