Today the Symbian Foundation announced that it has completed the move to open source. The platform, which runs on more than 330 million devices and has been developed over the last 10 years is now freely available to all under the EPL (Eclipse Public License). The process, which was delivered four months ahead of schedule, is the largest transition from proprietary code to open source in software history.
The completion of the open source transition marks a critical milestone for Symbian as it seeks to build the enablers for the future of mobile, based on openness and innovation. Read on to view our video interview with Lee Williams and for further information.
With Mobile World Congress just 10 days away, it's time to share some of our plans with you. This year All About Symbian (AAS) is teaming up with Mobile Industry Review (MIR) to bring you in-depth video coverage direct from Barcelona. We're combining our resources to bring you in-depth content that we hope will inform, educate and entertain. In addition, you can expect our usual flow of live updates and editorial from all the All About Symbian team.
Are you in Kuala Lumpur in early February? Or are you planning to be there? Asri al-Baker is organising the first KLSS (Kuala Lumpur Symbian Stammtisch) and would like to call all Symbian enthusiasts in Kuala Lumpur and the nearby places to attend. Full details below. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Stammtisch is apparently German for 'regular get together' or 'pub meet', and is a term you'll start to see quite a bit in the Symbian Foundation's activities.
I asked an eclectic selection of 20 luminaries, bloggers and power users from the Symbian ecosystem: "Which is the Symbian-powered smartphone of the Decade? Which one was most significant, the most memorable, the most game-changing and the most loved?" Here are their answers, for your interest and amusement - and yes, a clear winner emerged...
In All About Symbian Insight 93 (AAS Podcast 157) we discuss the Q3 smartphone figures from Canalys and Rafe explains that Fujitsu and Quic have joined the board of the Symbian Foundation. We move on to a retrospective of SEE 2009 with discussion of the media reaction (which send Rafe into rant mode). We finish with thoughts on N97 PR 2.0 and the closure of N-Gage (sniff). You can listen to AAS Insight 93 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
In All About Symbian Insight 59 (AAS Podcast 112) we talk about the recent release of Google Maps 3.0 and its inclusion of the Latitude location service. We follow up with a general discussion of 'people location services' and discuss their implementation, utility and surrounding privacy issues. In the last third of the podcast we preview the forthcoming Mobile World Congress event.
During the Symbian Smartphone Show last week we spent some of our time uploading images from the show floor. Here's the resulting Symbian Smartphone Show 2008 gallery along with a few additions and some extra commentary. Read on for a few highlights from day two of the show that you may have missed first time round.
In All About Symbian Podcast 98 (Insight #45) we are back from last weeks Symbian Smartphone Show at Earl's Court. There some discussion on the feel and size of the show, Symbian Foundation related announcements, and the start of our run through of some of the devices and demos we saw.
On monday it's time for the Evening with S60 London. However as things do not kick off until 7:30pm and as the AAS team are in town we thought we would hold an informal get together before the event in a local pub. So from 5:30pm or so we'll be in the Windmill pub which is just a few minutes away from the Nokia Flagship Store.
As Ewan puts it, it's another madcap show - All About Symbian Insight number 30 right here, in which we talk about Missing Sync for Symbian, the launch of the Nokia E71 and E66, plus first thoughts on the Motorola MOTO Z10. Note that this show was recorded last Thursday and so predates Tuesday's Symbian announcements - we'll bring you audio content to do with this very shortly.