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Transcript of Symbian Mobile Operating System
8/2/2019 Symbian Mobile Operating System
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DELHI INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING &
TECHNOLOGY
(MEERUT)
DEAPARTMENT OF COMPUTER
SCIENCE & ENGINEERING
A SEMINAR ON
SYMBIAN OS
Submitted By:
Name- Rohit KumarRoll No.- 0949810033
Semester- 6
Signature of Student-
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Contents
1. What is Symbian?
1.1 What is Symbian's significance in the wireless
market?
2. Why Symbian OS?
2.1 Addressing specific needs
2.2 Small and mobile, but always available
2.3 Addressing the mass-market
2.4 Handling occasional connectivity
2.5 Product diversity
2.6 Open platform
2.7 A different operating system?
2.8 Why Symbian OS?
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3. When Symbian?
4. What all Symbian base Cell-Phones can do?
5. Symbian OS Architecture & Working Flow.
6. Different Mobiles Supports for Symbian.
7. Conclusion.
8. Bibliography.
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Abstract
This document provides information about the
Symbian opera ting sys tem, which i s one of the mobile
operating systems. It provides the overview of what is the
Symbian operating system?, What are the characteristics of
Symbian OS? i.e. Why we have to use this mobile operating
system?, What all Symbian base Cel l-Phones can do?,
Symbian OS Archi tecture & Working Flow, Different
Mobiles Supports for Symbian.
Symbian is an operating system (OS) targeted at
mobile phones that offers a high-level of integration with
communica tion and personal information management
(PIM) funct ionali ty. Symbian OS combines middleware
with wirel ess communica tions through an int egrat ed
mailbox and the integration of Java and PIM functionality
(agenda and contacts). The Symbian OS is open for third- par ty development by independent sof tware vendors ,
enterprise IT departments, network operators and Symbian
OS licensees
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1. What is Symbian?
Symbian is an operating system (OS) targeted at mobile
phones that offers a high-level of integration with
communication and personal information management (PIM)
functionality. Symbian OS combines middleware with
wireless communications through an integrated mailbox and
the integration of Java and PIM functionality (agenda and
contacts). The Symbian OS is open for third-party
development by independent software vendors, enterprise IT
departments, network operators and Symbian OS licensees.
Symbian itself grew out of Psion Software (hence
many of the similarities -often under the hood- between
Psion's EPOC operating system and modern Symbian
software platforms). Recognizing that the future was a
connected one, with messaging, email and web central,
mobile phone giants Ericsson and Nokia (plus a few others)
were involved in setting up the new consortium with the
Psion staff.
Today (2005), Psion itself has more or less ceased to
exist, leaving Nokia and Sony Ericsson as the two dominant
partners, at least in terms of investment and new products.
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1.1 What is Symbian's significance in the
wireless market?
Symbian plays a central role within the wireless market:
Symbian's licensees represented over 80% of mobile phone
sales in 2002. The importance of this role was underlined by
Jorma Ollila, Chairman & CEO of Nokia, when he stated in
May 2001, that ".by 2004, 50% of Nokia's 3G phones will be
Symbian OS based"
The wireless market is changing, driven by customers
who want access to services and applications that will add
value to their leisure and work, and by operators who need a
return on their huge investments in 3G licenses and
infrastructure. They will have invested something like €300bn in Europe.
So we see fantastic opportunities. Opportunities for new
services and applications, such as multi-user games, location
based services for route planning or localized advertising,
and soon wireless commerce. However this is a new world.Both handset manufactures and operators are moving from
closed systems to open systems, giving users the ability to
download applications and services.
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This change isn't going to be painless; however
Symbian is in a unique position to minimize the cost of
change. Symbian OS is an advanced, open platform and
Symbian is committed to supporting, implementing, and
guiding the major wireless standards. But perhaps most
importantly of all, Symbian understands the wireless market
and the way it is changing. This includes the necessary
security infrastructure, application and service provisioning
and their business models, and rapid service development.
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2. Why Symbian OS?
2.1 Addressing specific needs
Small devices come in many shapes and sizes, each
addressing distinct target markets that have different
requirements. The market segment we are interested in is that of
the mobile phone. The primary requirement of this market
segment is that all products are great phones. This segment
spans voice-centric phones with information capability (such asSeries 60 phones) to information-centric devices with voice
capability (such as UIQ and Series 80 phones). These advanced
mobile phones integrate fully-featured personal digital assistant
(PDA) capabilities with those of a traditional mobile phone in a
single unit. In this article we’ll be looking at the critical factors
for operating systems in this market.
It is important to look at the mobile phone market in
isolation. It has specific needs that make it unlike markets for
PCs or fixed domestic appliances. Scaling down a PC operating
system, or bolting communication capabilities onto a small and
basic operating system, results in too many fundamental
compromises. Symbian believes that the mobile phone market
has five key characteristics that make it unique, and result in the
need for a specifically designed operating system:
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mobile phones are both small and mobile
mobile phones are ubiquitous – they target a mass-market of
consumer, enterprise and professional users
mobile phones are occasionally connected – they can be used
when connected to the wireless phone network, locally to
other devices, or on their own
manufacturers need to differentiate their products in order to
innovate and compete in a fast-evolving market
the platform has to be open to enable independent technology
and software vendors to develop third-party applications,
technologies and services
The way to grow the mobile phone market is to create
good products – and the only way to create good products is to
address each of these characteristics and ensure that technology
doesn’t limit functionality. Meeting the impressive growth
forecast by analysts in a reasonable time frame is only possible
with the right operating system
2.2 Small and mobile, but always available
Mobile phones are both small and, by definition,
mobile. This creates high user expectations. For instance, if
you have your agenda on a phone that you also use to make
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calls and exchange data, you expect to be able to carry it with
you at all times and to be instantly available whenever you
want to use it.
Fulfilling these expectations makes considerable
demands on power management. The device needs to be
responsive in all situations, and cannot afford to go through a
long boot sequence when it is turned on. In fact, the device
should never be powered down completely since it needs to
activate timed alarms or handle incoming calls. At the same
time, a mobile phone must provide many hours of operation
on a single charge or set of batteries. Meeting these
contradictory requirements can only be done if the whole
operating system is designed for efficiency.
2.3 Addressing the mass-market
Reliability is a major issue for mass-market phones.
Data loss in a personal mobile phone causes a loss of trust
between the user and the phone. A mobile phone therefore
must be at least as resilient as paper diaries and agendas.
Recalling phones to install service packs is a commercial and
practical last resort – a mobile phone should never lock up or
come with a major software defect. In fact, to use a PC term,
it should never ever need a “reboot”! `
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This is a far cry from desktop computers where bugs,
crashes and reboots are expected.
However, reliability alone is not enough to make good
products. Sound consumer design is also necessary, where:
• product applications take advantage of the mobile phone’s
unique characteristics as well as its environment
• products should be designed to meet current usability and
future developments in wireless technology
• Consistency of style is paramount – if a feature is too
complex to use, then it cannot justify either the time it took to
develop or the space it takes in the device.
An operating system targeted at mobile phones must
support these design principles by offering a high-level of integration with communication and personal information
management (PIM) functionality. Symbian OS combines high
functionality middleware with superior wireless
communications through an integrated mailbox and the
integration of Java and PIM functionality (agenda and contacts).
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2.4 Handling occasional connectivity
Accessing remote data, sending email or synchronizing
calendars requires some type of connection. Mobility
constraints generally make a wireless connection preferable –
whether wide area (using wireless telephony) or personal area
(such as infrared or Bluetooth links).
2.5 Product diversity
There is an apparent contradiction between software
developers who want to develop for just one popular platform
and manufacturers who each want to have a range of
distinctive and innovative products. The circle can be squared
by separating the user interface from the core operating
system.
Advanced mobile phones or “smart phones” come in all
sorts of shapes – from traditional designs resembling today’s
mobile phones with main input via the phone keypad, to a
tablet form factor operated with a stylus, to phones with
larger screens and small keyboards.
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This strategy ensures that Symbian OS phone
manufacturers can create highly differentiated products while
sharing a technology platform and keeping the learning curve
to a minimum.
2.6 Open platform
An operating system for the mass-market must be open
for third-party development – by independent software
vendors, enterprise IT departments, network operators and
Symbian OS licensees. In turn, this implies a manageable
learning curve, standard languages such as C++ and Java,
along with SDKs, tools, documentation, books, technical
support and training. Symbian OS has a rich set of APIs for
independent software developers, partners and licensees to
write their applications.
Traditional standards such as Unicode for
internationalization, a POSIX API, and Java are a must, but
for an operating system to take its place in the connected
world, open standards such as TCP/IP, POP3, IMAP4,
SMTP, SMS, MMS, Bluetooth, OBEX, WAP, i-mode, Java
and SyncML should also be supported.
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Symbian has trusted leading partners in the mobile phone market
and actively participates in standards organizations (such as the
Open Mobile Alliance and the Java Community Process). Through
these, Symbian has advance
Furthermore, a user interface framework, data service enablers and
application engines provide a solid base for application developers
to target.
2.7 A different operating system?
To fit into the limited amount of memory a mobile phone may
have, the operating system must be compact. However, as we have
seen, it must still provide a rich set of functionality. What is
needed to power a mobile phone is not a mini-operating system but
a different operating system – one that is tailored. Symbian is
dedicated to mobile phones and Symbian OS has been designed to
meet the sophisticated requirements of the mobile phone marketthat mini-operating systems can’t. They simply run out of steam.
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2.8 Why Symbian OS?
The five key points – small mobile devices, mass
market, intermittent wireless connectivity, diversity of
products and an open platform for independent software
developers – are the premises on which Symbian OS was
designed and developed. This makes it distinct from any
desktop, workstation or server operating system. This also
makes Symbian OS different from embedded operating
systems, or any of its competitors, which weren’t designed
with all these key points in mind.
Symbian is committed to open standards and is actively
working with emerging standards, such as J2ME, Bluetooth,
MMS, SyncML, IPv6 and WCDMA. As well as its own
developer support organization, books, papers and courses,
Symbian delivers a global network of third-party competency
and training centers – the Symbian Competence Centers and
Symbian Training Centers. These are specifically directed at
enabling other organizations and developers to take part in
this new economy.
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3. When Symbian?
In June 1999, EPOC version 5 started shipping. It
contained support for devices based on a 640x240 screen
resolution, with pen and keyboard capabilities.
In 2000, Symbian OS 6.0 was released. Its designgoal is to bring together various forms of communication
protocols, such as TCP/IP, WAP, GSM, Bluetooth, IrDa,
as well as serial connections.
In 2002, Symbian OS version 7.0 was released.
This version is designed for the unique requirements of
advanced 2G, 2.5G, and 3G mobile phones.
In 2004, Psion sells its stake in Symbian &
Symbian OS version 8, enhanced the performance of
Symbian OS, particularly for its real-time functions.
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In 2005, Symbian OS version 9, added concepts
of capability-based security and gatekeeping installation.
Symbian OS version 9 also added the flexibility for
hardware that Symbian OS version 7 added for software.
In 2006, symbian helped bring forth the
explosion of mobile device innovation with Symbian
software at the base of more than 100 million phones.
In 2008, The next step of Symbian evolution
took place, with Nokia purchasing all Symbian assets and
starting the software down the path to open source.
Symbian acquired by Nokia; Symbian Foundation
formed.
In 2011, symbian^3 S60 v5 smartphone N8 is launched.
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4. What all Symbian base Cell-Phones can do?
It's early days for rolled out services, but we're seeing
pilots and experimental services being created. For instance
"Wireless for Symbian Devices" describes the Handheld
Travel Assistant, developed by Telenor R&D. This uses
Symbian and existing Internet services to provide users with
location related information, including local maps, location
of friends, transport routes, and information about local shops
and restaurants. A GPS system was used for position
information, but transmitter signal strength can also be used
to locate the user.
There's also the Simple Conference example from
Digit. This allows users of different mobile phones to work
on a shared whiteboard. Both drawings and textual
information can be shared, with the whiteboard model being
held on a server.
In addition Cell-Telecom ( www.cell-telecom.com) has
deployed a number of Symbian applications, which includes
sales support and industrial QA.
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5. Symbian OS Architecture & Working Flow
Connectivity
The Palm Conduit Development Kit (CDK) allows
Palm OS developers to write plug-ins (conduits) for the
HotSync Manager application that synchronizes data between
applications on the desktop and on the Palm PDA. Symbian
OS provides a Connectivity Software Development Kit
(CSDK), which allows developers to write add-in file format
converters and plug-ins to synchronize between Symbian OS
phones and desktop applications.
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Color and Sound Support
Like Palm OS, Symbian OS provides full support for
color and sound, which application programmers can access
through convenient APIs. Symbian OS differs from Palm OS
in the additional capabilities it offers. It has been designed
with sophisticated memory management, event handling
mechanisms, and multitasking, making it the best platform in
its class for mobile phones.
Operating System Reliability
A robust system is a key requirement for mobile phones
and devices: they should be crash proof. Contrary to what PC
users have come to expect, it is possible to design an
operating system that does not require the user to reboot it on
a regular basis. Symbian OS is such an operating system.
First, each process runs in its own protected address space,
thus it is not possible for any application to overwrite any
other application’s address space, causing the application to
crash. Second, the kernel itself also runs in its own protected
address space, so that a program bug can’t accidentally
overwrite the kernel’s stack or heap and cause the whole
system to crash. If programs need to pass data to other
programs, they do so using Symbian OS client/server
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architecture, which allows applications to exchange data
using a robust, efficient message-passing system. This
message passing system has been designed so that it uses as
few system resources as possible: message overheads are
small and data exchange is minimized.
Application Engines and Services
Symbian OS allows developers to build powerful
applications quickly by providing a number of reusableapplication engines as well as a range of application services.
Some of these engines and services include:
A relational database manager
Schedule and to-do list application engines
Text-processing APIs
Printing and zooming APIs
Support for vCard, vCalendar standards, and IrOBEX
protocol
Clipboard support
String-handling libraries, dynamic buffers, and math
libraries
A stream store API for efficient access to data
Graphics and animation libraries
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A multimedia server supporting audio recording, playback,
and image functionality Support for Unicode and
internationalization
Symbian OS Fully Multitasking
The multitasking nature of Symbian OS architecture makes it the
ideal application platform for mobile phones. The single-tasking
Palm OS is a much more challenging environment for developers
of communications applications. Under Symbian OS, each
program runs as a separate process, and applications can run
concurrently. Each process under Symbian OS contains one or
more threads, and the system scheduler allocates processor use to
threads through prioritized pre-emptive multitasking.
Memory Leaks Avoided
As stated earlier, main memory on a Symbian OS
phone is extremely limited. Developers have to limit
application memory use, and, perhaps more important,
release memory that the application no longer uses. If an
application allocates dynamic memory on the heap, uses it,
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and then doesn’t release it, that memory will be effectively
lost to the rest of the system until the application closes a
memory leak has occurred.
Symbian OS provides a programming framework to
assist developers in writing programs that don’t leak
memory. This framework includes a number of programming
idioms that occur in all Symbian OS code, as well as
development tools that allow developers to verify that the
code they have written does not leak memory.
Reusable Code
Symbian OS is designed to reuse code wherever
possible, enabling a device to achieve rich functionality with
limited hardware resources. Code reuse is achieved two
ways:
1. Code reuse at run time – system components have
been designed to maximize the use of Dynamic Link
Libraries (DLLs) throughout the system, thereby minimizing
the amount of code loaded into main memory.
2. When writing programs, Symbian OS API design
allows code reuse.
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Add New Software and System Components
. Symbian OS allows new software components,
including new protocol stacks, Web plug-ins, and device
drivers to be added, and existing software to be updated
without rebooting – even while the device is running –
through its use of frameworks and DLLs. The framework
architecture allows a framework, such as a Web browser or
communications server, to load and run the functions
provided by a DLL without knowing how those functions
work.
6. Different Mobiles Supports for Symbian
Terms you'll see bandied around a lot include 'Series 60', 'Series
80', 'Series 90' and 'UIQ'. These are all Symbian platforms, but
don't despair because it's all relatively simple. In many cases, once
you've bought a device, you don't even have to remember much
about its internals, as most developer web sites include photos of
all the different hardware, you just click on the one you own to seewhat's available.
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Q is stylus-based interface (heavily influenced by
the easy-to-use Palm OS one). The best known
examples of UIQ devices are the Sony Ericsson
P800 and P900/P910i, although there are others, including the
Motorola A920/925/1000. Look beyond the Palm-like interface
and you'll see glimpses of stuff that's familiar from
Psion days.
But only glimpses. The biggest downside of UIQ is
that some of the benefits of multitasking have been
removed by the way programs revert to a neutral state when sent to
the background. So you switch away to check your calendar or
answer the phone and then have to re-open your document and find
your place all over again and again.
Historically, Nokia have opted for Symbian devices which don't
need a fragile touch-screen. The well-known Nokia 9210
effectively ran EPOC version 6 and is extremely similar to an old
Psion Series 5mx in many, many ways, with the minor difference
that the lack of a touch-screen necessitated a set of programmablecommand buttons to the right of the screen. Nokia refer to this
interface as 'Series 80'.
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Series 80 is also used in slightly tweaked form in the new Nokia
9300 and 9500 communicators. If you want to get close to a Psion-
on-steroids-with-a-colour-screen, then these are the ones to get.
You get almost the full range of built-in applications (including
Word, Sheet, etc.) and there's full (and proper) multi-tasking, so
you can have dozens of programs and documents open at once,
switching between them as needed. The 9500 wins out for most
people, with more useable keyboard, Wi-Fi and a good camera.
And it's quite affordable with a sensible phone contract.
Down at the other size extreme, Nokia has
been very successful with their small-screen
'Series 60' interface. Again this is
recognizable Symbian under the hood, butagain there's no touch-screen and this time
Nokia has written many of its own dumbed-down applications
from scratch, ditching the standard Psion/Symbian ones
presumably because they wouldn't suit the one-handed, button-
driven interface and tiny (176 pixel-wide) screen.
There's multi-tasking power here under the hood and many third
party applications have been ported to Series 60, but everything's
restricted to some degree by the screen size and keypad text input.
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Of course, this last problem can be solved with a Bluetooth
keyboard...
The best Series 60 device to go for at the moment is probably the
Nokia 6630, because it's got a fairly recent OS (Symbian OS 7,
meaning that it's compatible with most new software, e.g.
TomTom MOBILE 5), plus the Multimedia Framework (MMF)
and stereo electronics that let it to justice your music collection.
And it's got a good, relatively large screen. And it's pretty cheap
nowadays, free on quite a few phone contracts.
Hot off the press is 'Series 90', as seen in Nokia's
new 7710. It uses much the same operating system
and applications as Series 80, but tweaked to support
a slightly larger, touch-sensitive screen. But there's no keyboard, of
course, so input is via gesture recognition, virtual keyboard or
Bluetooth keyboard. And I'm really, really not sure about the
general appearance and form factor.
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7. Conclusion
We live in times of tumult and change. In the
midst of this excitement, two strong trends are clear.
First, software is spreading more widely and more
deeply into all aspects of society. Second,
communication is becoming pervasive: more objects
and gadgets talk to each other all the time, in ever-
richer ways. The software that lies at the heart of
these new phones is Symbian OS. Endorsed by giants
of the telecommunications industry—Fuj itsu ,
Kenwood, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Psion, Sanyo,
Siemens and SonyEricsson—Symbian OS enables a
dramatic leap in the power and uti li ty of mobile
phones. Symbian OS is neither a cut-down
desktop/server OS nor an extended embedded OS, but
a one-of-a-kind mobile operating system. Like all
disruptive technologies, it has a challenging learning
curve. Thankfully, it also has a flourishing
community of software developers and trainers ready
to help fellow travelers along this curve—sharing
Symbian's motto of ‘co-operate before competing’.
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8. Bibliography
http://www.symbian.com
http://www.symbianos.com
http://www.symbianone.com
http://www.nokia.forum.com
http://www.cell-telecom.com