Chapter 1: Introduction to S60
It can be surprising to realize how complex a device a mobile phone really is, and how difficult it is to create one. Because of that, it is not at all surprising to see how difficult it is for any manufacturer to succeed in the mobile phone market. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the tip of the iceberg of why that is so, by describing the elements of a typical smartphone from a logical architecture point of view. Later chapters will go into further detail about creating an S60-based device. The general architecture of an S60-based smartphone consists of a cellular modem controlled by the modem software, the Domestic Operating System (DOS) and the application processor engine controlled by the Symbian Operating System (OS) and S60 software.
What is it that makes a device a smartphone? The simplest mobile phone (Figure 1-1) enables voice calls and short messaging (SMS). In addition, a contact list can be considered as a fundamental feature of any mobile device. The next step from ‘any’ device is a feature phone, which contains some significant additional functionality:
- calendar for keeping track of appointments
- a web or WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) browser
- multimedia messaging support (MMS)
- games and other pieces of application software
- a colour display
- a digital camera
- support for additional memory through the use of a memory card
- etc.
Figure 1-1. Mobile phone evolution.
A feature phone has a relatively simple, but effective, ...
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