Symbian OS was developed by Symbian Ltd. It was one of Nokia’s mobile operating systems for mobile phone or smartphone. Symbian OS is run under ARM mobile phone processor. Symbian OS was acquired by Nokia, and in 2008 non-profit organisation called the Symbian Foundation was established. Symbian OS does not actually provide user interface, it was implemented separately. Here a few brief explanation and history of Symbian UIs.

Series 30

S30 is design mainly for entry level mobile devices. Such a examples Nokia phone that run on S30 are Nokia 1600, Nokia 2310. Series 30 in 2002, was equipped with Series 40 capabilities such as Java ME support and polyphonic MIDI. However later development said that it was dropped, and more emphasis on embedded content, less on Internet Connectivity.

Series 40

Software platform are usually used by Nokia Mid-tier mobile devices. In term of operating system S40 has simpler variant compared to S60 (which is mainly based on multi-tasking support). Therefore S40 unable to support multi-tasking like S60 can. The other different is the .SIS application support, in S60 .SIS files are recognized as application, whereas in S40 doesn’t support it. However S40 are reported to have supported Java application like FileManager application.

Series 60

S60 is the most widely-used mobile platform in the world. It was created by Nokia, and set to open source and contribute it to Symbian Foundation. It has also the largest variety version numbering, it has been created at Symbian version 6.1. Manufacturers who build their devices using S60 UI are, LG, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, etc. Table of Symbian OS version with its corresponding S60 edition.

As Symbian going through a change to an open source platform project, Symbian Foundation as the main contributor of Symbian OS platform,intending to unify all Symbian UIs into single UI based on S60 platform. Mobile phone that run on S60 UI are Nokia 7650, Nokia N-Gage, Samsung SGH-Z600, Panasonic X800, Nokia E71, Nokia N97, and many others.

Series 80

It is formerly known as Crystal, designed for enterprise and professional level mobile phones of Nokia. The screen size resolution for S80 was 640 x 200 pixels it has also full QWERTY keyboard support. It also support various technologies like SSL/TLS, VPN, full web browser like Opera, and Mouse navigation. Series 80 was only used for earlier communicator series like Nokia 9210 to Nokia 9500.

Series 90

Software platform that has been discontinued by Nokia, and merged into S60, it was only used by Nokia 7710. It was developed of Psikon Eikon GUI for Series 5, Series 5mx, Series 7, and netbook. It was modified to be controlled by touchscreen device and supportive hardware buttons. The application was basicly single menu tree, can be accessed from the title bar at the top of screen, no exit or quit button, and the button bar located at the right hand side of screen.

UIQ

Also known as User Interface Quartz, is software platform based on Symbian OS. Native applications were written in C++, but it also offers Java applications support.UIQ devices employ touchscreen input method. When Symbian Foundation was establish, UIQ ceased to exists, because it failed to attract consumers, operators, and manufacturer. UIQ 3.0 was the first Symbian v9.1 operating system, the latest. Examples of mobile devices that run on UIQ are Sony Ericsson P800, P900, P1, Motorola RIZR Z10, etc.

MOAP

Short for Mobile Oriented Application Platform, build for NTT DoCoMo’s FOMA Service for mobile phone. Manufacturers mobile devices that uses MOAP are Fujitsu, Sony Ericsson, Mitsubishi, Sharp, etc. MOAP is not an open development unlike the rest Symbian OS UI. MOAP release under EPL from Symbian Foundation.