Symbian OS version 9 debuts

Symbian Limited announced the latest version of the Symbian smartphone operating system, Symbian OS version 9, today. The first handsets with the new software won't start showing up until sometime in the second half of this year, but the big changes are improved support for multimedia and 3D graphics applications and support for the latest ARM processors and higher resolution digital camera modules. They're also adding the ability to use Symbian handsets with stereo Bluetooth headphones or as USB mass storage devices (which means you could drag and drop MP3s onto the phone, something which is way easier than using sync software when you only have enough storage space for 10 or 20 songs to begin with). They're also rolling out an enhanced Device Management framework that makes it easier to remotely update handsets over the air.

[Thanks, Mike and Jordan]

[TheZodiac @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

So what happened to v8?

[Carmi @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

This is big news. Symbian has already staked out a solid position for itself in the battle for smart phone supremacy. Everyone thinks about PalmOne and Microsoft's Pocket PC, but the reality is Symbian has shipped more product than those two combined.

This promises to be an interesting battle. Anyone remotely interested in this sector would do well to watch closely.

Carmi Levy
http://writteninc.blogspot.com

[Oliver @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

the Nokia 6630 uses v.8 apparently:

http://www.symbian.com/phones/index.html#6630

btw, Symbian r0x0r

[Shigg D'lucks @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

I agree. The Symbian OS is much easier to develop for and for independant developers, the market is huge. It is stable, fast, cheap and very VERY easy to use.

I wonder if you could upgrade your OS on an existing phone? I have a 3620 with v6.0 and would love to have at least 7.0 or 8.0

[monsoondawn @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

Now if only Symbian phone manu's would get off their butts and produce more models with handwriting recognition and full keyboards and don't look like Nokia 9500.

[Phil @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

symbian is by far the best thing going. i would never buy a phone that doesn't have it. and as i've said here before, i think the 'killer app' could be itunes for symbian. couple that with the support for stereo bluetooth headsets...

yum.

apple, you listening?

[Oliver @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

It does seem strange that apple would bring iTunes to motorola phones before it develops iTunes for Symbian. Just think of all the different brands that have symbian phones (nokia, SE, samsung, benQ, and even some motos).

[James McLaren @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

I currently own a SonyEricsson T637 and I love it. The Symbian OS is very nice to use much more enjoyable than my old Nokia 8390.

I look forward to trying out Symbian OS 9 and hopefully having a look at their SDK and maybe try my hand at an app or two.

[kawai @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

dude man, your T637 does not use symbian OS, SE only uses symbian for their PXXX series phones

[Amen @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

#8, for the record it uses a *very* cut down version of the symbian OS, just like a nokia 3320 does (Series 40 as opposed to series 60 in the 6600 for example)

in response to upgrading the OS of the phone, for a 36XX phone there isn't enough physical memory on the device to do so. The other problem with doing that is that there are some hardware clashes... Like an Ngage has OS6 instead of OS7 (which was put in a 6600 about the same time) because of things like a 4096 colour screen as opposed to the 65k running on the OS7 device.

I have a question though... What did the 7710 run? its the only commercially available Nokia Series 90 thing, but i don't know what version of Symbian OS it ran (some kind of UIQ i'd imagine)

Symbian OS is good because it is scalable and supports so many things... Like you can cut it down for low end phones or have full blown support for touch screens, decent processors, cameras etc.... Gee, a scalable operating system... Sounds a *lot* like what people are doing with linux based phones with java frontends for the OS. Symbian apps are just written in C or C++ (i forget which) so they are easy for people who program stuff to code without learning some dodgy proprietry thing. The only gripe i have with the upgrading is that a lot of old apps don't support the newer OS's because of messy coding and i'm *guessing* thats why someone like apple (for a mobile itunes client) would go for java as opposed to .sis files, because java is more ubiquitous than .sis even though .sis is more powerful it isn't *really* a huge market (comparatively) yet.

[Daz @ Dec 19th 2005 12:09AM]

K/S/T/Z series SE phones do not use symbian. At all.

The 7710 uses Symbian 7 and Series 90 is the UI. 'UIQ' is SE's UI for the P series. Nokia's "Series XX" naming has nothing to do with the version of Symbian being used, same goes for UIQ.

I still can't think why anyone would want iTunes on their phone, I can't justify even having it on my PC. SD cards and a simple MP3 player work wonders..