Awesome Symbian

An Awesome List about everything related to Symbian OS. Documentation, academic papers, tutorials, communities, IDEs, SDKs, emulators, apps, video games. Symbian is a discontinued mobile OS for ARM popular in early 2000s. It had two major UIs: S60(Nokia), and UIQ(Sony Ericsson). It supports .jar, .jad, .sis, .sisx formats. The main development environment since S60 is C++/Qt, but J2ME, Python, C, Flash Lite, C# are supported as well.

---

Contents

• Communities
• Development
• Emulators
• Hardware
• Native Software
  • Video Games
• Related Projects
• Reverse Engineering
• Theme Making
  • Device Specific Plugins
• Tutorials
  • Academic Articles

---

Communities

• r/Symbian - English language Symbian community on Reddit.
• Nokia N-Gage Discord - Active N-Gage community on Discord.
• Symbian World Telegram - One of the most active Symbian communities on Telegram.
• EKAL21 - Discord server of EKAL21. Official link taken from the website.

---

Development

• GCC4Symbian - Scripts to compile bleeding-edge GCC for Symbian. Releases.
• Java JRE 1.3.101 - A legacy Java runtime essential for early SDK dependencies.
• Qt Quick Components for Symbian - QML-based UI components for Symbian homescreen widgets.
• Symbian Xcode Plugin - GPL licensed Xcode plugin to enable Symbian development on macOS.
• CodeWarrior Development Tools For Symbian OS Professional Edition v1.0 - Official development environment for Symbian OS.

---

Emulators

• EKA2L1 - Emulates Symbian OS/N-Gage's kernel and reimplements most of its critical app servers and libraries.

---

Hardware

• Symbian OS ROMs Collection (Internet Archive) - Downloadable RPKG ROM images for devices like Nokia 5320, 5800, N95, E5, and N-Gage, for emulation, reverse engineering, or device restoration.

---

Native Software

• Symbian ToolBox - A collection of tools for Symbian devices, including a file explorer and an IRC client.
• OpenTTD Symbian Port - The port of OpenTTD for Symbian. Additional information is available through the forum.
• Dictionaries - A collection of open-source dictionaries for Symbian OS.
• RotateIt - A screen rotation utility for Symbian devices.
• NanoCounter - A lightweight counter app for Symbian.
• CuteTube - A YouTube client for Symbian OS.
• QRemoteControl-Client - A remote control client application for Symbian.
• Star Browser - A Qt-based web browser for Symbian Anna/Belle.
• X-plore - Dual-pane file manager for Symbian with ZIP support and cloud integration.
• FShell - Command-line shell for Symbian OS with scripting capabilities.
• FileList - Qt Quick app for browsing multimedia files and launching them in external apps (e.g., opening images in Photos).
• fahrplan - Public transport schedule viewer with offline support.
• internet-radio - Streaming radio player with playlist management.
• Emulator Collection - Google Drive of 31+ emulators for Symbian devices.
• Opera FTP Archive - Official FTP archive of various versions of Opera browser for all supported platforms.

Video Games

• List of Symbian Games: Mobygames - List of Symbian games along with screenshots, release dates, descriptions, and reviews.
• Symbian Games at MyAbandonware - Curated catalog of abandoned Symbian games with direct downloads.
• N-Gage Games Speedruns - List of all speedruns related to N-Gage games along with guides, discussions and screen recordings.

---

Related Projects

• Awesome J2ME - An awesome list about Java Platform Micro Edition (J2ME), a Java specification for small computing devices.
• Symbian Archive - Archive and website for Symbian-related downloads.
• nnproject.cc - Website of nnproject. Curated list of Symbian and J2ME-related resources.
• Awesome CPP - A curated list of awesome C++ (or C) frameworks, libraries, resources, and shiny things. Inspired by awesome-... stuff.

---

Reverse Engineering

• E32Explorer - A tool that visualizes different parts of a Symbian OS E32Image, including preliminary support for the TRomImage format.
• RomBrowser - A utility for visualizing ROM dump contents. ROM images can be produced using romdump or SDumper.

---

Theme Making

• Carbide Ui Theme Edition v3.4 - A theme edition for Carbide Ui.
• Carbide Ui Theme Edition v4.3 - An updated version of the Carbide Ui theme edition.

Device Specific Plugins

• S60v3 FP1 - Plug-in for S60v3 FP1.
• S60v5 - Plug-in for S60v5.
• Symbian³ (Compilation) - Plug-in for compiling with Symbian³.
• Symbian³ Belle FP1 - Belle edition plug-in for Symbian³ FP1.
• Symbian³ Belle FP2 - Belle edition plug-in for Symbian³ FP2.
• Nokia E6 Anna - Plug-in customized for Nokia E6 Anna.
• Nokia E6 Belle - Plug-in tailored for Nokia E6 Belle.
• Nokia E71 - Plug-in for Nokia E71.
• Nokia E72 - Plug-in for Nokia E72.
• ItalianLab Belle Plugin v5.1.0 by Simograndi - Belle edition plug-in by Simograndi.
• Nokia 7710 Theme Studio - A dedicated theme-making tool for Nokia 7710.

---

Tutorials

• Symbian C++ by А. Н Труфанов - A Russian book on C++ programming for Symbian 9.x, published in 2010.
• Step by step tutorial for your first Symbian Application - A tutorial to develop your first Symbian application.
• Create a sis app using python - A guide to create a .sis application using Python.
• E32Image (.app) - File format specifications for the E32Image (.app) files.
• E32Image explanation - An explanation of the E32Image format.
• Symbian Sis file before Symbian 9.1 (.sis) - Details on the Sis file format prior to Symbian 9.1.
• Symbian Multibitmap (.mbm) - Information about the Symbian Multibitmap (.mbm) format.
• Symbian Application Information File (.aif) - Specifications for the Symbian Application Information File (.aif).
• Qt Support for Symbian - Official Qt wiki page for Symbian. Contains detailed information on what versions are supported on which devices.
• The Accredited Symbian Developer Primer: Fundamentals of Symbian OS - Official textbook for Symbian OS development.
• Quick Recipes on Symbian OS: Mastering C++ Smartphone Development - Fast-paced book covering both S60 and UIQ. Assumes a strong foundation in C++.
• Symbian Programming Books Collection - Google Drive collection of Symbian and some J2ME books, totaling more than 600 MB.
• Smartphone Operating System Concepts with Symbian OS: A Tutorial Guide - Textbook offering a comprehensive introduction to Symbian OS concepts.

Academic Articles

• Acquisition of a Symbian Smart phone’s Content with an On-Phone Forensic Tool - Proposes a dd-like, memory card-based forensic tool for Symbian devices. Allows acquisition of phone content without altering the device state.