Symbian announces the Symbian OS version 8.0

February 23rd 2004 - Symbian annouced the availability of Symbian OS version 8.0, the latest version of Symbian OS. Symbian OS v8.0 driving down the build cost of Symbian-based smartphones and enhances device management, multimedia and Java capabilities.In the latest release of open standarts-based smartphone operating system, Symbian OS will take enhanced functionality, device management capabilities and will drive the use of Symbian OS in lower cost.

Key features of Symbian OS v8.0:

• Rich suite of application services – the suite includes services for contacts, schedule, messaging, browsing and system control; OBEX for exchanging appointments (vCalendar) and business cards (vCard); integrated APIs for data management, text, clipboard and graphics

• Java support – supports the latest wireless Java standards, including MIDP 2.0, CLDC 1.1, JTWI (JSR185), Mobile Media API (JSR135), Java API for Bluetooth (JSR082) and Wireless Messaging (JSR120)

• Realtime – a realtime, multithreaded kernel provides the basis for robust, power-efficient and responsive Symbian OS

• Hardware support– supports latest CPU architectures, peripherals and internal and external memory types

• Messaging – multimedia messaging (MMS), enhanced messaging (EMS) and SMS; internet mail using POP3, IMAP4, SMTP and MHTML; attachments

• Multimedia – audio and video support for recording, playback and streaming; image conversion

• Graphics – direct access to screen and keyboard for high performance; graphics accelerator API

• Communications protocols – wide area networking stacks including TCP/IP (dual mode IPv4/v6) and WAP, personal area networking support include infrared (IrDA), Bluetooth and USB; support is also provided for multihoming capabilities and link layer Quality-of-Service (QoS) on GPRS and UMTS networks

• Mobile telephony – Symbian OS v8.0 is ready for the 3G market with support for WCDMA (3GPP R4); GSM circuit switched voice and data (CSD and EDGE ECSD) and packet-based data (GPRS and EDGE EGPRS); CDMA circuit switched voice, data and packet-based data (IS-95 and cdma2000 1x); SIM, RUIM and UICC Toolkit; other standards can be implemented by licensees through extensible APIs of the telephony subsystem

• International support – supports the Unicode Standard version 3.0

• Data synchronization – over-the-air (OTA) synchronization support using SyncML; PC-based synchronization over serial, Bluetooth, infrared and USB; a PC Connectivity framework providing the ability to transfer files and synchronize PIM data

• Device Management/OTA provisioning – SyncML DM 1.1.2 compliant

• Security – full encryption and certificate management, secure protocols (HTTPS, and SSL and TLS), WIM framework and certificate-based application installation

• Developing for Symbian OS – content development options include: C++, Java (J2ME) MIDP 2.0, and WAP; tools are available for building C++ and Java applications.