Symbian OS 9.5 is an important release of Symbian OS and it brings several new features for the developers - and thus the end user - as well as several enhancement to allow manufacturers to reduce the hardware price of their phones. As a matter of fact, Symbian Lts claims that the core enhancements allows 20 to 30% lower RAM usage as well as a 75% reduction of application launch time (note that this is launch time ... not execution time).
Most of these enhancements are completely transparent to the end user and even the developer and most applications will automatically benefit from them when running on a Symbian OS v9.5 powered device ( SOS 9.5 remain binary compatible with earlier 9.x releases as far as published APIs are concerned so no need to even recompile).
Amongst these features:
OS Core Enhancement
Symbian OS v9.5 includes four new features that will help speed up the applications as well as reducing the memory requirements:
Demand paging : The opeating system now only loads the code required to execute requested functions, not an entire DLL nor application like in earlier versions of the OS. As a result, phone boot time as been reduced and applications start more quickly. This also means that phones can be built with less RAM or can do more with current RAM.
RAM defragmentation: This will run as a background service that defragments the free memory to maximize the pool available to applications. As well as enabling memory to be used more efficiently, RAM defragmentation contributes to improved battery usage by freeing up banks of memory that can then be powered down until required.
File caching: file caching enables data intensive applications to improve their file system read/write performance. Each application can decide to turn this service on or off and thus decide to proritize data integrity or performance.
Middleware enhancement
P.I.P.S.: PIPS is not new anymore but it will be integrated into Symbian OS 9.5, so no more runtime to deliver with this platform.
SQL database: Symbian OS comes now with a true built-in SQL database. Based on SQLite and a new API, this new implementation will speed up search intensive applications. The existing implementation remains however available.
ActiveSync support for enhanced compatibility with Microsoft Exchange server as well as PC based synchronization.
Location-based services: A new API has been introduced to handle GPS and mobile-originated and mobile-terminated location requests.
Bearer mobility will allow applications to seamlessly move from one bearer to another (for example, from 3G to WLAN), without having to re-initiate network connections.
Real-time networking: real-time multimedia, such as VOIP, streamed content, and mobile TV applications will benefit from the changes in the IP networking subsystem. These changes mean real-time applications can guarantee their network quality of service. For example, if a user is making a voice over IP call it won’t be interrupted if their push e-mail system tries to deliver an e-mail.
You can also find some more informations on Symbian web site as well as in this interesting interview on SymbianOne.
