Mobile operating systems. Operating system for phones OS Symbian

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

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

Operating system development

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

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

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

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

User interface

Since its inception, Symbian has had its own graphical toolkit known as AVKON (formerly Series 60). The S60 has been designed to be operated with a keyboard like an interface tool (mini-QWERTY). AVKON based software is compatible with Symbian binaries, including version ^ 3.

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

The fourth distribution planned to implement a new graphics library specifically designed for the touch interface known as “UI Extensions for Mobile” or UIEMO, which was developed from QtWidget. A trial version was released in January 2010, however, in October of that year, Nokia announced that Orbit / UIEMO would not enter the market.

What is the situation now?

Nokia is currently recommending that developers use QtQuick with QML, a new high-level declarative user interface and scripting framework that enables both Symbian OS and MeeGo development. It is available for existing 3rd generation devices as an update to Qt. As other applications gradually introduce a new user interface, the legacy S60 framework (AVKON) is being supplanted and no longer included in new devices, breaking binary compatibility with older Symbian OS S60 applications.

Browser

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

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

Multi-language support

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

System characteristics

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

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

• The integrity and security of user data is paramount.
• User time should not be wasted.
• All resources are limited.

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

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

Resource intensity

Special attention is paid to conserving resources, as exemplified by special programming idioms such as descriptors and stack cleanups. Similar methods exist to save storage space. In addition, all Symbian programming is event-based, and the central processing unit (CPU) switches to low power mode when applications are not directly related to the event. This is done using a software idiom called active objects. Likewise, the Symbian OS (9.4) approach to threads and processes is driven by reduced overhead.

Platform structure

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

• User interface border layer.
• Application services layer.
• Java ME.
• OS service layer.
• General OS services.
• Communication services.
• Multimedia and graphic services.
• Communication services.
• Basic service level.
• Kernel services and hardware interface layer.

What does this mean?

The basic service level is the lowest level available for user operations. It includes a file server and user library, a Plug-In platform that manages all plugins, storage, central repository, DBMS, and cryptographic services. It also contains a text box server and a text wrapper: two basic services from which a fully functional port can be created without the need for any higher level services.

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

Compatibility

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

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

Interfaces and their support

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

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

Need for plugins

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

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

Symbian variants and platforms

Symbian, moving up to OS 7.0, has split into several graphical user interfaces, each supported by a specific company or group of companies. Unlike different versions of Android OS, Symbian GUIs are referred to as "platforms" due to more significant modifications and integrations. Things got more complicated when applications (including Symbian OS games) developed for different GUI platforms became incompatible with each other, which led to OS fragmentation.

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

• Symbian OS traces its origins back to the 16-bit single-user, multitasking operating system EPOC, developed by Psion for its Sixteen Bit Organizer (SIBO) portable computers in 1989. The name EPOC does not mean anything, but there are legends that EPOC is a shortened "Epoch" (Epoch), or an abbreviation for Electronic Piece Of Cheese. The EPOC operating system was written in assembler (Intel 8086) and C, supported the development of C and OPL applications using the IDE OVAL (Object-based Visual Application Language), and also had a graphical interface (thereby outperforming Microsoft Windows 3.0). In 1991, the Psion Series 3 PDA appeared under the EPOC operating system, equipped with 128 KB of RAM and a processor compatible with Intel 8086.
• Subsequently, the EPOC OS was completely redesigned, and in the middle of 1997, the EPOC / 32 OS was released, first used on the Psion Series 5 PDA with 4-8 MB of RAM. The new operating system was developed for processors with ARM architecture and allowed creating C ++ applications. The 16-bit version of EPOC was renamed EPOC / 16 (after some time it became known as SIBO), and EPOC / 32 in EPOC. Psion subsequently split into Psion Computers, Psion Enterprise, and Psion Software. The operating system was developed by Psion Software. The EPOC OS was constantly improving: devices running EPOC Release 2, EPOC Release 3 (often referred to as ER2 and ER3) appeared on the market. However, EPOC Release 4 did not exist.
• In June 1998, Psion Software, Nokia and Ericsson formed Symbian Ltd. Its tasks included the development of a new world-class operating system for converged devices based on PDAs and phones.
• In May 1999, the shareholders of Symbian Ltd. Panasonic joined, and soon the EPOC Release 5 OS (now unofficially called Symbian 5.0) was announced, which contained the Java ME virtual machine. A year later, its improved version EPOC 5u (ER5u or Symbian 5.1) was used in the Ericsson R380 device. It is from version 5.1 that Symbian uses Unicode strings by default. Later Symbian Ltd. enters into an agreement with Sybase to use their database technologies for mobile devices.
• Sanyo and Sony become Symbian licensees in 2000. Symbian 6.0 (first official release) and Symbian 6.1 announced.
• In 2001, the Symbian Press company was founded, Nokia releases the 9200 communicator on the Series 80 platform running Symbian 6.0 and the 7650 smartphone on the Series 60 platform running Symbian 6.1. Symbian OS is licensed by Siemens and Fujitsu.
• In 2002, the co-owners of Symbian Ltd. become Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson. Symbian OS is licensed by Sendo. The UIQ platform based on Symbian 7.0, focused on the use of touch screens, is announced.
• In 2003, Symbian 7.0 devices appeared based on the UIQ, Series 80, Series 90 and Series 60 platforms.
• In 2004, Symbian OS is licensed by NTT DoCoMo, Lenovo and Sharp, Symbian 8.1a and Symbian 8.1b are announced (with the new EKA2 kernel). Symbian Ltd. shareholders buy out Psion's share. Inside the company, work is underway on Symbian 9.0.
• In 2005 Symbian Ltd. licenses the use of the Microsoft Exchange Server Active Sync protocol. Symbian OS 9.1 was released with a security module requiring mandatory certification of installed applications. In the same year, devices appear with a new operating system (under the UIQ3 platform).
• In 2006, Symbian 9.2 and Symbian 9.3 appear with improved demand paging, built-in WiFi 802.11 and HSDPA support. A Symbian Accredited Developer (ASD) Certification Program and a program for cooperation with universities in the field of training Symbian Academy specialists are being created. The 100 millionth Symbian OS smartphone sold.
• In 2007 POSIX and SQLite libraries were ported to Symbian. Support for multi-core processors, as well as digital television in DVB-H and ISDB-T formats is announced.
• In June 2008 Symbian Ltd. celebrates its tenth anniversary. The Symbian Foundation is announced, an organization dedicated to developing a new, open, unified platform based on Symbian OS. During the year Nokia buys out all the shares of Symbian Ltd. and transfers Symbian OS to the Symbian Foundation. Following this, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, NTT DoCoMo and Samsung are donating resources and source code for the S60, UIQ and MOAP (s) platforms to the Symbian Foundation. The 200 millionth Symbian OS device sold.
• In early 2009, the end of support for the UIQ platform is announced. There are devices running the 5th edition S60 platform based on Symbian 9.4. Later, Symbian 9.4 and S60 5th edition were merged by the Symbian Foundation under the name Symbian ^ 1 and were chosen as the starting point for the further evolution of Symbian OS as an open system. The preparation plan for Symbian ^ 2 and Symbian ^ 3 has been published.
• In October 2009, the source code of the EKA2 Symbian OS microkernel was published.

Over the entire history of the existence of Symbian OS, more than 250 device models have been released under its control from a dozen manufacturers with a total number of over 250 million.

In general, the history of OS development proceeded quite calmly, without serious legal conflicts and court wars. Participants of the legal forum consider the history of Symbian OS to be an example of a well-thought-out and competent IT business.

And phones are rightfully considered Symbian. Until 2008, the consortium of the same name was engaged in its development. With the sale of the full block of shares, consumer demand for the OS also expanded. The reason for this was the expansion of production and contracts with the leading brands of the planet.

From origins to excellence

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

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

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

The next OS version - 9.0 - significantly expanded the brand's influence on the global market. The latest technologies were used in the development, which no other company had. This made it possible to move away from the integration of the ESA1 core. OS 9.2 introduced the ability to work with OMA Management and Bluetooth 2. Version 9.2 supported the HSDPA interface and Vietnamese hieroglyphs.

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

Mobile revolution and the decline of an era

In December 2008, the rights to Symbian software were transferred to Nokia. A month later, all applications and operating systems of mobile phones began to come out with the Nokia prefix. First of all, the new owners of the consortium transferred the OS from the familiar S60 platform to the x86 processor. The Intel Atom system was used for testing.

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

Gradually, sales of devices based on the OS of a well-known consortium began to be reduced to a minimum. In 2011, the official website of the brand was completed. Rumors began to circulate about the termination of the release of new OS. At the end of 2011, a new Nokia Belle axle was announced, which became the prototype of the updated Symbian. Over the next two years, OS users were content with only rare updates. In 2013, the project was transferred to support mode. Further developments are not planned in the near future.

Specifications

OS Symbian is considered the successor to the notorious EPOC32 line, which was developed by Psion engineers in the mid-1990s for pocket computers. In 1999, most of the system underwent modernization. The developers aimed to optimize the code so that the OS would function normally even on the weakest devices.

Programmers have achieved outstanding results thanks to improved caching. This allowed not only to save a significant part of memory and battery power, but also to speed up the work of applications. It's all to blame for a new approach to programming. An object-oriented method was used in the development of the architecture. Versions 9.x introduced a robust API-level protection mechanism. In addition, Symbian employees managed to differentiate RAM according to application priorities.

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

Major modifications

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

The Series 60 system was once the backbone of all Nokia phone devices. For a long time it was licensed by such as Siemens, Samsung, LG and others. It was originally developed for phones with keyboards. The new version of Series 80 has become the hallmark of the Japanese company. The platform was also created for phones with keyboards.

OS MOAR has gained high popularity in Asia. At the moment, this platform is used to manufacture products of such famous brands as Fujitsu, Sharp, Mitsubishi and Sony Ericsson.

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

Comparison of leading operating systems

OS Symbian is widely used in budget devices. The system has become the hallmark of the Nokia brand. The Belle and Anna updates breathed new life into the Japanese company's lineup. Nevertheless, today new smartphones on this OS are no longer available. According to its characteristics, the system is designed conveniently. If not for the popularity of "Android" and IOS, Symbian products would still be in trend. Nokia smartphones have a colorful multimedia center and a fast engine. Almost all modern applications and interfaces are supported.

Android phones are now leading the way in terms of popularity around the world. This is despite the fact that the OS is quite young. The first version was released into wide production only 6 years ago. Owns the rights to the software product. The system attracts with the colorfulness and efficiency of work. The latest OS versions contain many new useful functions and services. Smartphones of such brands as HTC, Samsung, Motorola and others are being released today on the basis of "Android".

Apple iOS is the second most popular operating system among mobile platforms. The interface is convenient, understandable, functional. Unlike all other manufacturers, Apple focuses not on but on activities. That is why all updates relate to functionality, not new multimedia chips.

Windows systems for mobile platforms are not as popular as they are for computers. It's all about the inconvenient interface. It is difficult for inexperienced users to understand the available functionality. Often the most important options are hidden away in the menu. And if Windows 7 still had a colorful user-friendly interface and optimized requirements, then Eight turned out to be just a failure. The only thing that saved the new OS was proper marketing.

MOAP and Nokia S90 platforms

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

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

Symbian S60 platform

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

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

The main drawback of the system is the strict certification mechanism, which significantly limits the possibilities of users.

Symbian S80 platform

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

For some time, the platform was left without updates. After 2005, she entered the development of a new universal operating system, which was used in the Nokia E90. It's worth noting that the platform interacts with J2ME applications and the TLS and SSL interfaces. A full-fledged Opera browser and a file manager with an integrated electronic fax are built into the system. Recent updates have allowed access to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

UIQ platform

It is the most powerful and expensive Symbian technology ever developed. The platform is a quartz crystal focused on improving the graphics component. UIQ provides the operating system kernel with additional components. Due to this, telephone devices become multifunctional and open to any possibilities.

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

The platform programmatically supports Visual Studio, Eclipse, Java API, Carbide. Improved Wi-Fi integration technology. There are built-in widgets, browser, multimedia applications, etc.

Symbian OS devices

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

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

If Symbian had not had such famous competitors as Android and IOS, the number of devices supporting its OS would have been much larger.

Symbian games and applications

All major multimedia programs are built into the system. It is a video player, music service, and imaging applications. In Symbian OS, programs occupy an insignificant part of the phone. This was done on purpose to unload the internal memory. The standard functionality includes the Opera 9.5 browser and a utility that monitors system updates.

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

Complete reprint of the article. Why exactly here is the answer at the end. So: “The big update of the Windows Phone 7 platform is the most anticipated announcement of the MIX'2011 conference, which is now taking place in Las Vegas. And there was something to wait. First, multitasking. Secondly, the Russian version. Thirdly, new software, in particular Skype, Angry Birds and so on. In addition to these three main points, the Microsoft mobile platform will have a lot more in the fall. And Nokia also came to speak at MIX'2011, but first things first. Windows Phone 7 has existed for only six months, but has already become a noticeable phenomenon in the world of mobile platforms. Now for WP7 there are more than 13 thousand applications and about 100 appear every day, and IDC and Gartner predict WP7 second place after Android in four years. It is important to understand that WP7 has little to do with Windows Mobile, it is a completely new OS that most closely resembles Apple's iOS in the iPhone. They say that it was the iPhone that became the prototype of Windows Phone 7 for Microsoft and the reason to radically change WP6.5.x. This is certainly the right path, as the legacy of the legacy has pulled Microsoft's mobile platform down. Today in Las Vegas at MIX'2011, plans for the future and details of the changes were announced, which were first promised to us back in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress 2011. The promised update is called Mango. There is an opinion that this name was chosen in order to show the superiority of Windows Phone 7 over iOS, because a mango is sweeter than an apple. Either way, this long-awaited update will bring many enhancements to Windows smartphones. In particular, together with Mango, devices running Windows Phone 7 will be able to run several applications at once. Some program will be active, and some more will be able to function in the background. This will be helped by Fast App Switching technology, which will manage the states and execution of running programs in a special way. I also note that the new Live Agents are a general concept for improvements to Live Tiles, Push Notifications and Deep Linking. Moreover, it will now be possible to update tiles, each application can create multiple tiles, and so on. And all this in real time. Apps in WP7 will run in the background as long as resources are available. Clear scenarios for multitasking are unknown, but in general the system will proceed from the availability of memory primarily. The program "killed" from the background, which consumes more or which has been inactive for a long time. Details of how this will be done will appear in a month from the SDK. Whether there will be resident priority classes and hardcoded enforcement APIs is unknown. For the user, everything looks like Android - by holding down the key, the manager of running applications is available, from which all manipulations are actually performed. The second important news is the Russian version of WP7. Now there is no Russification or official deliveries of phones. Since the fall, the availability of the Russian language appears, and it depends on the manufacturers when the smartphones themselves will appear on sale. In addition to Russian, 15 more new languages ​​are being added. And also the number of countries where you can buy Marketplace applications has been increased - from 16 to 35. Of course, Russia is among them. But I will emphasize again: all this is only in the fall with the appearance of Mango. The third thing that must be said is the new software. With socket support, Skype is now available. More precisely, it will appear only in the fall, because the Mango update will not be available earlier, and without Skype sockets it will not work. But the long-awaited Angry Birds will be coming very soon, on May 25. The interface for both applications is already ready. Also, together with Mango, users of smartphones on Windows Phone 7 will receive a new version of Internet Explorer 9. That is, users of smartphones on WP7 will get a browser with HTML5 support, Canvas and hardware acceleration, as in the desktop version of the Internet browser. Moreover, this is not a separate project, but completely developed by the same team that makes the desktop version. During MIX'2011 we were shown a comparison of HTML5 performance with Apple iPhone 4, Google Nexus S, and WP7 was ahead. In addition, Sirverlight has been updated from 3rd to 4th. The capabilities of the latter were clearly demonstrated on 3D models. In addition to this, Mango will bring 1,500 new features for developers. This will allow you to create more interesting high-quality software. In particular, there is support for additional sensors and the possibility of introducing augmented reality into applications. The ability to package and deploy SQL CE databases will be added. In addition, Microsoft will integrate XNA and Silverlight, making it easier to build next-generation mobile applications. A package for developers will be released in May, and now the emulator is built into it. As for the technical specifications, there are no changes so far. Accordingly, a decrease in the price of smartphones based on WP7 is not to be expected. Besides, you shouldn't expect dual-core smartphones powered by WP7. Multithreading has been shown, but no one is talking about parallelizing it yet. Multi-camera is not spelled out in WP7, which means that there will be no 3D smartphones yet. Nokia also took part in MIX'2011. But it looked, to admit, very strange. The second tier manager came out, thanked Microsoft for the cooperation and assured everyone of the bright future of the union. Just five minutes of pleasure and no information. It feels like something strange is really happening at Nokia. In addition to this ridiculous speech, the Finnish company also had a stand in the partner hall, where it displayed its Symbian smartphones. There I was told that WP7 phones from Nokia will be available only next year, but they will be immediately with Mango and many other interesting features, we are waiting. To summarize, I can say that Windows Phone 7 is slowly but surely moving in the right direction. Today's announcement turned out to be very interesting, we got even more than we expected. Full IE9, multitasking and so on makes WP7 a very promising platform. The only pity is that Mango should be expected until autumn, and this is only the OS, while the end devices depend on the wishes of the manufacturers. But if Microsoft meets the deadlines this time, and Nokia really gives priority to WP7 and also rushes to release devices, it will be a very promising new tandem in the mobile market. "

Symbian OS is an operating system for cell phones, smartphones and communicators developed by the Symbian consortium founded in June 1998 by Nokia, Psion, Ericsson and Motorola. Later the 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 unification of Symbian OS, S60, UIQ and MOAP (S) to create a single open mobile platform. The Symbian Foundation, a non-profit organization, was formed with AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone. Nokia has announced the purchase of the remaining non-owned shares of Symbian Ltd., after which it will be possible to provide the source code of the system to members of the Symbian Foundation. This step should contribute to the advancement of Symbian OS in the mobile systems market. At the moment, the Symbian Foundation has 40 companies.

Characteristic

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

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

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

Since autumn 2010, only Nokia has been equipping its smartphones with Symbian OS. Prior to that, 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 is discontinued. The main competitors of Symbian OS were Microsoft operating systems: Windows Mobile (Pocket PC Edition) and Smartphone Edition and Windows Phone, as well as Google Android and Apple iOS operating systems.