Symbian Mobile Operating System

8/2/2019 Symbian Mobile Operating System

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/symbian-mobile-operating-system 1/29

1

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-



2

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?



3

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.



4

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



5

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.



6

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.



7

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.



8

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:



9

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



10

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”! `



11

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).



12

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.



13

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.



14

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.



15

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.



16

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.



17

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.



18

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.

http://books.internet.com/books/0471486841

http://www.developer.com/ws/other/article.php/www.cell-telecom.com

http://books.internet.com/books/0471486841

http://www.developer.com/ws/other/article.php/www.cell-telecom.com



19

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.



20

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



21

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



22

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,



23

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.



24

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.



25

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'.



26

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.



27

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.



28

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’.



29

8. Bibliography

http://www.symbian.com

http://www.symbianos.com

http://www.symbianone.com

http://www.nokia.forum.com

http://www.cell-telecom.com

http://www.symbian.com/

http://www.symbianos.com/

http://www.symbianone.com/

http://www.nokia.forum.com/

http://www.cell-telecom.com/

http://www.symbian.com/

http://www.symbianos.com/

http://www.symbianone.com/

http://www.nokia.forum.com/

http://www.cell-telecom.com/

Documents

Symbian Mobile Operating System