Citizendia

Symbian OS
Symbian OS logo
Symbian OS v9. 2 running S60 3rd Edition FP1 interface
Websitewww.symbian.com
Company/
developer		Symbian Ltd.
OS familyEmbedded operating systems
Source modelShared
Latest stable release9. A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages The software industry comprises businesses involved in the development, maintenance and publication of Computer software. A software developer is a person or organization concerned with facets of the software development process wider than design and coding a somewhat broader scope of Symbian Ltd is a Software development and licensing company that produces Symbian OS, a Smartphone Operating system. An embedded operating system is an Operating system for embedded computer systems. 5 / unknown
Marketing targetMobile devices
Supported platformsARM (can be emulated on x86)
Kernel typeMicrokernel
Default user interfaceS60 platform, UIQ, MOAP
Licenseunknown
Working stateCurrent
List of Mobile
Operating Systems
Symbian OS m n s
Windows Mobile m n
iPhone OS n
Palm OS n
Openmoko Linux l n
Access Linux Platform l n s
Qtopia l m n
Internet Tablet OS l n
BlackBerry OS m
Android l m
LiMo Platform l m n

l = Linux based
m = Managed code support
n = Native code permitted
s = Capability-based security

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Symbian OS is a proprietary operating system, designed for mobile devices, with associated libraries, user interface frameworks and reference implementations of common tools, produced by Symbian Ltd. It is a descendant of Psion's EPOC and runs exclusively on ARM processors. A mobile device (also known as cellphone device, handheld device, handheld computer, "Palmtop" or simply handheld) is a pocket-sized The ARM architecture (previously the Advanced RISC Machine, and prior to that Acorn RISC Machine) is a 32-bit RISC processor architecture See also X86 assembly language The generic term x86 refers to the most commercially successful Instruction set architecture in the history of Personal In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS A microkernel is a minimal Computer Operating system kernel which in its purest form provides no operating-system services at all only the The user interface (or Human Computer Interface) is the aggregate of means by which people&mdash the users '&mdash interact with the System The S60 Platform (formerly Series 60 User Interface is a software platform for Mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. UIQ (formerly known as User Interface Quartz by UIQ Technology is a Software platform based upon Symbian OS. MOAP (Mobile Oriented Applications Platform is the software platform for NTT DoCoMo 's FOMA service for Mobile phones Versions There are A software license (or software licence in commonwealth usage is a Legal instrument governing the usage or redistribution of copyright protected software Operating systems can be categorized by technology ownership licensing working state usage and by many other characteristics Windows Mobile is a compact Operating system combined with a suite of basic applications for Mobile devices based on the Microsoft Win32 iPhone OS or OS X iPhone is the Operating system developed by Apple Inc Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) is an embedded Operating system initially developed by U Openmoko Linux is an Operating system for Smartphones developed by FIC. The Access Linux Platform, sometime referred to as a "next-generation version of the Palm OS " is an open source-based Operating system for mobile devices BlackBerry OS is the proprietary Software platform made by Research In Motion for their BlackBerry line of handhelds Android is a software platform and Operating system for Mobile devices based on the Linux Kernel, developed by Google The LiMo Platform is an Operating system and software development platform for Mobile phones and other handheld devices. MOTOMAGX is an Operating system developed by Motorola to run on their Mobile phones The system is a combination of Linux and Java Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Managed code is computer program code that executes under the management of a Virtual machine, unlike unmanaged code which is executed directly by the computer's Machine code or machine language is a system of instructions and data executed directly by a Computer 's Central processing unit. Capability-based security is a concept in the design of Secure computing systems Proprietary software is Computer software on which the producer has set restrictions on use private modification copying, or republishing. An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination In Computer science, a library is a collection of Subroutines used to develop Software. The user interface (or Human Computer Interface) is the aggregate of means by which people&mdash the users '&mdash interact with the System Symbian Ltd is a Software development and licensing company that produces Symbian OS, a Smartphone Operating system. EPOC is a family of Operating systems developed by Psion for portable devices primarily PDAs. The ARM architecture (previously the Advanced RISC Machine, and prior to that Acorn RISC Machine) is a 32-bit RISC processor architecture

On June 24, 1998, Symbian Ltd. was formed as a partnership between Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Psion, to exploit the convergence between PDAs and mobile phones. Symbian Ltd is a Software development and licensing company that produces Symbian OS, a Smartphone Operating system. Motorola Inc ( is an American, multinational Fortune 100, Telecommunications company based in Schaumburg Illinois. Technological convergence is the tendency for different technological systems to evolve towards performing similar Tasks Convergence can refer to previously

Symbian is currently owned by Nokia (47. Nokia Corporation (pronunciation /'nɔkiɑ/),,) is a Finnish multinational Communications Corporation, headquartered 9%), Ericsson (15. Ericsson ( Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson) () one of the largest Swedish companies is a leading provider of telecommunication and data communication systems 6%), Sony Ericsson (13. Sony Ericsson is a Joint venture established in 2001 by the Japanese Consumer electronics Company Sony Corporation and the 1%), Panasonic (10. 5%), Siemens AG (8. 4%) and Samsung (4. The Samsung Group ( Korean:, Samsung Guerup) is South Korea 's largest company or Chaebol and the world's largest conglomerate 5%). Although BenQ acquired the mobile phone subsidiary of Siemens AG, the Siemens AG stake in Symbian did not pass to BenQ. BenQ Corporation (ˌbɛn ˈkjuː 明基電通股份有限公司 is a Taiwanese company that sells and markets consumer electronics computing and communications devices under the

Contents

Design

Symbian OS, with its roots in Psion Software's EPOC, is structured like many desktop operating systems with pre-emptive multitasking and memory protection. EPOC is a family of Operating systems developed by Psion for portable devices primarily PDAs. Pre-emption or preemption in Computing is the act of temporarily interrupting a task being carried out by a computer system, without requiring Memory protection is a way to control memory usage on a computer and is core to virtually every Operating system. EPOC was inspired by a VMS-like approach to multitasking with server-based asynchronous serialised access based on events.

Symbian OS was built to follow three design rules - the integrity and security of user data is paramount, user time must not be wasted, and all resources are scarce. This led to a continuation of the use of servers; a microkernel; a request and callback approach to all services; an absolute division of user interfaces from system or application services; reuse and openness; extensibility; and robust management and resource recovery to support extended always-on operation. For hardware the OS is optimised for low-power battery-based devices and for ROM-based systems (e. g. features like XIP and re-entrancy in shared libraries). Applications, and the OS, follow an object-oriented design, MVC. Model-view-controller ( MVC) is an architectural pattern used in Software engineering.

Later OS iterations diluted this approach in response to market demands, notably the introduction of a real-time kernel and a platform security model in versions 8 and 9.

There is a strong emphasis on conserving resources, using Symbian-specific programming idioms such as descriptors and a cleanup stack. There are similar techniques for conserving disk space (though the disks on Symbian devices are usually flash memory). Flash memory is non-volatile computer memory that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed Furthermore, all Symbian OS programming is event-based, and the CPU is switched off when applications are not directly dealing with an event. This is achieved through a programming idiom called active objects. Active objects are a form of multitasking for computer systems Similarly the OS approach to threads vs. processes is driven by reducing overheads.

Symbian OS EKA2 supports sufficiently-fast real-time response that it is possible to build a single-core phone around it - that is, a phone in which a single processor core executes both the user applications and the signalling stack. Application software is a subclass of Computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thoroughly to a task that the user wishes to perform A protocol stack (sometimes communications stack) is a particular software implementation of a Computer networking protocol suite This is a feature which is not available in Linux. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks This has allowed SymbianOS EKA2 phones to become smaller, cheaper and more power efficient.

Competition

Symbian OS is the leading OS in the 'smart mobile device' market. Statistics published February 2007 showed that Symbian OS had a 67% share of the 'smart mobile device' market, with Microsoft having 13% through Windows CE and Windows Mobile and RIM having 10%. Windows CE (also known officially as Windows Embedded Compact post version 6 Windows Mobile is a compact Operating system combined with a suite of basic applications for Mobile devices based on the Microsoft Win32 Research In Motion Limited ( RIM) () is a Wireless device company best known as the developer of the BlackBerry handheld Communication [1] Other competitors include Palm OS, iPhone OS, Qualcomm's BREW, Google Android and SavaJe. Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) is an embedded Operating system initially developed by U iPhone OS or OS X iPhone is the Operating system developed by Apple Inc Qualcomm ( is a wireless telecommunications research and development company based in San Diego California BREW ( Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) is an application development platform created by Qualcomm for mobile phones. Android is a software platform and Operating system for Mobile devices based on the Linux Kernel, developed by Google SavaJe (pronounced savage was the developer of the SavaJe OS a Java OS for advanced mobile phones

Structure

The Symbian OS System Model contains the following layers, from top to bottom:

The Base Services Layer is the lowest level reachable by user-side operations, it includes the File Server and User Library, the Plug-In Framework which manages all plug-ins, Store, Central Repository, DBMS, and cryptographic services. A framework is a basic conceptual structure used to solve or address complex issues A database management system ( DBMS) is Computer software designed for the purpose of managing Databases DBMSes may use any of a variety of Data models It also includes the Text Window Server and the Text Shell, the two basic services from which a completely functional port can be created without the need for any higher layer services.

Symbian OS has a microkernel architecture, which means that the minimum necessary is within the kernel to improve robustness, availability, and responsiveness. A microkernel is a minimal Computer Operating system kernel which in its purest form provides no operating-system services at all only the It contains a scheduler, memory management, and device drivers, but other services like networking, telephony, or filesystem support are placed in the OS Services Layer or Base Services Layer. Scheduling is a key concept in Computer multitasking and Multiprocessing Operating system design and in Real-time operating system design Memory management is the act of managing Computer memory. In its simpler forms this involves providing ways to allocate portions of memory to programs at their request In Computing, a file system (often also written as filesystem) is a method for storing and organizing Computer files and the data they contain to make The inclusion of device drivers means the kernel is not a true microkernel. The EKA2 real-time kernel has been termed a nanokernel, containing only the most basic primitives and supporting an extended kernel to implement any other abstractions.

Symbian OS is designed to emphasize compatibility with other devices, especially removable media file systems. Early development of EPOC led to adopting FAT as the internal file system and this remains in the Symbian OS but an object-orientated persistence model has been placed over the underlying FAT, providing a POSIX-style interface and a streaming model. Templateinfobox filesystem whilst covering all 3 file systems please make any style changes to both at the same time The internal data formats rely on using the same API that create the data to run all file manipulations - this has created the problems of data-dependence and associated difficulties with changes and data migration.

There is a large networking and communication subsystem, which has three main servers – ETEL (EPOC telephony), ESOCK (EPOC sockets) and C32 (responsible for serial communication). EPOC is a family of Operating systems developed by Psion for portable devices primarily PDAs. Each of these has a plug-in scheme. For example ESOCK allows different ". PRT" protocol modules, implementing different types of networking protocol scheme. The subsystem also contains code that pertains to short-range communication links too, such as Bluetooth, IrDA and USB. Bluetooth is a wireless protocol utilizing short-range communications technology facilitating data transmission over short distances from fixed and/or mobile devices creating wireless The Infrared Data Association ( IrDA) defines physical specifications Communications protocol standards for the short-range exchange of Data

There is also a large volume of 'User Interface (UI) Code'. For the most part actual user interfaces are maintained by third parties. However the base classes and substructure are contained within the Symbian OS. This component is known as UIKON. The Symbian OS also contains the graphics, text layout, and font rendering libraries.

All Symbian applications are built up from three classes defined by the Application Architecture: an application class, a document class, and an application user interface class. These classes create the fundamental application behavior. The remaining required functions, the application view, data model, and data interface, are created independently and interact solely through their APIs with the other classes. UIQ and S60 both extend this approach, in two different ways.

There are, of course, many other things that do not yet fit into this model – for example, SyncML, Java ME providing another set of APIs on top of most of the OS and multimedia. SyncML ( Synchronization Markup Language) is the former name (currently referred to as Open Mobile Alliance Data Synchronization and Device Management) In computing the Java Platform Micro Edition or Java ME (still commonly referred to by its previous name Java 2 Platform Micro Edition or J2ME) is a specification Multimedia is media and content that utilizes a combination of different content forms. Quite a few of these are frameworks, and vendors are expected to supply plug-ins to these frameworks from third parties (for example, Helix player for multimedia codecs). This article is about the free and open-source software media project A codec is a device or program capable of encoding and/or decoding a Digital Data stream or signal. This has the advantage that the APIs to such areas of functionality are the same on many phone models, and that vendors get a lot of flexibility, but means that phone vendors need to do a great deal of integration work to make a Symbian OS phone.

Also available on E51.

Symbian OS device manufacturers also get supplied with an example user interface layer called TechView. This is very similar to the user interface from a Psion Series 5 personal organiser, so isn't used for any given phone user interface, but provides a basis to start customisation. The Psion Series 5 is a PDA from Psion. It comes in two main variants the Series 5 (launched in 1997 and the Series 5mx (1999 the latter It is also the environment in which a lot of Symbian OS test code and example code runs.

History

Psion

In 1980, Psion was founded by David Potter. David Edwin Potter, CBE, FREng (born 1943) is the founder and Chairman of the microcomputer systems company Psion plc

EPOC16

After the failure of the MC400 Psion released its Series 3 devices from 1991 to 1998 which also used the EPOC16 OS, also known as SIBO, which supported a simple programming language called OPL and an IDE called OVAL. The Psion 3 range of Personal digital assistants were made by Psion PLC.

EPOC OS Releases 1–3

Work started on the from-scratch 32 bit version in late 1994. The Series 5 device, released in June 1997, used the first iterations of the EPOC32 OS, codenamed 'Protea' and developed from scratch in 3. The Psion Series 5 is a PDA from Psion. It comes in two main variants the Series 5 (launched in 1997 and the Series 5mx (1999 the latter 5 years, and the 'Eikon' GUI.

EPOC Release 4

Internal only release.

EPOC Release 5

The Psion Series 5mx, Series 7, Psion Revo, Diamond Mako, Psion Netbook, netPad, GeoFox One, Oregon's Osaris, and Ericsson MC218 were released in 1999 using ER5. The Psion Series 5 is a PDA from Psion. It comes in two main variants the Series 5 (launched in 1997 and the Series 5mx (1999 the latter The Psion Series 7 is a Notebook computer from Psion that was released in 2000 The Psion Revo, launched in 1999 is a PDA from Psion. It is the light version of Psion 5mx It is software-compatible with the 5mx and has the The Psion Revo, launched in 1999 is a PDA from Psion. It is the light version of Psion 5mx It is software-compatible with the 5mx and has the The Psion NetBook is a notebook computer from Psion and similar in design to the Psion 7. Osaris is a Personal digital assistant (PDA featuring the EPOC Operating system distributed by Oregon Scientific. A phone project was announced at CeBIT, the Phillips Illium/Accent, but did not achieve a commercial release. CeBIT ( Ce ntrum der B üro- und I nformations' t' echnik; German for "Centre of Office and Information technology" is the This release has been retrospectively dubbed Symbian OS 5, it was never called that at the time.

ER5u

The first phone, the Ericsson R380 was released using ER5u in November 2000. It was not an 'open' phone – software could not be installed. Notably, a number of never-released Psion prototypes for next generation PDAs, including a Bluetooth Revo successor codenamed Conan were using ER5u. The 'u' in the name refers to the fact that it supported Unicode. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Symbian OS v6. 0 and 6. 1

Sometimes called ER6. The first 'open' Symbian OS phone, the Nokia 9210 Communicator, was released in June 2001. The Nokia 9210 Communicator is a third generation Communicator series Smartphone produced by Nokia, introduced in 2000. Bluetooth support added. Bluetooth is a wireless protocol utilizing short-range communications technology facilitating data transmission over short distances from fixed and/or mobile devices creating wireless Almost 500,000 Symbian phones were shipped in 2001, rising to 2. 1 million the following year.

Development of different UIs was made generic with a "reference design strategy" for either 'smartphone' or 'communicator' devices, subdivided further into keyboard- or tablet-based designs. Two reference UIs (DFRDs) were shipped - Quartz and Crystal. The former was merged with Ericsson's 'Ronneby' design and became the basis for the UIQ interface, the latter reached the market as the Nokia Series 80 UI. UIQ (formerly known as User Interface Quartz by UIQ Technology is a Software platform based upon Symbian OS. Nokia Series 80 (formerly Crystal) is a platform for enterprise and professional level mobile phones made by Nokia.

Later DFRDs were Sapphire, Ruby, and Emerald. Only Sapphire came to market, evolving into the Pearl DFRD and finally the Nokia Series 60 UI, a keypad-based 'square' UI for the first true smartphones. The S60 Platform (formerly Series 60 User Interface is a software platform for Mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. The first one of them was the Nokia 7650 smartphone (featuring Symbian OS 6. The Nokia 7650 is a smartphone belonging to the fashion and experimental ( 7xxx) series 1), which was also the first with a builtin camera, with VGA (0. 3 Mpx = 640*480) resolution.

Despite these efforts to be generic the UI was clearly split between competing companies, Crystal or Sapphire was Nokia, Quartz was Ericsson. DFRD was abandoned by Symbian in late 2002, as part of an active retreat from UI development in favour of 'headless' delivery. Pearl was given to Nokia, Quartz development was spun-off as UIQ Technology AB, and work with Japanese firms was quickly folded into the MOAP standard. MOAP (Mobile Oriented Applications Platform is the software platform for NTT DoCoMo 's FOMA service for Mobile phones Versions There are

Symbian OS 7. 0 and 7. 0s

First shipped in 2003. This is an important Symbian release which appeared with all contemporary user interfaces including UIQ (Sony Ericsson P800, P900, P910, Motorola A925, A1000), Series 80 (Nokia 9300, 9500), Series 90 (Nokia 7710), Series 60 (Nokia 3230, 6600, 7310) as well as several FOMA phones in Japan. UIQ (formerly known as User Interface Quartz by UIQ Technology is a Software platform based upon Symbian OS. Nokia Series 80 (formerly Crystal) is a platform for enterprise and professional level mobile phones made by Nokia. Nokia Series 90 is a platform for Mobile phones that use Symbian OS. The S60 Platform (formerly Series 60 User Interface is a software platform for Mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. FOMA ( IPA:/'foʊmə/ officially short for Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access, is the brand name for the 3G services being offered by Japanese mobile It also added EDGE support and IPv6. Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution ( EDGE) Enhanced GPRS ( EGPRS) or IMT Single Carrier ( IMT-SC) Internet Protocol version 6 ( IPv6) is an Internet Layer protocol for packet -switched internetworks. Java support was changed from pJava and JavaPhone to one based on the Java ME standard.

One million Symbian phones were shipped in Q1 2003, with the rate increasing to one million a month by the end of 2003.

Symbian OS 7. 0s was a version of 7. 0 special adapted to have greater backwards compatibility with Symbian OS 6. x, partly for compatibility between the Communicator 9500 and its predecessor the Communicator 9210.

In 2004, Psion sold its stake in Symbian. The same year, the first worm for mobile phones using Symbian OS, Cabir, was developed, which used Bluetooth to spread itself to nearby phones. A computer worm is a self-replicating Computer program. It uses a network to send copies of itself to other nodes (computer terminals on the network and it may do so without Cabir (also known as EPOCcabir and Symbian/Cabir) is the name of a Computer worm developed in 2004 that is designed to infect mobile phones Bluetooth is a wireless protocol utilizing short-range communications technology facilitating data transmission over short distances from fixed and/or mobile devices creating wireless See Cabir and Symbian OS threats. Cabir (also known as EPOCcabir and Symbian/Cabir) is the name of a Computer worm developed in 2004 that is designed to infect mobile phones Symbian OS is an open Operating system, designed for Mobile devices with associated libraries, User interface frameworks and

Symbian OS 8. 0

First shipped in 2004, one of its advantages would have been a choice of two different kernels (EKA1 or EKA2). However, the EKA2 kernel version did not ship until Symbian OS 8. 1b. The kernels behave more or less identically from user-side, but are internally very different. EKA1 was chosen by some manufacturers to maintain compatibility with old device drivers, while EKA2 was a real-time kernel. In Computer science, real-time computing (RTC is the study of hardware and software systems that are subject to a "real-time constraint"—i 8. 0b was deproductized in 2003.

Also included were new APIs to support CDMA, 3G, two-way data streaming, DVB-H, and OpenGL ES with vector graphics and direct screen access. Code division multiple access ( CDMA) is a Channel access method utilized by various radio communication technologies 3G is the third generation of mobile phone standards and Technology, superseding 2 DVB-H ( Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld) is one of three prevalent mobile TV formats OpenGL ( Open G raphics L ibrary is a standard specification defining a cross-language Cross-platform API for writing applications that produce Vector Graphic is an early microcomputer from the mid 1970's It is from the pre-IBM PC era as along with the NorthStar Horizon IMSAI and MITS Altair

Symbian OS 8. 1

Basically a cleaned-up version of 8. 0, this was available in 8. 1a and 8. 1b versions, with EKA1 and EKA2 kernels respectively. The 8. 1b version, with EKA2's single-chip phone support but no additional security layer, was popular among Japanese phone companies desiring the real-time support but not allowing open application installation. The first and maybe the most famous smartphone featuring Symbian OS 8. 1a was Nokia N90 in 2005, Nokia's first in Nseries. The Nokia N90 multimedia is a Smartphone with two displays and Carl Zeiss optics (made by Konica Minolta) Nokia Corporation (pronunciation /'nɔkiɑ/),,) is a Finnish multinational Communications Corporation, headquartered Nokia Nseries is a product family consisting of multimedia smartphones It comes with Carl-Zeiss Tessar optics and a 2 Mpx (1600*1200) camera with video capabilities to take VHS quality (352*288) videos and a huge screen resolution (at the time) of 352*416 pixels. The Tessar is a famous Photographic lens design conceived by physicist Paul Rudolph in 1902 while he worked at the Zeiss optical company and patented by

Symbian OS 9. 0

This version was used for internal Symbian purposes only. It was deproductised in 2004. 9. 0 marked the end of the road for EKA1. 8. 1a is the final EKA1 version of Symbian OS.

Symbian OS has generally maintained reasonable binary compatibility. In Computer software, an application binary interface ( ABI) describes the low-level interface between an application program and the Operating system In theory the OS was BC from ER1-ER5, then from 6. 0 to 8. 1b. Substantial changes were needed for 9. 0, related to tools and security, but this should be a one-off event. The move from requiring ARMv4 to requiring ARMv5 did not break backwards compatibility.

A Symbian developer proclaims that porting from Symbian 8. x to Symbian 9. x is a more daunting process than Symbian says. [2]

Symbian OS 9. 1

Released early 2005. It includes many new security related features, particularly a controversial platform security module facilitating mandatory code signing. Tivoization is the creation of a system that incorporates Software under the terms of a Copyleft Software license, but uses hardware to prevent users from Symbian argues that applications and content, and therefore a developers investment, are better protected than ever, however others contend that the requirement that every application be signed (and thus approved) violates the rights of the end-user, the owner of the phone, and limits the amount of free software available. The new ARM EABI binary model means developers need to retool and the security changes mean they may have to recode. An embedded-application binary interface (EABI specifies standard conventions for File formats data types register usage stack frame organization and function parameter S60 platform 3rd Edition phones have Symbian OS 9. The S60 Platform (formerly Series 60 User Interface is a software platform for Mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. 1. Sony Ericsson is shipping the M600 and P990 based on Symbian OS 9. Sony Ericsson M600 (sold as M600i model in some markets and originally labelled M608c in other markets is a 3G Smartphone based upon the UIQ 3 platform Sony Ericsson P990 is a Smartphone and the successor of Sony Ericsson P910. 1. The earlier versions had a fatal defect where the phone hangs temporarily after the owner sent hundreds of SMS'es. However, on 13 September 2006, Nokia released a small program to fix this defect. Events 509 BC - The Temple of Jupiter on Rome 's Capitoline Hill is dedicated on the ides of September Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. [3]

Support for Bluetooth 2. Bluetooth is a wireless protocol utilizing short-range communications technology facilitating data transmission over short distances from fixed and/or mobile devices creating wireless 0 (was 1. 2)

Symbian OS 9. 2

Released Q1 2006. Support for OMA Device Management 1. OMA Device Management is a Device management protocol specified by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA Device Management (DM Working Group and the Data Synchronization 2 (was 1. 1. 2). S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 phones have Symbian OS 9. The S60 Platform (formerly Series 60 User Interface is a software platform for Mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. 2. Nokia phones with Symbian OS 9. 2 OS: Nokia E90, Nokia N95,Nokia E51, Nokia 5700, Nokia N81, Nokia 6290, Nokia 6120 classic, Nokia N82. Nokia E90 Communicator is a 3G Smartphone made by Nokia and the latest model of the Communicator series Nokia E51 is a Symbian OS Smartphone by Nokia. It's the second Nokia UMTS Nokia 5700 is a music series Mobile phone by Nokia. Overview The Nokia 5700 is a Symbian S60 3rd Edition FP1 smartphone The Nokia N81 is a Smartphone announced by Nokia on August 29 2007 The Nokia 6290 is a multimedia 3G Smartphone made by Nokia and released in March 2007 The Nokia 6120 classic is a Nokia-produced Symbian OS Smartphone (not to be confused with Nokia 6120, an obsolete Mobile phone by Nokia The Nokia N82 is a Smartphone announced by Nokia on November 14 2007

Symbian OS 9. 3

Released on 12 July 2006. Events 1191 - Saladin 's garrison surrenders ending the two-year Siege of Acre. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Upgrades include improved memory management and native support for Wifi 802.11, HSDPA, Vietnamese language support. IEEE 80211 is a set of standards for wireless local area network (WLAN computer communication developed by the IEEE LAN/MAN Standards Committee ( IEEE 802 High-Speed Downlink Packet Access ( HSDPA) is a 3G (third generation Mobile telephony Communications protocol in the High-Speed Packet The Nokia N96 as well as the Nokia N78 will feature Symbian OS 9. Nokia N96 is the newest Nokia Smartphone in the Nseries range of products The Nokia N78 is a multimedia 3G Smartphone made by Nokia, designed by Joeske Schellen 3.

Symbian OS 9. 5

Announced in March 2007. Provides the concept of demand paging which is available from v9. 3 onwards. Applications should launch up to 75% faster. Native support for mobile digital television broadcasts in DVB-H and ISDB-T formats and also location services. Digital television (DTV is the sending and receiving of moving images and sound by discrete ( digital) signals in contrast to the analog signals used by DVB-H ( Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld) is one of three prevalent mobile TV formats Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting (ISDB is a Japanese standard for Digital television (DTV and Digital radio used by the country's radio Additionally, SQL support is provided by SQLite. SQLite is a mostly ACID -compliant Relational database management system contained in a relatively small (~500 kB) C programming library

Open Source Software for Symbian 9. 1

The following Open Source software has been rewritten for Symbian 9. The Open Source Definition is used by the Open Source Initiative to determine whether or not a software license can be considered open source. 1:

Utilities

Game emulation

Multimedia

Symbian has announced PIPS (PIPS Is POSIX on Symbian) which may increase the number of Open Source projects written for Symbian 9. Putty is a generic term for a plastic material similar in texture to Clay or Dough typically used in domestic construction and repair as a sealant or filler SymTorrent is a free GPL -licensed BitTorrent client for Nokia Series 60 Symbian phones made by researchers of Budapest University Python is a general-purpose High-level programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes programmer productivity and code readability ScummVM is a collection of Game engine recreations Originally designed to play LucasArts adventure games that use the SCUMM system (the VM in To learn how to create video or audio files for Wikipedia and its sister projects check WikipediaCreation and usage of media files. 1.

Security and malware

Main article: Mobile virus

Symbian OS has been subject to a variety of viruses, the best known of which is Cabir. A mobile virus is an electronic virus that targets Mobile phones or wireless-enabled PDAs As wireless phone and PDA networks become more numerous and Cabir (also known as EPOCcabir and Symbian/Cabir) is the name of a Computer worm developed in 2004 that is designed to infect mobile phones Usually these send themselves from phone to phone by Bluetooth. So far, none have taken advantage of any flaws in Symbian OS – instead, they have all asked the user whether they would like to install the software, with somewhat prominent warnings that it can't be trusted.

However, with a view that the average mobile phone user shouldn't have to worry about security, Symbian OS 9. x has adopted a capability model. Capability-based security is a concept in the design of Secure computing systems Installed software will theoretically be unable to do damaging things (such as costing the user money by sending network data) without being digitally signed – thus making it traceable. Commercial developers who can afford the cost can apply to have their software signed via the Symbian Signed program. Currently, developers also have the option of self-signing their programs. However, the set of available features is smaller, and certain operators have opted on fully disabling certificates other than the Symbian Signed certificates.

Some other hostile programs are listed below, but all of them still require the input of the user to run.

Openness

Symbian is not Open Source software. Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge However, phone manufacturers and other partners are provided with parts of its source code. The APIs are publicly documented and up to Symbian 8. 1 anyone could develop software for Symbian OS.

Symbian 9. 1 introduced capabilities and Platform Security framework. Capability-based security is a concept in the design of Secure computing systems To access certain capabilities, the developer has to digitally sign their application. A digital signature or digital signature scheme is a type of asymmetric cryptography used to simulate the security properties of a handwritten Signature Basic capabilities are user-grantable and developer can self-sign them, more advanced require certification and signing via the Symbian Signed program; which uses independent Test Houses and/or phone manufacturer approval. In Cryptography and Computer security, a self-signed certificate is an Identity certificate that is signed by its own creator For example file writing is a user-grantable capability, and access to Multimedia Device Drivers require phone manufacturer approval. TC TrustCenter ACS Publisher ID certificate required from developer for signing application. In Computer security, an authorization certificate (also known as an attribute certificate) is a Digital document that describes a written permission from

Devices that have used the Symbian OS

On November 16, 2006, the 100 millionth smartphone running the OS was shipped. Events 534 - A second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus is published Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. A smartphone is a Mobile phone offering advanced capabilities beyond a typical mobile phone often with PC -like functionality [4]

Developing on Symbian OS

The native language of the Symbian OS is C++, although it is not a standard implementation. There are multiple platforms based upon Symbian OS that provide an SDK for application developers wishing to target a Symbian OS device – the main ones being UIQ and S60. A software development kit ( SDK or " devkit " is typically a set of development tools that allows a Software engineer to create applications Individual phone products, or families, often have SDKs or SDK extensions downloadable from the manufacturer's website too. The SDKs contain documentation, the header files and library files required to build Symbian OS software, and a Windows-based emulator ("WINS"). Up until Symbian OS version 8, the SDKs also included a version of the GCC compiler (a cross-compiler) required to build software to work on the device. The GNU Compiler Collection (usually shortened to GCC) is a set of Compilers produced for various Programming languages by the GNU Project A cross compiler is a Compiler capable of creating Executable code for a platform other than the one on which the compiler is run

Symbian OS 9 uses a new ABI and so requires a new compiler – a choice of compilers is available including a new version of GCC (see external links below). In Computer software, an application binary interface ( ABI) describes the low-level interface between an application program and the Operating system In terms of SDKs, UIQ Technology now provides a simplified framework so that the single UIQ SDK forms the basis for developing on all UIQ 3 devices, such as the Sony Ericsson P990 and Sony Ericsson M600. UIQ (formerly known as User Interface Quartz by UIQ Technology is a Software platform based upon Symbian OS. Sony Ericsson P990 is a Smartphone and the successor of Sony Ericsson P910. Sony Ericsson M600 (sold as M600i model in some markets and originally labelled M608c in other markets is a 3G Smartphone based upon the UIQ 3 platform

Unfortunately, Symbian C++ programming has a steep learning curve, as Symbian requires the use of special techniques such as descriptors and the cleanup stack. This can make even relatively simple programs harder to implement than in other environments. Moreover, it is questionable whether Symbian's techniques e. g. the memory management paradigm are actually so beneficial. It is possible that the techniques, developed for the much more restricted mobile hardware of the 1990s, do cause unnecessary complexity in source code; programmers are required to concentrate on bug-prone low-level routines instead of truly application-specific features. It is difficult, however, to make a move towards a more high-level and modern programming paradigm in Symbian, because the platform is so tightly bound to semi-obsolete thinking models about mobile software development. [5]

Symbian C++ programming is commonly done with an IDE. In Computing, an integrated development environment ( IDE) is a Software application that provides comprehensive facilities to Computer programmers For previous versions of Symbian OS, the commercial IDE CodeWarrior for Symbian OS was favoured. CodeWarrior is an integrated development environment (IDE for the Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Solaris and Embedded The CodeWarrior tools were replaced during 2006 by Carbide.c++, an Eclipse-based IDE developed by Nokia. Carbidec++ is a software development tool for C++ development on Symbian OS. In Computing, Eclipse is a Software platform comprising extensible Application frameworks tools and a Runtime library for Software Carbide. c++ is offered in 4 different versions: Express, Developer, Professional, and OEM, with increasing levels of capability. Full featured software can be created and released with the Express edition, which is free. Features such as UI design, crash debugging etc. are available in the other charged for editions. Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 and 2005 are also supported through the Carbide.vs plugin. Microsoft Visual Studio is the main Integrated Development Environment (IDE from Microsoft. Carbidec++ is a software development tool for C++ development on Symbian OS.

Symbian OS's flavor of C++ is very specialised. C++ (" C Plus Plus " ˌsiːˌplʌsˈplʌs is a general-purpose Programming language. However, many Symbian OS devices can also be programmed in OPL, Python, Visual Basic, Simkin, and Perl – together with the Java ME and PersonalJava flavors of Java. The Open Programming Language (OPL is an embedded Programming language for portable devices that run the Symbian Operating System, which can be found on Python is a general-purpose High-level programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes programmer productivity and code readability Visual Basic ( VB) is the third-generation event-driven programming language and associated development environment (IDE from Simkin is a Scripting language that can be embedded in Java or C++ applications NOTES FOR EDITORS "Perl" is not an acronym (read the "Name" section below In computing the Java Platform Micro Edition or Java ME (still commonly referred to by its previous name Java 2 Platform Micro Edition or J2ME) is a specification PersonalJava is a Java software development platform for mobile and embedded systems

Visual Basic, VB. NET, and C# development for Symbian were possible through AppForge Crossfire, a plugin for Microsoft Visual Studio. AppForge Inc was a software company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, providing mobile application development services as well as CrossFire a software tool simplifying March 13, 2007 AppForge ceased operations, Oracle purchased the intellectual property, but announced that they do not plan to sell or provide support for former AppForge products. Events 1138 - Cardinal Gregorio Conti is elected Antipope as Victor IV, succeeding Anacletus II. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century.

There is also a version of a Borland IDE for Symbian OS. Borland Software Corporation is a software company headquartered in Austin Texas. Symbian OS development is also possible on Linux and Mac OS X using tools and techniques developed by the community, partly enabled by Symbian releasing the source code for key tools. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently A plugin that allows development of Symbian OS applications in Apple's Xcode IDE for Mac OS X is available. Xcode is a suite of tools for developing software on Mac OS X, developed by Apple. [6]

Once developed, Symbian OS applications need to find a route to customers' mobile phones. They are packaged in SIS files which may be installed over-the-air, via PC connect or in some cases via Bluetooth or memory cards. An alternative is to partner with a phone manufacturer to have the software included on the phone itself. The SIS file route is more difficult for Symbian OS 9. x, because any application wishing to have any capabilities beyond the bare minimum must be signed via the Symbian Signed program.

Java ME applications for Symbian OS are developed using standard techniques and tools such as the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit (formerly the J2ME Wireless Toolkit). In computing the Java Platform Micro Edition or Java ME (still commonly referred to by its previous name Java 2 Platform Micro Edition or J2ME) is a specification This was formerly known as Java 2 Platform Micro Edition (J2ME Wireless Toolkit This was formerly known as Java 2 Platform Micro Edition (J2ME Wireless Toolkit They are packaged as JAR (and possibly JAD) files. Both CLDC and CDC applications can be created with NetBeans. NetBeans refers to both a platform for the development Other tools include SuperWaba, which can be used to build Symbian 7. SuperWaba is a Java-like Virtual machine (VM that targets portable devices 0 and 7. 0s programs using Java.

Nokia S60 phones can also run python scripts when the interpreter is installed, with a custom made API that allows for Bluetooth support and such. There is also an interactive console to allow the user to write python scripts directly from the phone.

Symbian folder structure

Although knowing how files and folders are organized in Symbian phones is not needed for normal user, its knowledge can be useful to "advanced users" as it allows preventing damage to data derived from OS bugs or misuse of the phone.

This description is based on filesystem structure of Motorola a1000 phone, a UIQ 2. UIQ (formerly known as User Interface Quartz by UIQ Technology is a Software platform based upon Symbian OS. 1 based phone, but can usually apply to any Symbian 7. x/8. x phone.

The basic structure of a Symbian phone is made of 3 main folders in the root: system, system (ROM), and documents.

"Documents" folder just holds user data, no application, so its contents is of no interest here.

"System" is the most important folder, as it holds (but not all) of the system applications and settings. Other settings and programs, not changeable by the user, are stored in same folder in ROM drive (Z:\system): they are know as the firmware, as it can't be modified (in theory) once the phone is shipped to the end user. System folder contains some dozens of folders, and only of some of them the contents/use is (publicly) known:

Let's see them one by one:

Contains all applications installed by user, settings for system applications (whose "executables" are stored in same folder on Z:\) and midlets "executables". A MIDlet is a Java program for Embedded devices, more specifically the Java ME virtual machine In computing the Java Platform Micro Edition or Java ME (still commonly referred to by its previous name Java 2 Platform Micro Edition or J2ME) is a specification Midlet applications (java j2me) are actually installed in two separate folders: one inside c:\system\Apps folder, another inside c:\system\MIDlets folder. In this one the . JAR file is stored; in c:\system\apps there is one folder named [xxxxxxxx] per each midlet; xxxxxxxx is an hexadecimal number (application UID) automatically chosen by System upon installation.

All the applications installed by user appear in c:\system\apps as a folder named like the application itself: i. e. , SMan will have a C:\system\apps\SMan folder. The whole Apps folder is scanned by System when the Application Selector is started, which displays a list of all available, not-hidden applications. An application can be installed on every folder on the phone, but only applications installed in c:\system\apps will be visible in Application Selector. If an application has a . aif file which marks it as not visible (usually a System application in Z:), application does not appear in application selector, and it can only be started using a file manager which allows directly accessing application folder. Examples of "hidden applications" on Motorola a1000 are IViewer (Image viewer), JViewer (jotter viewer), Mdownloadagent (??), Mdrmmsghandler (Digital Rights Management?) QHELP (online help), QVcalviewer (Calendar viewer), QVnview (Voice notes viewer), qWebViewer, QDefaultViewer (maybe launched upon opening unknown documents), QVcardviewer, rtview (Ringtones viewer), saflashplayer (Flash player embedded in browser), screen_cal (Screen Calibration), Startup (WARNING!!! FORMATS YOUR PHONE!!!), SkinViewer, Stpfrmmover (Stamps and Frames mover (?)), TelVidUriApp (?). Most of these applications are intended to be launched by the System upon attempting to open specific files (ringtones, images), other are started just once ("screen-cal" after phone formatting, "startup upon" resetting the phone), others appear to be hidden for unknown reasons ("Stamps and Frames mover", which handles Stamps and Frames files stored in \system\data\frames and \system\data\stamps, used by image editor application). Applications intended to be launched by system will result in "corrupted" or "folder not found" errors if launched by user.

Each system application, pre-installed in z:\system\apps , has a matching folder in C:\system\apps, which holds its language file (. rsc) and its settings file (. ini)

[. . . to be continued]

User interfaces which allows emulating qwerty keyboard, recognizing handwriting and so on.

Once a . sis file is installed, its "relic" is put here, and used by the System to know where each application is installed.

adding more . jar files here allows "unlocking" some hidden features of PersonalJava virtual machine (e. g. by copying QAWT. JAR from SDK)

all messages are stored here in separate folders and in binary format. Even some messages marked as deleted still appears here for a while. NOTE: it is very probable that all symbian phones (before 9. x) do a total indexing of all messages at each phone startup; this result in very long startup time in case of hundreds or thousands of messages present on the phone.

Together with c:\system\apps\[xxxxxxxx] , these folders contain installed midlets.

Recognizers are small dlls which allows system recognizing different file types: a recognizers can be used to tell to the system to analyze a specific amount of bytes in a file and its extension to determine which application use to open it. Recognizers can also be used to have an application automatically starting at phone bootup. This kind of recognizers should be always put in external memory, to prevent phone locking in case of trouble in autostarting applications.

Symbian OS boot sequence

Like any PC, Symbian-based devices have their own boot-up process, i. e. the process which brings from power-up to a ready-to-use system. This is the sequence for Motorola A1000 phone (see also official documentation):

BOOTSTRAP --> EKERN. The Motorola A1000 is a 3G Smartphone from Motorola using the UIQ platform based upon Symbian OS. EXE --> EFILE. EXE --> ESTART. EXE --> EWSRV. EXE --(1)--> QSTART. EXE --(2)--> . MDL files (3)

  1. Reads from z:\system\data\WSINI.INI the EpocWindowsSeRVer configuration data
  2. Reads from QSTART. RSC programs/servers to be started
  3. Custom MDL files are processed

These are three possible "entry points" to modify startup sequence: WSINI. INI is just a text file, which specifies which "shell" to start (QSTART on A1000), so probably other shells could be specified to be started here; but WSINI. INI resides in ROM, thus this requires heavy device hacking. Similar problems for QSTART. EXE: it reads program list from QSTART. RSC, but this file resides in ROM. Only step 3 is useful to customize boot sequence, as . MDL files can also be stored in RAM, and they also allows starting up any application, which in this way can autostart at phone bootup.

The list below is the content (stripped of unreadable binary data) of Motorola A1000 QSTART. RSC file, which probably describes which programs/services are started upon UIQ interface is started:

When Z:\system\libs\instrec. exe is started, it examines all recognizers stored in all drives in \system\recogs folders, storing information about files associations. Together with contents of . AIF files of applications, this allows System to know which application use to open "recognized" files.

Running this program from console (Z:\system\samples\eshell. exe) reloads all recognizers, thus allowing new recognizers being installed without rebooting the phone.

At some point of the startup sequence, probably system calls program mailinit. exe, which actually appears referred to in this chain:

qikutils. dll -> eikcore. dll -> uikon_init -> qsbmsg. dll -> msgs. dll -> mailinit. exe

This is documented to cause, in case of lot of messages present in memory, a very long startup time, as probably mailinit. UIQ (formerly known as User Interface Quartz by UIQ Technology is a Software platform based upon Symbian OS. exe is demanded to rebuild the c:\system\data\index files, which holds summaries and status of all messages present in the system (sms, mms, mail, bluetooth. Bluetooth is a wireless protocol utilizing short-range communications technology facilitating data transmission over short distances from fixed and/or mobile devices creating wireless . . ). SymbianOS is indeed designed to run continuously for many days, virtually never requiring reboot, so all long-time activities are probably executed only at startup.

See also

Notes and references

  1. ^ Smart mobile device shipments hit 118 million in 2007, up 53% on 2006 (Canalys press release: r2008021)
  2. ^ Symbian developer reports on porting from 8.x to 9.x
  3. ^ Solution to Nokia Slow SMS / Hang Problem
  4. ^ Six Years of Symbian Produces 100 Models and 100 Million Shipments, The Smart PDA. ( founded in April 1979 and incorporated in February 1984 in Tokyo Japan by Arakawa Toru and Kamada Tomihisa is a company providing a variety of software for connected and mobile devices such A mobile game is a Video game played on a Mobile phone, Smartphone, PDA or Handheld computer Nokia OS ( NOS) is an informal name for the Operating system in many Nokia Mobile phones These are informal names there is no such product or Openmoko is a project which encompasses two related sub-projects with the combined aim of creating a family of Open source Mobile phones The project was founded The Operating System Embedded (mostly known under the Acronym OSE) is a real-time Embedded operating system created by the Swedish Accredited Symbian Developer ( ASD) is an accreditation program for Software developers using Symbian OS, a mobile phone operating system
  5. ^ Symbian OS design faults
  6. ^ Tom Sutcliffe and Jason Barrie Morley Xcode Symbian support

External links

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