After a 3 year long association with the Symbian platform, I have now bid farewell. Though I am now no longer officially associated with Symbian, I plan to remain an ardent follower of the Symbian OS and the course of redemption it has embarked on.
A lot of changes have happened in the Symbian eco-system since the OS was open-sourced. Here are a few reasons why I think the tech community should give Symbian a second glance, in a world obsessed with apples and droids.
Without a doubt, Symbian is the most feature-rich operating system available today. Features that competitors are highlighting as major innovations (FaceTime, I’m looking at you!) have been part of the Symbian OS for years now. This includes video calling, true multitasking, support for varied hardware, tethering, voice dialling and comprehensive bluetooth support. Additionally, Symbian^3 now has features that are yet to be seen in the competitors’ offerings. Some of these include – Bluetooth 3.0 support, USB-To-Go (USB Host), ability to stream HD video with Dolby 5-channel audio over HDMI (with HDCP), PictBridge support, ability to map remote drives, near-complete POSIX C/C++ API compatibility, support for hardware-acceleration of encryption/decryption, and many many more. In fact, a glance at the following pages can show the plethora of features that were added in the past 2 releases (not counting the thousands of features already present in Symbian OS) :
Symbian^2: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Symbian^2
Symbian^3: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Symbian^3
Symbian OS, and Maemo/MeeGo are the only 2 operating systems which are fully open-sourced, from the kernel, to the applications. Additionally, Symbian OS even provides open-source drivers for reference platforms (Beagle Board and the emulator). All of Symbian’s code is licensed under EPL 1.0, and has been available so, since February 2010. Already, the community, as well as big corporations, have jumped into developing the Symbian OS. Check the links below for some examples of the collaborative work happening in the Symbian OSS space.
Link to Beagle Board drivers (for those interested): http://developer.symbian.org/xref/oss/xref//Symbian3/sf/adaptation/beagleboard/omap3530/beagle_drivers/
Attempt to build a hobbyist platform: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Wild_ducks_project
Accenture to spearhead development of the emulator: http://blog.symbian.org/2010/05/10/accenture-takes-a-community-leadership-role-to-deliver-the-next-generation-of-symbian-emulation/
Symbian OS has, and always will be, an open platform. By this, I mean that there were and never will be any restrictions to what can be done on the platform. Don’t like the theme? Change it! Don’t like the font? Change it! Symbian C++ not your cup of coffee? Here’s some Java. Prefer Python? Go for it! Feel left out cos’ you’re a web developer? Don’t worry! Symbian WRT (web-runtime) lets you write applications for Symbian using technologies you are already familiar with. Hate Python and lurve Ruby? You can help contribute to bringing it up to speed with Python on Symbian. There are no restrictions to the tools that can be used to develop for Symbian, the features that can be implemented, the boundaries that can be crossed. I know that this would set off alarms in most people’s heads. Is Symbian a lawless dystopia? Is it overrun with malware that could hijack your phone and abuse your phone connection? Take a deep breath, and calm down. Symbian features one of the most effective security mechanisms ever implemented in an operating system (without really restricting developer freedom). Platform Security (or PlatSec) ensures that only those authorized would have access to various phone features. Writing an app to modify the address book, or access the entire file system? You will need to submit your application to Symbian Signed for verification and signing, a way of ensuring that your application works as expected, accesses what is signed-for and no more. This ensures that as long as your intentions are honorable (and your pockets are deep, since signing ain’t free for advanced features), there is nothing stopping you from modifying anything in the phone. Some examples that I would like to highlight:
Joikuspot (turns your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot) : http://www.joiku.com/?action=products&mode=productdetails&product_id=310
List of applications and games written in Python: http://www.symbian-freak.com/downloads/freeware/cat_s60_3rd/python.htm
Don’t like the Symbian^2 UI? Replace it!!: http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/symbian-software/mobileshell/
Developing using WRT: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Web_Runtime_(WRT)_Quick_Start
Developing using Flash: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Flash_Lite_Quick_Start
Developing using .NET: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/.NET_Technical_Overview
P.S: Signing is free for open-source applications. Isn’t that nice?
Though this was briefly mentioned above, I believe it deserves a spot on the list, since hobbyists make the (tech) world go around. The Symbian community is hard at work, to develop a (low-cost) hardware platform which would allow those interested to build an entire phone from (open) source. Currently it comprises of various components wired together, sprawled across a table. However, the dream is to formulate a reference hardware platform, and convince a hardware manufacturer to build it into a form factor. Just imagine! A fully free and open phone. This could be spiritual successor to the OpenMoko hardware (which, sadly, were discontinued and thus remain “legacy platforms”), enabling OSS enthusiasts to build and experiment with a fully open-source phone, where anything and everything, from the drivers, to the applications, can be modified and tuned to your needs and likes.
Current state of the Wild Ducks project: http://www.scribd.com/doc/32103793/Towel-Day-2010-Wild-Ducks
“It’s all part of the plan!”.
The Symbian Foundation has laid out a solid roadmap for the development of the OS. Currently, one of the major drawbacks of the Symbian OS is its last-generation UI, which doesn’t really play nice with touch. Symbian^4 will focus on bringing a written-from-scratch, fresh UI, build from the ground up, to be touch-enabled. Though there are some early screenshots on the Symbian^4 page on the Symbian Foundation site, I think its better if we all wait for the final look and feel to be polished up, before we pass judgement, since S^4 is still months away from completion (and the screenshots aren’t exactly recent). However, there is nothing stopping you from checking out the code and trying it out yourself (in the simulator) and if you don’t like what you see, you can always propose and contribute changes to it! That’s the power of being open! Open source! Open platform!
Symbian^4 screenshots: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Symbian^4
Roadmap: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Roadmap_for_the_Symbian_Platform
The future looks good!
There is a lot of hype on the upcoming launches of both Symbian^3 as well as the 4th edition of the OS from Cupertino. Considering that both are major upgrades, I have decided to document my thoughts on the various aspects of both operating systems, briefly comparing and contrasting the two on said aspects. This post was inspired by a post on iPhone OS 4.0 by a friend.
N.B: Most of the information were obtained from various online blogs and other sites, so their accuracy isn’t guaranteed.
Multi-tasking
Multi-tasking is the “big ticket” feature on iPhone OS 4.0, the most awaited feature on it, since copy-paste. Being a systems software engineer, I find this “version” of multi-tasking a little… unpalatable. I do admit its a good solution to the power conundrum on the iPhone/iPod platforms, but taken out of context and comparing it to true multi-tasking, it feels like a poor attempt indeed. For those not in the know, the multi-tasking in iPhone OS 4.0 consists of providing 7 system services which will run in the background, and when an application is sent to the background, any session with the system services are persisted by the services themselves. When the user switches back to the application, the application is brought back from its hibernated state, and the sessions with the background services are restored.
For me, the most striking point in the announcement of this feature was that the older generations of the iPhone (pre-3GS) will not support multi-tasking, due to unmet hardware requirements. In my opinion, this further highlights the level of power consumption by the iPhone OS, since Symbian has been able to provide (at least) comparable batter life numbers despite having supported true multi-tasking for years, and this is not just a theoretical number measured when not multi-tasking. My Nokia phones last an entire day on a full charge, this considering that I have at least 3 background applications running at all times, and listening to music for 2-3 hours, playing the odd YouTube video or two (in-browser, no less), and finally, phone conversations that aggregate to over 2-3 hours. On days that I don’t use the phone as much, the battery charge lasts me for more than 2 days (with the background applications still running). Thus, I don’t buy into “this is the best we can do keeping power consumption in mind” approach for iPhone OS’s multitasking. There is a better way and Symbian has been doing it for years now.
HD
Another major feature on the new versions of both OSes, is the support for playback and recording of media with high-definition video and surround sound. Both Symbian^3 and iPhone OS 4.0 will feature the ability to playback video with 720p video and surround sound, as well as the ability to record 720p video. As always, iPhone OS 4.0 will support H.264 and MPEG-4 video, with AAC-LC audio in .m4v, .mp4 or .mov containers. Symbian^3, like S60 5.0 before it, will support a slightly larger set (check this link for more info).
Data protection
iPhone OS 4.0 will allow encryption of e-mails and attachments using the device passcode, as well as expose API to enable other 3rd party applications to do the same. This is definitely an important feature, one which will endear the iPhone to enterprise users. To the best of my knowledge, Symbian^3 doesn’t provide this feature yet.
Mobile Device Management
Again, another win for iPhone OS 4.0. iPhone OS 4.0 provides Mobile Device Management API which will allow wireless configuration and updation of settings for 3rd party applications, enabling enterprises to monitor compliance with corporate policies, and remotely lock or even wipe the device clean.
HDMI
A huge win for Symbian^3, in my opinion. If your phone can playback HD movies, and can capture HD movies, is it not logical that it should be able to stream said HD content to an HD TV? Keeping in the spirit of openess, and standard compliance, Symbian^3 will support HDMI-out with HDCP.
Qt 4.6
True cross-platform development capability. Symbian^3 remains un-touched here. Write an application in Qt 4.6 (in C++) and trivially port it to Symbian, Maemo/MeeGo, Windows, Linux, MacOS and just about any other major operating system out there. It can’t get any more cross-platform than that (since iPhone development locks you into Objective-C and Android locks you into Java). Do note that Qt is not a runtime, but a native library, which ensures that your applications don’t suffer a performance hit.
Other thoughts
Needless to say, there are countless enhancements to either OS, of which, the features of Symbian^3 are available publicly here. Still, much about both OSes is yet to be seen. We will need to wait till the respective flagship devices are launched (Nokia N8 for Symbian^3 and iPhone HD for iPhone OS 4.0) to re-evaluate how these smartphone operating systems stand up to each other.