The Symbian OS Architecture Sourcebook: Design and Evolution of a Mobile Phone OS

Ben Morris9780470018460, 0470018461

The current Symbian Press list focuses very much on the small scale features of Symbian OS in a programming context. The Architecture Sourcebook is different. It’s not a how-to book, it’s a ‘what and why’ book. And because it names names as it unwinds the design decisions which have shaped the OS, it is also a ‘who’ book. It will show where the OS came from, how it has evolved to be what it is, and provide a simple model for understanding what it is, how it is put together, and how to interface to it and work with it. It will also show why design decision were made, and will bring those decisions to life in the words of Symbian’s key architects and developers, giving an insider feel to the book as it weaves the “inside story” around the architectural presentation. The book will describe the OS architecture in terms of the Symbian system model. It will show how the model breaks down the system into parts, what role the parts play in the system, how the parts are architected, what motivates their design, and how the design has evolved through the different releases of the system. Key system concepts will be described; design patterns will be explored and related to those from other operating systems. The unique features of Symbian OS will be highlighted and their motivation and evolution traced and described. The book will include a substantial reference section itemising the OS and its toolkit at component level and providing a reference entry for each component.

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Table of contents :
The Symbian OS Architecture Sourcebook……Page 3
Contents……Page 9
About this Author……Page 15
Acknowledgements……Page 17
Glossary of Terms……Page 19
Introduction……Page 21
Part 1: The Background to Symbian OS……Page 25
1.1 The Origins of Mobile Phones……Page 27
1.2 From 2G to 3G……Page 29
1.3 Mobile Phone Evolution……Page 30
1.4 Technology and Soft Effects……Page 31
1.5 Disruption and Complexity……Page 33
1.6 The Thing About Mobile Phones……Page 34
2.1 The State of the Art……Page 39
2.2 In the Beginning……Page 41
2.3 The Prehistory of Psion……Page 44
2.4 The Beginnings of Symbian OS……Page 46
2.5 The Mobile Opportunity……Page 50
2.6 Background to the First Licensee Projects……Page 51
2.7 Device Families……Page 55
2.8 Operating System Influences……Page 61
3.1 Design Goals and Architecture……Page 69
3.3 Why Architecture Matters……Page 73
3.4 Symbian OS Layer by Layer……Page 76
3.5 The Key Design Patterns……Page 80
3.6 The Application Perspective……Page 89
3.7 Symbian OS Idioms……Page 95
3.8 Platform Security from Symbian OS v9……Page 107
4.1 Background……Page 111
4.2 The Big Attraction……Page 112
4.3 The Origins of Object Orientation……Page 114
4.4 The Key Ideas of Object Orientation……Page 116
4.5 The Languages of Object Orientation……Page 124
Part 2: The Layered Architecture View……Page 133
5.2 Basic Concepts……Page 135
5.3 Layer-by-Layer Summary of the Symbian OS v9.3 Model……Page 141
5.5 History……Page 143
6.1 Introduction……Page 145
6.2 Purpose……Page 146
6.4 Overview……Page 147
6.5 Architecture……Page 148
6.6 A Short History of the UI Architecture……Page 152
6.7 Component Collections……Page 153
7.1 Introduction……Page 157
7.3 Design Goals……Page 158
7.4 Overview……Page 159
7.6 Architecture……Page 161
7.7 Component Collections……Page 173
8.1 Introduction……Page 189
8.2 Purpose……Page 190
8.3 Design Goals……Page 192
8.4 Overview……Page 194
8.6 Generic OS Services Block……Page 195
8.7 Multimedia and Graphics Services Block……Page 201
8.8 Connectivity Services Block……Page 216
9.1 Introduction……Page 223
9.2 Purpose……Page 225
9.3 Design Goals……Page 228
9.5 Architecture……Page 230
9.6 Comms Framework……Page 234
9.7 Telephony Services……Page 244
9.8 Networking Services……Page 254
9.9 Short-link Services……Page 269
10.2 Purpose……Page 279
10.3 Design Goals……Page 280
10.4 Overview……Page 281
10.5 Architecture……Page 282
10.6 Component Collections……Page 294
11.1 Introduction……Page 303
11.2 Purpose……Page 304
11.3 Design Goals……Page 305
11.5 EKA1 and EKA2……Page 307
11.6 Singleton Component Collections……Page 308
11.7 Kernel Architecture Block……Page 309
11.8 Kernel Architecture Component Collections……Page 319
12.1 Introduction……Page 325
12.3 Design Goals for the Java ME Subsystem……Page 326
12.4 Evolution of Java on Symbian OS……Page 327
12.5 Architecture……Page 330
12.6 Component Collections……Page 335
13.2 Summary of Symbian OS v6 Releases……Page 343
13.3 Summary of Symbian OS v7 Releases……Page 345
13.4 Summary of Symbian OS v8 Releases……Page 348
13.5 Summary of Symbian OS v9 Releases……Page 350
Part 3: Design Case Studies……Page 355
14.1 Introduction……Page 357
14.2 Pioneering the Object Approach in Psion……Page 358
14.3 A Thoroughly Object-oriented Operating System……Page 377
15.2 Anatomy of a Phone……Page 391
15.3 The Phone Operating System……Page 392
15.4 Telephony……Page 402
15.5 Messaging: It’s Different on a Phone……Page 410
16.1 Introduction……Page 421
16.2 Background to the Eikon GUI……Page 426
16.3 Eikon Design Point……Page 428
16.4 The Device Family Strategy……Page 434
16.5 Quartz……Page 440
16.6 Pearl……Page 441
16.7 Nightingale……Page 442
16.8 How to Develop a World-class GUI……Page 444
16.9 Symbian OS User Interface Architecture……Page 449
16.10 Future Directions……Page 450
17.1 Introduction……Page 453
17.2 Design Lifetime……Page 454
17.3 Renewal in Symbian OS……Page 458
17.4 Evolution in the Kernel……Page 460
17.5 Telephony Evolution……Page 464
17.6 Sound and Vision Evolution……Page 467
17.7 Defining the Skin……Page 468
17.8 Moving Towards Standard C++……Page 470
18.2 The Software Problem……Page 477
18.3 Too Many Dragons……Page 479
18.4 Software Development Approaches……Page 480
18.5 What Making Software Is Really About……Page 483
Appendix A: Symbian OS Component Reference……Page 499
Appendix B: Interviewee Biographies……Page 597
References……Page 603
Index……Page 607