Symbian

Symbian OS
Developer	Symbian Ltd. (1998–2008); Symbian Foundation (2008–11); Nokia (2010–11); Accenture on behalf of Nokia (2011–13)
Written in	C++
OS family	RTOS
Working state	Discontinued
Source model	Closed source, previously open source (2010–11)
Initial release	5 June 1997; 28 years ago (as EPOC32)
Latest release	Nokia Belle Feature Pack 2 / 2 October 2012
Available in	Multi-lingual
Update method	65
Package manager	.sis, .sisx, .jad, .jar
Platforms	ARM, x86
Kernel type	Real-time microkernel, EKA2
Default; user interface	S60 (from 2009)
License	Proprietary, previously licensed under EPL
Official website	symbian.nokia.com (defunct as of May 2014), symbian.org (defunct as of 2009–10)

Symbian OS is an operating system for mobile devices. It is designed for smartphones.

History

Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, Psion and others joined to create Symbian association. This let them promote using EPOC designed for mobile phones. Symbian is a follower of EPOC system. It is used in pocket PC Psion, running on the ARM processors. This operating system has had many changes since it was first created. Nokia smartphones are the major users of Symbian OS. The last Symbian phone is the Nokia 808 PureView. The Nokia 808 PureView was released in May 2012.

Versions

Symbian 6.0 / 6.1	The first usable version of Symbian. It was used on Nokia 9210 communicator. Nokia sold over 500 000pcs of this type. Basic changes were: add bluetooth support, VGA camera.
Symbian 7.0 / 7.1	Very important version of Symbian OS. Developers add support of EDGE technology and IPv6. Change from pJava to Java ME. A virus, spread by bluetooth, caused problems with this version.
Symbian 8.0 / 8.1	Safer version of Symbian (because of the first virus), with CDMA, 3G, DVB-H and OpenGL support.
Symbian 9.0	There was only few changes, mostly for developers.
Symbian 9.x	Version 9.1 was released in 2005. Nokia added support of Bluetooth 2.0, but some developers were angry because of the new security changes.

A new version came out every year after 2005. Because of fast technology research, mobile phones and operation systems made very large improvement quickly. The most recent Symbian OS is designed for touch phones and the newest technologies.