{"id":3196,"date":"2011-05-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/symbian\/"},"modified":"2011-08-18T17:21:32","modified_gmt":"2011-08-18T17:21:32","slug":"symbian","status":"publish","type":"definition","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3436\/symbian","title":{"rendered":"Symbian"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Does Symbian Mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Symbian is an operating system for smartphones. It is the successor of Symbian OS (operating system) and uses a user interface component based on the 5th Edition of S60.<\/p>\n

Symbian versions are denoted by the caret (^) symbol; e.g. "Symbian^3" references Symbian\u2019s third version.<\/p>\n

Techopedia Explains Symbian<\/span><\/h2>\n

Symbian\u2019s predecessor, Symbian OS, was developed by Symbiant Ltd, a partnership among PDA and smartphone manufacturers Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and Psion. Nokia expressed interest in acquiring the entire company and the acquisition was completed at the end of 2008.<\/p>\n

Targeted for smartphones, Symbian is designed to thrive in low-power battery-based devices as well as ROM-based systems. Its kernel, known as EKA2 (EPOC Kernel Architecture 2), features preemptive multithreading and full memory protection. This kernel already contains a scheduler, a memory management system and device drivers.<\/p>\n

Applications for Symbian are normally written in C++ (using Qt) or Symbian C++. However, applications written in Python, Java ME, Flash Lite, Ruby and .NET can also run. These applications may then be installed on the device using OTA (over-the-air), a mobile to PC data cable connection, Bluetooth or a memory card.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What Does Symbian Mean? Symbian is an operating system for smartphones. It is the successor of Symbian OS (operating system) and uses a user interface component based on the 5th Edition of S60. Symbian versions are denoted by the caret (^) symbol; e.g. "Symbian^3" references Symbian\u2019s third version. Techopedia Explains Symbian Symbian\u2019s predecessor, Symbian OS, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"definitioncat":[236],"class_list":["post-3196","definition","type-definition","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","definitioncat-network-management"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat is Symbian? - Definition from Techopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Symbian and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Symbian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Symbian and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3436\/symbian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Techopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/techopedia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-08-18T17:21:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@techopedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3436\/symbian#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3436\/symbian\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Margaret Rouse\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5dd538e31ee352d105b8af36c4268a5\"},\"headline\":\"Symbian\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-05-27T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-08-18T17:21:32+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3436\/symbian\"},\"wordCount\":191,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3436\/symbian#respond\"]}],\"articleSection\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3436\/symbian\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/3436\/symbian\",\"name\":\"What is Symbian? 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