An up-to-date insight into Communications programming at Symbian, incorporating changes introduced by the latest version of Symbian OS (Symbian OS V9), which is the basis of the new phones currently reaching the market. It guides developers through the Symbian OS communications architecture and provides essential information on the communications models and programming interfaces used by Symbian OS.
- Clear up-to-date explanations of how Symbian OS Communications works, demonstrated with full code examples in each chapter
- Written by experienced Symbian engineer who leads the Symbian Communications Programming team
- Covers special topics to include Bluetooth, HTTP, Serial Communications, OBEX and messaging
Ian Campbell, lead author
Ian joined the comms team (as it then was) in Symbian in 2001, working on Symbian OS v6.1, V7.0s for the Nokia 7650, Sony Ericsson P800 and Nokia 6600, respectively. After spending a year working in the Bluetooth team creating the Symbian OS PAN profile implementation, he moved to Symbian's technical Consulting group where he has spent the last three years helping Symbian's licensees and partners build Symbian OS-based phones. As part of this lain has been involved in many aspects of Symbian OS - from debugging components at all levels of the system, through advising on adaptation to particular hardware platforms, to high-level system design. lain received an MEng in Information Systems Engineering from Imperial College, London, and enjoys spending his spare time finding out how things work.
Malcolm Box first joined Psion Software in 1998, shortly before it became Symbian. His first job was writing the kernel for the Ericsson R380 phone, following which he led the design and implementation of the Symbian OS Bluetooth stack. Subsequently he’s worked in the System Architecture group, Symbian’s reference design team and with licensees as a senior consultant. He has previously co-authored Symbian C++ for Mobile Phones and contributes to various open-source projects. He would like to thank his wife, Judith, and children Franz and Abigail for their support and patience during the writing of this book.
Ian Bunning attended Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge, where he gained an MA in Computer Science. On graduating in 2001 he joined the Shortlink team at Symbian, and soon became the expert on the IrDA subsystem. Since then he has also worked on a number of OBEX projects, as well as a smaller number of Bluetooth projects – the main one being part of the initial implementation of Bluetooth PAN profile. He is currently focusing on USB, but frequently supports maintenance work on IrDA and OBEX. Out of work hours, Ian is a keen photographer, and also makes
items of jewellery.
Lucy Caffery has been at Symbian since 2000, where she has worked for the Licensee Product Development team helping UIQ licensees to create Symbian products. Starting out as a Bluetooth specialist, she became Head of the Comms Porting group in LPD, a team which specializes in consultancy in all areas of the Symbian OS Comms subsystem. More recently Lucy has become the Deputy Head of LPD. Lucy has been involved in comms on all the UIQ devices that have shipped to date: Sony Ericsson P8xx, P9xx, M600i, W950i and P990, Motorola A92x, A1000 and M1000.
Pierre Cochart graduated from King's College London in 2000. He then joined Symbian as a graduate in the telephony team to help with the development of the 7.0 OS release. In 2003 he joined Licensee Product Development group to work in the Comms Porting group where he assisted customers with software development in various areas of comms. Pierre is now responsible for handling the communications area for the Japanese licensees.
Twm Davies joined Symbian as a graduate in 1999. Twm has had a varied career within Symbian, initially working as a developer of the ’crystal’ messaging application which provided the UI to the Nokia communicator range, then as a technical consultant for Motorola, Nokia and significantly the technical lead on the first non-Nokia S60 handset, the Siemens SX1. Twm currently works as Product Manager for performance. Twm graduated from Cardiff University with a First Honours Computer Science BSc. Interests outside of work include collecting mispronunciations of his name, scuba diving, Vespas and he runs a web site selling his art works.
Matt Elliott joined Symbian in 2004 as a software engineer, and has spent his time at Symbian in the Device Provisioning team. He graduated with a BEng in Digital Electronics from the University of Kent, and coming from a hardware background still misses his soldering iron (but not the burnt fingers). Matt would like to thank all the past and present members of the Device Provisioning team for their carefully worded criticism/help, and his long suffering girlfriend Elaine.
Natasha Ho joined Symbian in 1998, where she worked on the development of the Ericsson R380. Since then, she has contributed to almost every UIQ smartphone including the Motorola A920 and A1000, the Arima U300 and more recently the Sony Ericsson P800, P900, M600i, W950i and P990i. She has worked on various parts of the Symbian OS but now likes to concentrate solely on networking. Prior to Symbian, Natasha worked at Motorola designing and writing software for the GSM and GPRS cellular infrastructures. Natasha graduated from University College London with a BSc in Computer Science.
Emlyn Howell has worked on various technologies within Symbian over the past seven years including messaging and telephony. He is currently the Comms Architect for the Reference Designs team. He lives and works in Cambridge.
After studying for a PhD in the effects of indirect lightning strikes on power lines, Tim Howes joined Symbian Software, where for seven years he has worked primarily within the Bluetooth area. Within the Bluetooth SIG, Tim represents Symbian on the Bluetooth Architecture Review Board, and contributes to the Core Specification, Audio Video and Medical Devices Working groups. Despite the high technology area Tim works in, he has a strong interest in mechanical timepieces.
Ibrahim Rahman has been at Symbian for eight years. Working as a software developer in areas including email and HTTP.
Dale Self started work for Psion Software in mid-1998, which transformed to Symbian about a week later. Initially working in the messaging team on an IMAP4 mail client, he later moved to the PAN team where he has worked with Bluetooth, OBEX and USB technologies ever since. During this time he has seen a great deal of growth; both in Symbian, and, sadly, in his waist measurement.
