Symbian Development Overview

IMA Mobile Developers

Platform Challenge

Boaz Zilberman- Fring

October 20, 2009
Agenda

• Symbian History

• Symbian Market Overview

• How to Develop for Symbian

• Getting Your App to Market- Horizon

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 2

Symbian History
A short history

Symbian Foundation Begins

Initial code
contribution
250 million phones shipped
250 different phone models
2009
100 million
phones shipped 2008

Symbian Ltd was 2006 Symbian Ltd

founded Ceases

1998 Nokia acquires

Symbian Ltd

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. Public

Why form the Symbian Foundation?
No one company should be allowed to control the mobile
platform

Gain the benefits of using open source software

Cost, Flexibility, Support, Auditability

Symbian Ltd (1998-2008) - Acquired by Nokia in 2008

For-profit, royalty bearing, ~3500 SW engineers (Inc S60)

Symbian Foundation Formed (2009-) - Owned by its members

Not-for-profit, independent, royalty free, ~150 employees,
Why the EPL ?

 One of the 9 popular OSI approved open source licenses

 Business friendly
 Permits differentiation and commercialization of and on top of Symbian code
 Provides clarity on the rules that enable differentiation
 Provides clarity on the rules that require collaboration
 Already tried and tested
 Vendor neutral
 Reduce fragmentation through “weak copyleft”
 Modifications of existing components fall under the original license
 Permits the creation of new components – above, below, or alongside
 Provides clarity on patents
 Integration friendly
 Co-exists with software written under other licenses

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. Public

Is Symbian EPL from the beginning?

Proprietary (CKL & DKL)

Number of independent
Software Small community,
high barrier to entry

contributors
SFL
Large community,
low barrier
to entry
EPL
Open source,
zero barrier to entry

H1 2009 June 2010

Regular incremental releases

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. Public
Our 4 Guiding Beacons

Improved Hardware Adaptation

Support of our ecosystem

Developer Support & Tools

Improved Web Runtime Choice

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. Public
 The Symbian Platform
(code on the device)
Application

Location Apps
Personal
Connectivity Productivity Multimedia UI
Comms
Device Apps Apps Apps Apps
Web Apps
Mgmt
Apps Apps
The platform enables different groups of developers
• Web Applications:
Location Connectivity WebKit, Flash Lite
Middleware

MW MW
• Scripting Languages:
Personal
Comms
Device
Python,
Mgmt Ruby, Perl
Productivity Multimedia
Middleware
Runtimes
& Web
UI
Middlew
MW Services
Data MW MW MW are
• Java:
Security
MW Java ME, eRCP
Comms
MW

• Native run-times: Qt, Open C/C++ (=POSIX & Standard

OS OS
C++ & Boost),
OS
Security
.NET
Runtime
and Web
OS
Location
OS Data
Comms
Personal
Comms
OS
Connectivity
Multimedia Graphics
OS

• Native development: Symbian C++

OS Base Services

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. Public

Members
2009

A huge open initial community contribution…

~ 20 million lines of code
~ 100 packages (≈ projects)
12 technology domains (≈ top-level projects)
Existing support for 7 application processors and 5 basebands
Existing support for 10 run-times
Symbian Market Overview
 Symbian: The biggest new opportunity
Worldwide Smartphone market share H1 ’09 n
Symbia .5
sells 35
APAC EMEA LatAm NAm of 69
million
devices

Symb
ia n
Outs
hipp
ed its
neare
rival st
over
2:1

In Sep Steve Jo
bs
announced tha
t
30 million
iPhones had
sold ever.
Symbian sold
35 million
phones in the
last 6 months

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 12 Source: Canalys

Symbian: The biggest existing
opportunity
Sales from launch up to Q1 ‘09

No. of Symbian/Android phones shipped since the Launch of

the G1

No. of Symbian phones/iPhones shipped since the Launch of the

iPhone 3G

No. of Symbian phones/iPhones shipped since the Launch of the iPhone

Millions of
Phones

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 13 Source: Canalys

Symbian: The biggest future opportunity

Canalys: Mobile phone

sales forecast

Symbia Other
n
Juniper: Open source based
mobiles in 2014

Gartner: Smartphone
market share 2012

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 14

A growing community of Apps
 Symbian Signed applications
 The graph shows the number of new unique applications passing
through Symbian signed each quarter
 Is not a sum total of apps made per quarter, many apps are
unsigned (e.g. widgets, unsigned apps, etc)

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 15

How to develop for Symbian?
Develop your way
Symbian allows you to develop your way in the tools and languages you use
already

Languages/Runtimes Tools

Html/CSS/JavaScrip
t

Flash Lite

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 17

developer.symbian.org
 developer.symbian.org is the hub of the Symbian
developer community
 Get the Tools and Kits
 Native C++ SDKs and Tools available

 Get Coding
 Quick starts for different program
environments
 Sample code
 Documentation
 Source code reference

 Get support
 Active Forums to ask questions
 Contact companies who can help

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 18

Qt is coming
 Symbian is working on bring Qt to the Symbian platform in a major
way
 Symbian^4 will have a new UI and apps based on Qt
 For more information on Qt UI roadmap see
 http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Roadmap_for_UI

 Qt on Symbian is being developed in the open.

 You can experiment and get ready for this new cross platform environment
 Qt 4.6 released on Symbian
 Can be found here
 http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2009/10/14/qt-460-beta1-for-symbian-is-out/
 More information on Qt apps on Symbian today
 http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Using_Qt_and_Symbian_C%2B
%2B_Together

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 19

Getting your app to market?
Symbian Horizon
Developers OEM and Operators

Help meme
Help getget
mymy Horizo We need
App to market!
apps to market! n more/better
apps, can you
help?

Help me make a
Symbian app!

Members and Established Companies

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 21

Symbian Horizon: A two-part program
Part 1 - Publisher Program
 Helps developers get applications to multiple app stores
 Reconciles payments from multiple stores
 Pays for Symbian Signed verification
 Tested on Multiple devices

Part 2 - Directory of Apps

 A Symbian apps ‘Yellow Pages” for end users
 Provides listing of all Symbian signed applications
 Links to stores where content can be purchased/acquired
 Drives traffic to partner sites

Why
 Automate non-value add processes
 Collaborate to create a larger ecosystem

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 22

Symbian provides choice in route to
Market
 Rather than control the route to market. Symbian apps can be accepted in
multiple stores

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 23

Publisher program process
 The review process for Horizon Publisher program apps is
extensive
 After app has been submitted it is stress tested on Multiple
devices from Multiple manufacturers
 If there is a failure on a particular device then we work with the developer to try and rectify the issue and get
them to resubmit a new application
 Some apps will not work on some devices due to particular functionality e.g. compass

 If the application passes, it goes through Certified signed and is

tested by independent test house
 In parallel, it goes through a number of weeks of friendly user
testing

 Horizon Publisher program has limited places so submit your

applications at
 http://developer.symbian.org/main/horizon/

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 24

Join the Symbian Community
Symbian Developer Zone– Tools and Documentation
http://developer.symbian.org
Silicon Valley Symbian Programming SIG
http://www.meetup.com/Silicon-Valley-Symbian-Developers-Meetup/
Symbian SIG Mailing List
Silicon-Valley-Symbian-Developers-Meetup-list@meetup.com

Symbian Exchange & Exposition (SEE 2009) (Oct 27-28), London, UK

http://www.see2009.org/

Copyright © 2009 Symbian Foundation. 25