Symbian S60 Operating Systemis an operating system and software platform that is designed for smart phone devices and was developed by Nokia. This symbian platform is the next generation of Symbian S60 Operating System and the Nokia series 60.

At the first time,

Symbian S60 Operating Systemwas developed by Symbian LTD. Today, many Symbian-based devices have contributed almost 29,2% of the market share in cell phone industry all around the globe in the first quarter in 2011. On 5 April 2011, Nokia released Symbian under the new license and had been changed into the shared-source proprietary model as the contender of open source projects.

Symbian contains many components and it is based on the S60 5th edition. The latest version of this platform, Symbian ^3, has been officially released in the 4th quarter in 2010, and Symbian ^3 was utilized at the first time on Nokia N8.

Symbian^1

Symbian ^1 has become the first release and is the basic foundation of the platform itself. This platform combines Symbian OS and Symbian S60 Operating System 5th Edition (which was built on the Symbian OS 9.4).

Symbian^2

The Symbian ^2 is the first open source version from Symbian. On 1 June 2010, a few of Japan manufactures including DoCoMo and Sharp announced smart phones that utilize this Symbian ^2.

Symbian^3

While the last version of Symbian called Symbian ^3 was announced on 15 February 2011, this version is designed to become the next generation of smart phone platform that is more reliable. Symbian ^3 introduces the new feature, such as: 2D architecture and 3D new graphics, UI improvement, and the support to external display via HDMI.

So far, 4 of the smart phones have already employed the Symbian ^3 in its operating system, and they are: Nokia N8, Nokia C6-01, Nokia E7 and Nokia C7. In April 2011, the latest update for the Symbian ^3, called “Symbian Anna”, was released by Nokia as the part of the release of Nokia X7 and E6. Nokia also indicates that the previous Symbian^3-based cell phones will also get the updates of Symbian Anna.

Symbian^3 Features

Some of the strengths that can be found on this Symbian^3 operating system are:

1. Multitasking
One of the most needed features and is really suitable to be used for the users who need effectiveness to run some applications at the same time. Users can press the menu button and at the same time will open the other menu applications that will appear on the back of the screen. The move between one application to the other application will happen quickly and easily.

2. Customization
Symbian^3 can display vast majority of improvement compared to the previous version of Symbian, including the option for screen customization. This operating system offers 3 home screen displays that can be customized by the users to place or move their favorite applications and shortcuts.

3. Ovi App Store
One of the strengths of iOS and Android is the easiness in downloading any kind of applications, games and devices from their markets. And this thing can also be done on Nokia Ovi Store, which can be accessed on Nokia N8 by using Symbian ^3.

4. Widget
On the widget perspective, it gives you 6 more rooms that can be customized by touching one slot for few seconds and later can choose from the provided widgets. This widget is really popular, such as: Email, FM radio, Music Player, Notification, Jam and Social Networking.

5. USB On the go
With the addition of this feature on Nokia N8, the users can increase the external data storage by using the external memory, which is connected with the USB on the go. If the data storage is full, al of those data can also be stored in the external memory.

So what do you think about this latest development of Symbian S60 operating system? Do you still believe this operating system still has much to say around the nowadays' mobile market, especially when many iOS and Android-based touch screen smart phones have invaded almost the entire cell phone market around the world?