OS Symbian. Operating system for cell phones, smartphones and communicators

Symbian OS is 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.

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 codes of the system to members of the Symbian Foundation. This step should help promote Symbian OS in the mobile systems market. On this moment 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 program execution with reduced power consumption requirements. From a development point of view, distinctive feature system is a completely object-oriented architecture (on 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 violation 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. The main competitors of Symbian OS were operating systems Microsoft systems: Windows Mobile(Pocket PC Edition) and Smartphone Edition and Windows Phone, as well as operating systems Google Android, and Apple iOS.

Today, the smartphone market is developing at an unprecedented speed, slowly displacing the market for regular mobile phones. If previously only wealthy people could afford such high-performance devices, now they have become available to everyone. Their price category is comparable to the prices regular phones. Manufacturers are trying to provide smartphones with the most advanced technologies and at the same time reduce their cost.

In the near future, smartphones, like their older “brothers” - communicators, will conquer the market mobile devices, completely replacing conventional tubes. After all, when buying such a device, we get a multifunctional device that combines both multimedia and an unlimited set of business functions, and is also equipped with an operating system and processor, which distinguishes it from a mobile phone.

Today there are several types of operating systems, such as, and. Each of these operating systems has its own characteristics, types, advantages and disadvantages.

The most common is. Mainly due to the fact that most smartphones are produced by everyone’s favorite manufacturer – Nokia. Although such manufacturers as Samsung, Motorola, Siemens and Sony Ericsson have mobile devices running this OS in their arsenal. And most importantly, devices different manufacturers, but with the same operating system, have many differences.

operating system Symbian was developed to satisfy the desire of consumers to have multifunctional mobile devices and perform various high-tech operations on them.

And thanks to the efforts of such large corporations as Ericsson, Nokia, Matsushita, Kenwood, Fujitsu, Siemens, the first version of Symbian OS was released in 1997. And in 2002, the sixth version of this OS was released, and with it the first smartphone.

Today the most common are 7,8 and 9 versions of Symbian. In general, Symbian is full set office, organizational and communication applications, and for controlling the device itself and application programs, a beautifully drawn graphical shell is used.

In general, Symbian OS has several versions, namely 3 and several add-on packages:

- S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 1 - Symbian OS v7.0s( , Panasonic X700, Panasonic X800, Samsung D720, Samsung D730);

- S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 2 - Symbian OS v8.0a( , Lenovo P930);

So, let's look at the most latest version, namely S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1 - Symbian OS v9.1, namely its main advantages and disadvantages.

Main advantages and differences from previous versions:

Implemented improvements in system performance and data access speed, memory efficiency;

New platform security;

No viruses at the moment;

Supports high color rendering displays;

Main disadvantages:

Complete incompatibility with programs and applications of previous OS versions.

Conclusion: Today Symbian is the most optimal and most powerful operating system used in mobile devices. which will certainly be the leader in the smartphone market for a long time to come. Updates (Feature Pack) for Symbian 9, which will expand its capabilities, will not be long in coming. And let's hope that software manufacturers will not make you wait long and will release the same amount of software as for previous versions.

Once upon a time, in ancient times, there were Psion computers (someone may remember them, and someone worked on them). They were created by Psion and ran on the Epoc operating system. It was this company, in collaboration with Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, that developed the EPOC 32 (Symbian OS) operating system.

History of Symbian OS development

The history of the development of the Symbian operating system can be briefly divided into the following stages:
June 1998 – Symbian LTD. emerged as an independent private company and was owned by Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Psion.
1999 – the company is recognized as the most promising in the mobile device market. Matsushita (Panasonic) also becomes a co-owner of the company.
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 companies 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 appears - Ericsson R380.
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 presents a new version of the operating system – Symbian OS 7.0 at the global concern 3GSM. Sony Ericsson announces the Sony Ericsson P800 smartphone. Samsung licenses Symbian OS.
2003 – Samsung becomes a co-owner of Symbian.
And 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.
Initially, the C++ programming 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 this choice was quite successful and justified.
Why is Symbian so attractive to such different groups as device users, manufacturers and developers?

The attractiveness of 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 beginning of the development of an operating system for mobile devices, the need for free portability of the system to different types processors. Symbian failed to cope with this task, but found Alternative option– ARM processors were chosen 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 the Symbian operating system is its built-in multilingual capabilities.
Again, if we look at the phone market, it becomes clear that for mobile devices there are no standards for screen size, keyboard, keys, etc. And Symbian has a clear division between graphical interface and other software components. This allows you to easily 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 developers, Symbian's appeal lies in its provision of a wide range of development tools for Symbian OS. Programs in standard C++ language are created on a PC using a development environment Microsoft Visual Studio and emulator, which is very convenient. The main advantage of Symbian OS is that it is the so-called " open system". The entire set of programming tools, as well as all necessary information It is available completely free of charge at www.symbian.com/developer, which means that anyone can contribute to improving the functions of Symbian OS. Naturally, under such conditions, the number of programs for the Symbian platform is simply enormous, although we should not forget that not all programs are harmless.

The attractiveness of Symbian OS for users

Well, and most importantly, this is what attracts the Symbian operating system for ordinary users.
Comfortable keyboards, such as the Nokia 9210, and well-designed applications allow you to work with large volumes data. The small size of computers based on Symbian OS allows users to always carry them with them and enter any data as needed.
High-quality software upon purchase allows entry-level users not to configure much themselves, convenient and intuitive clear interface. As the user level increases, the Symbian operating system allows you to install additional programs.
But the most important thing is probably that the Symbian operating system is created specifically for mobile devices that have limited resources. Those. unlike PDAs, they have enough small size and mass, and, therefore, not so much a large number of chips and boards, in other words, more reliable. Therefore, over the entire service life, which can be weeks and even years, they can not be turned off even once (everyone always wants to be in touch) and at the same time serve faithfully.

If Symbian is so good, why do they keep releasing newer and newer versions?
Largely due to the prevalence of viruses, there are currently more than a hundred of them under Symbian. Also, new communication protocols are appearing, phone characteristics are improving, and you need to work with all this.
Let's look at all versions in order.

Symbian OS versions 5.0 – 7.0

The first officially known version of Symbian was 5.0; devices such as Psion Revo, Psion Netbook, netPad, Ericsson MC218 worked on this version
The next version of Symbian OS 5.1. Unicode appeared. The Ericsson R380 worked with this version.
Symbian OS 6.0 and 6.1 are the first generation of so-called “open” phones, i.e. having the ability to install software by the user himself, such was the Nokia 9210. Also, it was from these versions that the division of devices into “families” was introduced. Now there are 3 “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 an important release of Symbian which 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), Row 60 (Nokia 6600, 7310). In the same year, the first self-replicating virus for mobile phones using Symbian OS, Cabir, was discovered. It used Bluetooth to spread to other phones.

Symbian OS version 8.0

Symbian OS 8.0 was a version of a dual-core operating system, 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 no additional level of security, was popular among Japanese telephone companies.
In order to still understand all these versions and kernels, we can highlight the following emerging features:

• There is now support for cheaper memory chips (installed at the discretion of the manufacturer).
• Opportunities have emerged for creating interfaces for voice recognition, encryption of streaming data, and for working with three-dimensional applications and sounds.
• Support for the WCDMA communication standard has appeared.
• It is now possible to work with different protocols for video calls.
• It becomes possible to highlight e-mails, links, etc. for saving and further work.
• Files with third-party rights cannot be transferred to other devices and can only be used on the device where they were received or pre-installed.
• To achieve greater compatibility for 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 version 9.0

Symbian OS 9.0 - this version was released exclusively for internal purposes of the Symbian company. The version improves the security and compatibility of versions 6 to 8.
Symbian OS 9.1 – the version improved security, this was its main focus. Support for Bluetooth 1.2 and OMA 1.1.2 control devices has also been introduced.
Symbian OS 9.2 – support for Bluetooth 2.0 (was 1.2), and OMA 1.2 control devices (was 1.1.2)
Symbian OS 9.3 – increased download speed 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.
And if we summarize the 9th version of Symbian OS, then at the moment we can note:

• A new system core has been introduced that supports real-time operation.
• v 9.0 improves system performance, data access speed, and memory efficiency, but at the expense of this we had to sacrifice compatibility with previously created programs. At the time of the release of the new version and, accordingly, the new smartphone, users were faced with a lack of necessary programs and applications, the old ones did not run on the new devices at all.
• The new security platform is the so-called “signature” structure. All applications must now be signed with a special numeric signature, directories and folders must have limited access, etc.
• Implemented support for the HSDPA communication standard.
• Increased download speed and built-in support for communication equipment with Wi-Fi networks.
• Bluetooth 2.0 support.

So, now you have a brief idea about the main operating system for mobile phones and smartphones, Symbian OS. Now, according to statistics, every third phone has this operating system specially designed for mobile devices. Symbian OS is good in everything except protection from virus attacks(this is an advantage), so in the end I would like to advise turning off Bluetooth when not in use, because unprotected contacts are known to be dangerous.
Otherwise, Symbian OS fully justifies itself, which is why it has become widespread. For getting detailed description(shopping), click on the product:

Good day, Habr. I was prompted to write this note by several factors - the experience of communicating with other people from the Nokia fan community, notes and analyzes on Habré, as well as my own experience in choosing suitable smartphones.
As usual, there are a lot of people on “these Internets of yours”, everyone has their own opinion, their own arguments and counterarguments, but people also love to simply succumb to fashion and scold something simply because it is a trend. My post is intended to somewhat dispel the established opinion about Symbian, its capabilities and current status. I will build the main part of my arguments using the example of camera phones, I will tell and explain how and why I became interested in them, so if you are interested, welcome and get ready to spend traffic on photo and video examples.

How it all began

Perhaps it’s worth noting right away that I have been a fairly long-time fan of Nokia devices - it all started with the famous model 3310, then came the 3510i, followed by the 6230i, a big step forward for me was the purchase of the N95, and further research on forums and stores led me to purchasing the no less famous N8. In terms of changing phones, I tend to consider myself a fairly lucky person, since all the changes, except one, occurred as part of an upgrade of an existing phone to something new, which has significantly greater capabilities.

Nokia 6230i

If everything is basically obvious with the 3310 and 3510i models, then with all the others things were a little more complicated. So, starting with 6230i, one of important characteristics The device for me was the camera - in the summer of 2006, I, still a schoolboy, was simply amazed by 1.3 Mpx with an incredible resolution at that time - 1280x1024. At that time, the usual resolution of cameras in phones was 640x480, autofocus could not even be dreamed of, but the only alternative to such a device could be a combination of a simple phone + a cheap point-and-shoot camera + a cheap MP3 player, which turned out to be no cheaper than one device in the form Nokia 6230i. Be that as it may, after going to the store and receiving this device, I immediately began to master all its capabilities. There was also browsing through Mobile Internet, and listening to music, and reading books (yes, on a 1.5" screen with a resolution of 208x208 pixels), and of course taking photos and videos in all possible situations. Many of you will probably say, “what kind of photos could you take with using that ridiculous camera, nonsense", and perhaps they will be right. To obtain a more or less normal photograph, almost ideal conditions were indeed required - good lighting, the correct position relative to the light source, a strong hand (especially for night photos). However, one thing a decent amount could be captured using the Nokia 6230i:

In my opinion, it is quite enough to capture some life situations, some photographs, after processing with a file in Photoshop, were even sent for printing in the 10x15cm format. Moreover, let me remind you we're talking about about 2006-2007.

Nokia N95

So, by the summer of 2008, I was finally ready to replace my existing device and first of all paid attention to Nokia devices, namely the N95 model. The impressions from the first acquaintance were extremely positive - almost double diagonal screen (compared to the 6230i), multitasking, maps with GPS, WiFi, TV and audio outputs via a 3.5mm mini-jack, and of course, a camera. The N95 camera at that time was truly unrivaled: 5 Mpx photo resolution, autofocus, LED flash, video recording with a resolution of 640x480 and a frame rate of 30fps. Simply put, the N95 was truly rich in functionality and, when used correctly, turned into a mini-computer. It was then that I developed a list of requirements for functionality, which any normal smartphone should have:

• View pages on the Internet without losing functionality compared to the same pages on a PC (scrolling, JS, zooming in and out, downloading and uploading files through the browser when working with any site)
• Switch between multiple open applications, their work in the background
• Easily transfer files via Bluetooth or USB, without third party software and artificial restrictions
• Viewing and editing various documents(.doc, .pdf, .djvu, etc.)
• Flexible control of camera settings (photo modes, file names, save location, ability to pause video recording and then continue, zoom when shooting video)

As history has shown, not all of these basic things were in IOS, Android, Windows Phone 8...
As for photography and videography, with the n95 this hobby has gone completely to the extreme. new level and I came to the conclusion that I don’t want to constantly carry a point-and-shoot camera or a DSLR with a camcorder with me. The quality of photographs has risen to a quite decent level, do not forget, these are from 2008-2010:

Nokia N8

As for the Nokia N8, at first I saw its purchase as a simple evolutionary transition from one good smartphone another. Yes, the N8 has a bigger and better screen than the N95 (3.5" AMOLED vs. 2.6" TFT, 640x360 vs. 320x240, GorillaGlass vs. plain glass display), clock frequency and volume random access memory also doubled, aluminum body versus plastic, xenon flash versus LED, 12Mpx cameras versus 5Mpx, and on top of everything else, a new version of the operating system – Symbian ^3. In fact, there weren’t that many innovations and visual changes and they weren’t confusing; using the S60 as an example, I was quite familiar with Symbian, I had a good idea of ​​its capabilities, strengths and weak sides. Based on this, I simply focused on studying the hardware, enjoying the increased speed of the system, free GPS navigation, increased quality of pictures and videos. It is worth noting that the “boxed” version of Symbian ^3 was not ideal and Nokia was constantly working on improvements, fixes, and expanding the functionality of the device. The first big update was Symbian Anna, which improved system stability, added beauty to the UI and brought with it a set of new minor bugs. As often happens, the system became a real workhorse only after the second major update– Symbian Belle.
At that time, the prospect of curtailing work on Symbian clearly loomed on the horizon, and it was in Belle that Nokia developers tried to finally correct many of the annoying omissions of previous years. Thus, the number of desktops was increased, a “curtain” appeared at the top of the screen, by pulling which you could expand the quick access panel, the appearance of the SMS chat changed, the frame rate when shooting video was increased to 30fps, and elements for more precise settings. Moreover, after installing Belle, the smartphone began to behave more stable, did not freeze and could work without turning off or rebooting for several weeks.
As time passed, Nokia N8 served me faithfully as mobile computer, player, camera, camcorder. Several thousand photographs were taken, hundreds of videos were shot, even all moments of the vacation were filmed and edited in 720p. Of course, over time, the shortcomings of the device became noticeable; more precisely, the N8 began to become obsolete. The abundance of jquery, all kinds of plug-in libraries, even outdated Flash videos on website pages has led to the fact that viewing most of them has become not entirely comfortable due to slow loading and banal “brakes”. Installing an SSD in my home computer completely developed in me a dislike for any kind of delays and expectations when working with various devices, and the resolution of 1280x720 when shooting video in 2012 was already not enough to document the events happening around me.
Perhaps I was only satisfied with the quality of the photographs:

Desktop with widgets for mail, events, connection management

Opened quick access panel curtain

Gallery

View photos

Photo information

Open applications with quick access to them

You probably won’t find glamor in Symbian ^3, but this OS is quite capable of performing its functions and providing the user with access to the necessary applications or data.
As for photos and videos, a separate great review, with an explanation of exactly how Pureview's technology works in this case, what does this give and why do you need a sensor of as much as 41 Mpx. Instead, I'll just give you a few photos and a short edited video as an example.
Not many photos have been taken at the moment, so there are only 4 (+1) as an example:

In my personal opinion, it makes sense to take full-size photographs at 38 or 33.4Mpx only when shooting landscapes and panoramas; moreover, it is highly advisable to have a tripod for this, otherwise the photographs may turn out slightly blurry. For all other occasions in life, photographs with a resolution of 5Mpx using PureView technology are sufficient. It is also worth noting that if you have a tripod, you can take photographs with shutter speeds of up to 2.7 seconds. This shutter speed allows you to take quite decent photographs (for a smartphone or point-and-shoot camera) in low light conditions in cases where a xenon flash cannot be used or is simply impractical. As an example:

This photo was taken at night, under the light of street lights, without using a flash.
If we talk about the video capabilities of the Nokia 808 Pureview, it’s worth conditionally dividing this conversation into two parts – the quality of the recorded video and the sound quality. Due to the huge sensor resolution, the 808 Pureview allows you to use digital zoom without loss of quality. You can verify this with the following simple testing:

Original

When using a tripod, the quality of shooting increases and in some cases it is not always possible to immediately determine whether the 3x zoom is currently being used or not.
To record sound when shooting videos, Rich Recording Technology is used, which has already been described on Habré.
To confirm its capabilities, I suggest watching this video:

On Youtube views you can find many other examples (one, two).
Despite the fact that the N8 was significantly ahead of its competitors in terms of sound recording quality, even it was unable to record sound from the fan zone without distortion:

The 808 Pureview, which replaced it, literally significantly raised the bar for sound recording quality, especially in loud and noisy places of rest of its owner.
In general, the photo and video capabilities of this device allow you not to carry around either a cheap digital camera or a camcorder, and take a digital SLR camera only in exceptional cases, when there is both opportunity and necessity. If we talk about Symbian Belle FP2 itself, then at the moment it is quite adequate alternative to Windows Phone 8 and Android if you need a simple and reliable tool, not an expensive and capricious toy.

conclusions

As a result of the whole long story, thoughts, analysis and everything else, I would like to say the following: if when choosing a smartphone you are confused only by the Symbian Belle on board, try to look at the situation objectively and think sensibly. At the moment, Symbian is a completely mature operating system, having survived its childhood illnesses, it has not been abandoned, not forgotten, there are both official support, as well as various fashions and programs from third party developers. In many ways, the reputation of Symbian is based on rumors and unverified facts, but in reality it turns out that everything is not so gloomy at all, and in some cases, a person holding a device on Symbian Belle has much more opportunities than his friend with a device on Android , IOS or WinPhone8.
Thank you for your attention, I hope you were interested in taking a look at the situation behind the Iron Curtain.

Symbian, which was once one of the leaders among mobile operating systems, is currently fading away. The project itself is closed. This operating system has a complex and outdated interface and few features. But! She is one of the pioneers.

Interface of modern Symbian OS.

In 1989, Psion introduced EPOC designed for 8086 processors. Its name is similar to the word Epoch and means “the opening of a new era in the world of mobile technology.” However, some users this abbreviation deciphered as “Electronic Piece of Cheese” (“electronic piece of cheese”).

PsionMC 400 is the first device to run this operating system. The next OS was SIBO, which was later renamed to EPOC, and after that to EPOC16 (due to the discovery of a series of 32-bit EPOCs). Then it was renamed again to SIBO. This system was easy to operate and had the following capabilities:

• Graphical interface;
• Built-in OPL language translator to ROM;
• A mechanism that separates applications and kernels into separate threads;
• Multitasking;
• Functionality;
• Reliability;
• Stability.

The main disadvantage of SIBO was that it was targeted only at x86 processors. But the developers were unable to predict the rapid emergence of new hardware architectures. The Psion Series 3mx computer “signed the doom” for this operating system, since the limit of interface and application development had been reached. But thanks to SIBO, a whole direction of keyboard PDAs opened up.

Psion Series 3 (left) and Psion Series 3a (right).

EPOC16 (SIBO) was replaced by EPOC32 (32-bit version). This system was aimed at ARM processors and appeared on the Psion Series 5 device in April 1997. With the advent of updates, errors were eliminated and the following features were added:

• TCP/IP stack support;
• Support for color screens;
• Java support;
• Email.

EPOC32 was multitasking and did not require many resources during operation. It is divided into graphical shell and core. Control was carried out both using the keyboard and using the touch screen.

Psion Series 5mx and system overview.

EPOC licensing for other manufacturers

In fact, the system was very good for its time, but business, as we know, often ruins good things. At that time (it was 1997), financial problems forced Psion to transfer the development of EPOC to a “daughter” called Psion Software, and in 1998, the latter, together with Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia, formed a new company Symbian Ltd., and that’s all subsequent versions were released under the name Symbian OS. This is how the EPOC system came to mobile phones.

Ericsson became interested in the system. The Ericsson MC218 device was a copy of the Psion Series 5mx, and the Ericsson R280s device with EPOC System Release 5, and even more so with EPOC System Release 5u (adding UNICODE support and with changes in the interface) became a new product. R280s is the first Symbian smartphone that combines an organizer and a mobile phone.

Perhaps Nokia fans will argue, I’ll just say that the first smartphone was released by Nokia ( Nokia model 9000 in 1996), but it was on GEOS OS. Therefore, the Ericsson device, which was released in 2000, can still be considered the first smartphone. In addition, this is the first device with a flip and touch screen. The inability to install third-party software was its main drawback. On the other hand, the R320s was presented as an organizer, so this was not so important. R380s (left) and MC218 (right).

The smartphone was a success, which gave mobile device manufacturers reason to think seriously. In 2001, several platforms were formed, namely:

• Series 80 (the basis of Nokia 9xxx smartphones);
• Series 60 (in Russia called S60, which was installed in almost all Symbian smartphones: Lenovo, LG, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sendo, Siemens, SonyEricsson);
• UIQ (Motorola, Sony Ericsson Amira, Benq);
• MOAP (Mitsubishi, Fujitsu, Sharp, Sony Ericsson).

There was also the Series 90, which ran the Nokia 7700 and Nokia 7710. We'll get to that later.

Symbian remained confident in the mobile device market. In 2004, Psion sold its stake in Symbian Ltd, as it was clear that the operating system was no longer available on PDAs.

Series 80

This is Nokia's first Symbian system. Peculiarities:

• Resolution support 640x200;
• Similarity in terms of interface with EPOC;
• Ability to install applications;
• MMC card support;
• Stereo output;
• SSL/TLS;
• Availability of Opera browser;
• Possibility of sending a fax.

Nokia 9210 appeared in 2001. When closed, the device looked like a telephone, and when open, it looked like a PDA. If you compare it with SonyEricsson, they were not much different, except that Nokia had a different form factor (“clamshell” that opened from the side), devoid of a touch screen.

Nokia 9210.

Series 80 2nd Edition also received Wi-Fi/Bluetooth support, a slightly modified interface and the Symbian 7.0 kernel.

Nokia 9300.

A little later, Nokia abandoned the S80 due to incompatibility with another platform – the S60. And it was unprofitable to support several identical products. As they say, you're chasing two birds with one stone...

Series 60/S60

This is the most famous Symbian platform of all presented. It turned out that some users, not knowing about the existence of Psion, about previous releases, about other platforms, considered the OS version to be S60. For example, Symbian 3.2 means S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2.

This platform has finally finally combined the phone and the PDA on one screen. The first phone on it was the Nokia 7650. The slider looked not much different from a regular mobile phone (progress, however). Nokia 7650 (left), first N-Gage (right).

1st Edition received Bluetooth support and GPRS. Although the revolutionary change in the system was the interface, which now turned out to be closer to the interface of a mobile phone (yes, this is why some modern owners of devices with S60 do not even suspect that they are calling, sending messages and using Jimm from a smartphone). Behind it were hidden ample opportunities, including a powerful organizer and The address book, the ability to install applications, multitasking and much more.

We must not forget about the first game Nokia smartphone, which received a more advanced API for games than in Java.

Series 60/S60 interface.

In 2003, Nokia 6600 was released with S60 2nd Edition (from this version the name S60 stuck instead of Series 60) on board.

The second edition was again not without changes. Firstly, Symbian 7.0 brings support for built-in cameras, languages ​​(Arabic and Hebrew), IPv4/IPv6, HTTP/1.1 and MIDP 2.0. Secondly, changes in 2nd Edition: now native apps sis and MIDlet (jar) are installed into the system with one installer, CLDC 1.0 support, automatic settings WAP via air (you send OpSoSu an SMS, you receive Internet settings), SIM App Toolkit (a menu that is stored in the SIM card), a media player and media gallery, changeable themes and much more appeared.

Series 60/S60 2nd Edition interface.

Things seemed to be going well. The number of smartphones sold using this system grew literally before our eyes. This is where things like viruses creep in. After all, at that time there was not much thought about security, especially in the mobile device sector. Microsoft has recognized the threat of viruses for mobile devices, but no movement has been noticed from Symbian.

Someone under the pseudonym Vallez from the virusmaker group 29A created the first virus for the Symbian platform in 2004. True, it did not cause much harm, since its task was to display the word “Caribe” on the device’s screen, and also distribute it to other devices using Bluetooth.

Later, S60 2nd Edition Feature Pack (FP) 1, 2 and 3 appears. FP1 included:

• HTML 4.01 support;
• EDGE;
• Changes in the interface.

FP2 was based on Symbian 8.0 with a choice between EKA2 and EKA1 (new and old kernels). The new update includes:

• Ability to quote a message;
• Expanded gallery;
• WCDMA;
• Speech recognition;
• Support for Bluetooth headsets;
• New libraries for Java;
• Additional browser features.

However, the new kernel was not used until the release of Symbian version 8.1, which was included in FP3 and corrected a number of bugs. The following changes have occurred in FP3:

• Improved camera support;
• OBEX (file transfer using Bluetooth);
• Some additional interface features have appeared.

In the same year, the Symbian system version 9.0 appeared. The updated system has made a complete transition to the EKA2 core. But this system was aimed at testing new technologies.

In 2006, S60 3rdEdition was released on Symbian 9.1. The main difference of this version was in application protection, while past errors and shortcomings were taken into account. True, not everything is as rosy as we would like: applications that use certain functions (writing/reading information, working with power) had to be signed with a certificate issued on the site. Besides, all this cost money. Each application was assigned its own UID.