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Smartphone software platform From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The S60 Platform, originally named Series 60 User Interface, is a discontinued software platform and graphical user interface for smartphones that runs on top of the Symbian operating system. It was created by Nokia based on the 'Pearl' interface from Symbian Ltd.[1] S60 was introduced at COMDEX in November 2001 and first shipped with the Nokia 7650 smartphone; the original version was followed by three other major releases.
In 2008 after Nokia bought out Symbian Ltd., the Symbian Foundation was formed to consolidate all the assets of different Symbian platforms (S60, UIQ, MOAP), making it open source. In 2009, based on the code base of S60, the first iteration of the platform since the creation of Symbian Foundation was launched as S60 5th Edition, or Symbian^1, on top of Symbian OS 9.4 as its base. Subsequent iterations dropped the S60 brand and were named solely under the Symbian name.
The S60 middleware was a multivendor standard for smartphones that supports application development in Java MIDP, C++, Python[2] and Adobe Flash. Its API was called Avkon UI.[3] S60 consists of a suite of libraries and standard applications, such as telephony, personal information manager (PIM) tools, and Helix-based multimedia players. It was intended to power fully featured modern phones with large colour screens, which are commonly known as smartphones.
Originally, the most distinguishing feature of S60 phones was that they allowed users to install new applications after purchase. Unlike a standard desktop platform, however, the built-in apps are rarely upgraded by the vendor beyond bug fixes. New features are only added to phones while they are being developed rather than after public release. Certain buttons are standardized, such as a menu key, a four way joystick or d-pad, left and right soft keys and a clear key.
S60 was mainly used by Nokia but they also licensed it to a few other manufacturers, including Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Samsung,[4] Sendo,[5] Siemens Mobile, Sony Ericsson, Solstice and Vertu. Sony Ericsson notably was the main vendor using the competing UIQ Symbian interface.
In addition to the manufacturers the community includes:
There have been four major releases of S60: Series 60 (2001), Series 60 Second Edition (2002), S60 3rd Edition (2005) and S60 5th Edition (2008). Each release had an updated version called Feature Pack, sometimes known as relay. Each runs on top of a different Symbian OS version.
As an OS, Symbian OS originally provided no user interface (UI), the visual layer that runs atop an operating system: this was implemented separately. Other than S60, other examples of Symbian UIs were MOAP; Series 80; Series 90 and UIQ. This separation of UI from underlying OS created both flexibility and some confusion in the market place. The Nokia outright purchase of Symbian in June 2008 was brokered with the involvement of the other UI developers and all major user interface layers had been (or pledged to) donating to the open source foundation, Symbian Foundation, who would independently own the Symbian operating system. It announced its intent to unify different Symbian UIs into a single UI based on the S60 platform.[8]
S60 5th Edition was the first version under the unified Symbian interface, and it was therefore also named Symbian^1. After this, the S60 name was dropped entirely with the release of Symbian^3 in 2010. In November 2010, Nokia abruptly announced that the Symbian Foundation will close down, leaving further Symbian development in question. The company had previously stated that MeeGo would become its smartphone future.[9][10] In February 2011, Nokia instead announced a partnership with Microsoft to adopt Windows Phone 7 as Nokia's primary operating system, while promising continued support for Symbian and its newer devices until at least 2016. On 29 April 2011, Nokia announced that it would transfer Symbian activities to Accenture along with 3,000 employees.[11]
Symbian^3 was announced together with Nokia N8 on 27 April 2010.[12] The software is faster than the previous S60 5th Edition and takes better advantage of hardware capabilities to create a snappier performance.[13][14] Interface wise it is not drastically different although it does have multiple home screens. The task switcher has been revamped and now show thumbnails of each open app.[15] Web browsing experience is also improved with the addition of pinch-to-zoom. The native text messaging app now features a "conversation" interface. While the virtual keyboard is still T9, a QWERTY is offered in landscape view.[14]
On 12 April 2011, Nokia announced Symbian Anna as a software update to the Symbian^3 release.[16] Three new devices (500, X7 and E6) were announced which will have Symbian Anna pre-installed. The most significant changes were:
On 24 August 2011, Nokia announced Symbian Belle (later renamed Nokia Belle)[17] as a software update to the Symbian Anna release. Three new devices (603, 700 and 701) were announced with Belle pre-installed. The most significant changes were:
In November 2011, Nokia announced the Carla and Donna updates. Carla was expected to be released in late 2012 or early 2013 and feature a new web browser, new widgets, new NFC capabilities and Dolby Surround audio enhancement. Donna was going to be a dual-core processor exclusive, and was planned to be released late 2013 or early 2014.[18] However, in May 2012 a Nokia executive claimed that Carla and Donna were cancelled, and that Nokia would instead only release Belle Feature Pack 2 later in 2012, lacking many of the new features that were planned for Carla and Donna.[19][20]
Many devices are capable of running the S60 software platform with the Symbian OS. Devices ranging from the early Nokia 7650 running S60 v0.9 on Symbian OS v6.1,[21][22] to the latest Samsung i8910 Omnia HD running S60 v5.0 on Symbian OS v9.4.[23] In Symbian^3 the version of the revised platform is v5.2.
The table lists devices carrying each version of S60 as well as the Symbian OS version on what it is based. Devices since Symbian^3 may be capable of upgrading to newer versions.
| Product Name | S60 Version Number |
Symbian OS Version Number |
Devices[21][22][23] |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series 60 1st Edition | 0.9 | 6.1 | |
| Series 60 1st Edition, Feature Pack 1 |
1.2 | 6.1 |
|
| Series 60 2nd Edition | 2.0 | 7.0s |
|
| Series 60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 1 |
2.1 | 7.0s |
|
| Series 60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 2 |
2.6 | 8.0a |
|
| Series 60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 3 |
2.8 | 8.1a | |
| S60 3rd Edition | 3.0 | 9.1 |
|
| S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1 |
3.1 | 9.2 |
|
| S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2 |
3.2 | 9.3 |
|
| S60 5th Edition (Corresponds to Symbian^1) |
5.0 | 9.4 |
|
| Symbian^2 | [citation needed] | [citation needed] |
|
| Symbian^3 | 5.2 | 9.5 | Original firmware
|
| Symbian Anna | 5.2 | 9.5 | Original firmware
|
| Nokia Belle (renamed from Symbian Belle) |
5.3[25] | 101[26] | |
| Nokia Belle, Feature Pack 1 |
5.4[27] | 101[26] | Original firmware
|
| Nokia Belle, Feature Pack 2 |
5.5[27] | 101[26] | Latest firmware |
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