Posts Tagged ‘Symbian’

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Symbian OS is open and free now

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

This month the Symbian platform has become completely open and free. Lee Williams, CEO, says that this operating system is already a dominant one, but now mobile software development for Symbian gets all the advantages of work with open source projects, almost unlimited possibilities. Mr. Williams also stresses Symbian additional advantages comparing with Android OS. He explains that Android has not more than a third of open codes, and the rest of them are closed.

One more advantage of Symbian OS: programmers and other specialists working at platform development will regularly publish plans of the future upgrades according to Lee Williams’ words.

The initiative to open Symbian appeared in June of the year 2008, when Nokia announced its plans to buy the rest of the Symbian programming codes from other companies and place them under control of Symbian Foundation. Now there are more than 330 million of Symbian-phones in the world. They are produced be such companies as Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Fujitsu and Sharp.

Symbian_Open_Source

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Choosing the best platform for mobile apps development

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Reviewing platforms for mobile apps development we cannot help but write some more descriptions. Let’s estimate such OSes as Symbian, Linux Mobile and Palm.

Symbian OS
Nokia is losing its forces, it was the best developer of mobile phones in the world a couple of years ago, but now it buckles under pressure of other leading companies. But is still has “margin of safety”. Moreover, Nokia popularizes Symbian, now this OS has open code (open source), and this fact will definitely have an influence on company’s further development.

Symbian_OS

Symbian UIQ
Symbian UIQ was developed by the UIQ Technology Company. UIQ (User Interface Quartz) is a software platform based on Symbian OS. In early 2009 UIQ Technology was liquidated, and this intellectual property was transferred to Symbian Foundation (non-profit organization). So mobile software developers don’t plan further improvements of UIQ (as an independent platform).

Linux Mobile
Programmers working for mobile development companies make facetious remarks that every self-respecting company making smartphones intends to make its own version of Linux based mobile OS. Some of them achieve success in it, others don’t. It’s almost impossible to enumerate all of them, here are only some examples: Access Linux Platform, LiMo, Moblin, MotoMagxj, Nokia Maemo, Openmoko, Openmokon, Palm webOS, Qt Extendedmn, Ubuntu Mobilem, etc. All these OSes have their own look-and-feels (many of them are incompatible), that is why it’s very difficult to develop mobile apps for such platforms, it’s just a non-value-added process.

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Palm OS
Once this OS occupied bulk of the market share. At the same time Microsoft decided to start the development of its own mobile OS Windows CE, because IT-giant was inspired by success of Palm OS. But now it is no longer relevant, Ed Colligan said that Palm will no longer produce products based on Palm OS, the company’s efforts will be focused on Palm webOS, but that’s another story.

Palm_OS

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Windows Mobile and iPhone OS: results of the year 2009

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Summing up results of the year 2009, it will be quite reasonable to choose the best operating system for successful mobile apps development. So, what operating systems did we have at the turn of the year? Of course, there were Windows Mobile, iPhone OS, Symbian OS, Symbian UIQ, Linux Mobile, Palm OS and BlackBerry OS. Let’s try to investigate which of them has all chances to be called the best one.

Windows Mobile

Ah, this “old woman” still holds the largest market share. It has relatively out-of-date interface, nevertheless Microsoft delays the release of Windows Mobile 7 with touch-screen interface (as they promise) and complete compatibility with older apps versions. Though this OS has undoubted plus (a large number of good and stable mobile applications with rich functionality that was accumulated over the years), it’s not a permanent advantage. It can be lost soon as new operating systems are constantly adding new applications, offering new features and up-to-date interface. In general, if the next version of Microsoft Windows Mobile does not have any pleasant surprises for its users, the company will lose its market share under pressure of other mobile operating systems.

Windows_Mobile

iPhone OS

Yes, it’s beautiful, yes, it’s quite functional and it has already accumulated a lot of good features and high-quality applications. Due to the fact that iPhone has taken a considerable market share its application are relatively cheap (it’s an important bonus for those who choose a platform for a mobile device). But it has the main drawback: only Apple can produce hardware and iPhone source code is closed for mobile development companies. Nevertheless it’s not an obstacle for numerous Apple fans, Mac + MacOS + iPod + iPhone can be considered as a modern religion, it’s a way of live, no doubt.

iPhone_OS

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Android outruns iPhone OS and Windows Mobile in 2012

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Gartner analysts consulted their crystal ball and found that Android will be the second most popular mobile platform in the world in the year 2012. The company will present its full report with forecasts for smartphone market only at the end of October, but Ken Dulaney from Gartner has already shared some basic information with ComputerWorld reporters.

Google Android’s popularity is growing wildly. According to the analysts, it is caused by many different factors. One of the key factors is a number of additional functions and related mobile applications from Google.

Also Android as a platform has advantages over other operating systems. For example, Android is an Open Source project in contrast to iPhone OS.

In addition, smartphone interfaces usually differ from each other by two approaches: iPhone OS is based on applications, devices using Windows Mobile and Symbian are based on communicational functions. Android, according to Dulaney, wisely combines both approaches. In particular, its interface allows running high-usage tasks without having to return to the main menu.

Finally, although the first AndroPhone appeared only a year ago and did not gain big popularity (it had serious hardware limitations), in recent months the major mobile phone manufacturers have introduced several new smartphones based on Android. Moreover about 40 new Android models will appear in the next year, said Dulaney, as well as a new OS version (its code-name is Donut).

Gartner experts managed to write all these factors in mathematical expressions and get a new model of mobile market in 2012. There are their projections:

1. Symbian OS – 203 million devices, 39%
2. Android – 76 million devices, 14.5%
3. iPhone – 71.5 million devices, 13.7%
4. Windows Mobile – 66.8 million devices, 12.8%
5. BlackBerry – 65.25 million devices, 12.5%
6. Linux – 28 million devices, 5.4%
7. Palm (webOS) – 11 million devices, 2.1%

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