UIQ (formerly known as User Interface Quartz) is a discontinued software platform based upon Symbian OS, created by UIQ Technology AB. It is a graphical user interface layer that provides additional components to the core operating system, to enable the development of feature-rich mobile phones that are open to expanded capabilities through third-party applications.
UIQ was the result of 'Quartz', a user interface for pen PDAs that was one of the three provisional interfaces that were designed by Symbian Ltd. The first three Quartz phones never made it to market, including Psion's "Odin" in a joint venture with Motorola, which was cancelled in January 2001, causing Psion's shares to deteriorate. [1] Engineers thereafter created a lighter version of the software which was presented in 2002, [2] and first shipped that year with Sony Ericsson P800. [3] [4]
Sony Ericsson was the main OEM using the UIQ platform in its products. Motorola also developed some products using UIQ, but abandoned the platform in 2004 in favour of Linux, along with its stake in Symbian Ltd. In 2007, Motorola returned to UIQ with the launch of Motorola RIZR Z8. [5] Nokia, which was using the competing Series 60 (later S60) platform, created one UIQ device called Nokia 6708, which is a rebadged BenQ P31, [6] and was only released in the Asia-Pacific region. [7] [8]
Sony Ericsson bought UIQ Technology in November 2006, [3] and the next year, Motorola bought half of it. [9]
After the creation of the Symbian Foundation and its favouring of S60 as their user interface of choice, UIQ's future was uncertain, as it could no longer develop the software for the Symbian operating system. [10] Many Motorola UIQ devices planned for 2009 were cancelled, including Motorola Razr3, codenamed "Ruby". [11]
UIQ Technology filed for bankruptcy in January 2009, which effectively ended the UIQ platform. [12] Sony Ericsson moved on to Windows Mobile and the open source Symbian from the Symbian Foundation, whilst Motorola adopted Google's Android software. [13]
UIQ 3.3 was the last version of the platform, based upon Symbian OS v9.3. Developers that developed on the UIQ 3.x platform had a much better story than with previous releases, since all UIQ 3.x phones were served by a single, core SDK.
Native applications can be written in C++ using the Symbian/UIQ SDK. All UIQ-based phones (2.x and 3.x) also support Java applications.
UIQ phones employ touch screens with a resolution of 208×320 pixels (UIQ 1.x & 2.x) and 240×320 (UIQ 3.x). Depending on the phone, the color depth is 12-bit (4096 colors), 16-bit (65536 colors), 18-bit (262144 colors), and 24-bit (16,777,216 colors) on some newer phones.
For developers, the significant items are:
The following is a list of smartphones that have been announced/confirmed as running the newer UIQ 3.x platform.
PDA-style design (similar to a handheld computer)
Hybrid PDA/Phone design (Candy-bar phone with Touchscreen Display)
Slider design
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Symbian Ltd. was a software development and licensing consortium company, known for the Symbian operating system (OS), for smartphones and some related devices. Its headquarters were in Southwark, London, England, with other offices opened in Cambridge, Sweden, Silicon Valley, Japan, India, China, South Korea, and Australia.
The S60 Platform is a discontinued software platform for smartphones that runs on top of the Symbian operating system. It was created by Nokia based on the 'Pearl' user interface from Symbian Ltd. It was introduced at COMDEX in November 2001 and first shipped with the Nokia 7650 smartphone. The platform has since seen 5 updated editions. Series 60 was renamed to S60 in November 2005.
Sony Mobile Communications Inc. was a multinational telecommunications company founded on October 1, 2001, as a joint venture between Sony Corporation and Ericsson. It was originally incorporated as Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, and headquartered in London, England, until Sony acquired Ericsson's share in the venture on February 16, 2012. On April 1, 2021, Sony integrated its electronics businesses including Sony Mobile into one company called Sony Corporation.
The Sony Ericsson P900 is a Symbian OS v7.0 based smartphone from Sony Ericsson.
Open Programming Language (OPL) is a programming language for embedded systems and mobile devices that run the operating systems EPOC and Symbian. It was released by the British company Psion in 1984.
The Sony Ericsson P910 is a mobile phone by Sony Ericsson introduced in 2004 and the successor of the Sony Ericsson P900. The P910 has a full QWERTY keyboard on the back of the flip. The biggest change from the P900 to the P910 is that the P910 supports Memory Stick PRO Duo and the phone's internal memory has been upped from 16 MB to 64 MB. Although Memory Stick PRO Duo comes in larger capacities, the maximum supported by the P910i is 2 GB. It is powered by an ARM9 processor clocked at 156 MHz and runs the Symbian OS with the UIQ graphical user interface. The touchscreen displays 262,144 colours, as opposed to the P900's 65,536 (16-bit). It comes in three versions:
The Sony Ericsson P800 is a mobile phone introduced in 2002 based upon UIQ version 2.0 from Sony Ericsson. The P800 is considered the successor of the Ericsson R380, and initial design work was done within Ericsson, but it was produced after Sony & Ericsson merged their mobile phone businesses.
Sony Ericsson P990 is a mobile phone and the successor of Sony Ericsson P910. The phone uses the UIQ 3 software platform, which is based upon Symbian OS 9.1. During development the phone was codenamed Hermione, after the Harry Potter character of the same name. It was introduced on 11 October 2005, but had a long delayed market release only in August 2006.
The Series 90 is a platform for mobile phones that use Symbian OS. It was developed by Nokia in collaboration with Psion. It was released in 2003 and was going to be the platform for the Nokia 7700 which was cancelled, but did eventually make it to market with the Nokia 7710.
Sony Ericsson M600 is a 3G mobile phone based upon the UIQ 3 platform. It was announced on February 6, 2006 and is the first and only product of the M series of handsets from Sony Ericsson.
The Sony Ericsson W950i is the third UIQ 3 smartphone based on Symbian OS v9.1. It was announced on February 13, 2006, a week after the announcement of the Sony Ericsson M600.
UIQ Technology AB was a Swedish company that developed and licensed the UIQ software based on Symbian OS which was used in smartphone offerings from Sony Ericsson, Motorola, BenQ and Arima. They were based in the Soft Center Science & Research Park in Ronneby, Sweden, and at the time of its closure in 2009 was jointly owned by Motorola and Sony Ericsson.
Motorola Rizr is a series of slide mobile phones from Motorola, and is one of the series in the 4LTR line. The first model was released in late 2006. It is a sliding phone, where the numeric keys are hidden beneath the screen of the phone when closed.
Carbide.c++ is a software development tool for C++ development on Symbian OS. It is used to develop phones that use the OS, as well as applications that run on those phones. It is based on the Eclipse IDE platform enhanced with extra plug-ins to support Symbian OS development. The product is provided by the Symbian Foundation under an open source model. In April 2009, Nokia transferred Carbide.c++ and many other software developer tools to the Symbian Foundation. Members of the Symbian community now manage and contribute code to the Carbide.c++ product.
The Sony Ericsson P1 is a mobile phone and the successor of the P990. It was the last of the Sony Ericsson "P" Smartphone series, introduced in 2002 with the Sony Ericsson P800 and it integrates many of the hardware features of its predecessor the P990 in the form factor of the M600. It was announced on 8 May 2007. There is a Chinese version of P1 called P1c. Compare with P1/ P1i, P1c lacks of 3G, thereby using EDGE which is much slower but more available especially in the US and parts of Europe.
The Ericsson R380 is a GSM Smartphone developed by Ericsson Mobile Communications. It combines the functions of a mobile phone and a personal digital assistant (PDA), and was introduced at CEBIT on 1999/2/18.
The Sony Ericsson Satio (U1) is a smartphone, announced by Sony Ericsson at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on 15 February 2009 as the Idou. It was released on 7 October 2009 in the UK in 3 colour schemes: Black, Silver and Bordeaux (Red).
Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS is a descendant of Psion's EPOC, and was released exclusively on ARM processors, although an unreleased x86 port existed. Symbian was used by many major mobile phone brands, like Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and above all by Nokia. It was also prevalent in Japan by brands including Fujitsu, Sharp and Mitsubishi. As a pioneer that established the smartphone industry, it was the most popular smartphone OS on a worldwide average until the end of 2010, at a time when smartphones were in limited use, when it was overtaken by iOS and Android. It was notably less popular in North America.
This is a list of devices that run on the Symbian platform mobile operating system, including their proprietary predecessors running on Symbian OS and EPOC.
EPOC is a mobile operating system developed by Psion, a British company founded in 1980. It began as a 16-bit operating system (OS) for Psion's own x86-compatible devices, and was later replaced by a 32-bit system for x86 and ARM. Psion licensed the 32-bit system to other hardware makers, such as Ericsson.
