So far, Symbian developers have been split into two groups: UIQ developers, who were frustrated due to the dropping of their platform; and S60 developers, who were happy that their products would live on to see the great Symbian Foundation heaven in the sky.

Unfortunately, it looks like they are not much better off: if David Wood gets his way, AVKON (the S60 UI stack) dies by 2011:

Symbian^2
Symbian^2 is the first release for which the source code is available on the Mercurial repositories on the Symbian developer website.

Symbian^2 will reach Functionality Completed in week 19 2009, and is expected to be Hardened by week 51 this year.

Key features of this release include:

* Support for multiple form factors, resolutions and input methods;
* Customisable home screen supporting embedded widgets and other personal content.

Symbian^2 is particularly suitable for device manufacturers who have already been working with previous versions of Symbian OS technology. Device manufacturers who are relatively new to the Symbian world are expected to use Symbian^3 in their first commercial shipments.

Symbian^3
Symbian^3 will be part of a complete ecosystem offering of all the software needed to quickly create a wide range of winning mobile devices – including state-of-the-app mobile phones, and lots more.

Symbian^3 is expected to reach Functionality Completed in week 04 2010, and to be Hardened by week 26 that year.

Key features of this release include:

* Integrated support for seamless composition of hardware-accelerated content into UI elements (this incorporates “Screenplay” technology);
* An integrated high performance communications architecture enabling a performance level typical of wired internet (this incorporates “Freeway” technology).

Symbian^4
Planning for Symbian^4 is at an earlier stage. It follows Symbian^3 by around six months.

The following technology contributions are expected to be fully integrated for Symbian^4:

* Qt optimised for the Symbian platform – Qt is a well-liked application and UI framework;
* A new “Orbit” extension library for Qt, which contains more than 50 widgets tailored for mobile user experience, and which will provide a replacement for the existing “Avkon” widget set;
* A new “Direct UI” interaction and navigation logic, combined with finger-optimised layouts offering excellent touch and hybrid-device user experience;
* The application suite re-factored and re-written to take advantage of Qt APIs, Orbit widgets, and Direct UI.

Elements of this combined offering will of course be available for experimentation ahead of their full integration in Symbian^4.

Even though I am by no means a fan of AVKON, the Symbian Foundation has just eliminated all S60-borne development till the time Symbian v4 drops. The reason for this is documented as Osborne effect (see WikiPedia)…and will be even worse as Symbian developers got their hands burnt multiple times in the past.

First, there was the end of the EPOC PDA’s; after that, binary compatibility was broken and UIQ died. Thus, developers have been able to accumulate up to three binary breaks => ouch.

I have sent this to Symbian asking for a comment, and hope to hear more from them soon – in the meantime, all I can say is that LocaNote remains under development while all further Tamoggemon S60 projects are put on hold favoring PocketPC products…

P.S. David Wood, Symbian foundation: if you object to this repost (which I admit to be longer than the Austrian maximal limit, even though it is in public interest); let me know and it will be removed ASA{.


Related posts:

  1. David Wood on the future of AVKON
  2. Antony Edwards on what the Symbian Foundation means for developers
  3. Lee Williams on the future of Symbian
  4. Symbian Foundation’s Mark Durrant – short Q&A
  5. Symbian Foundation speaks release plans