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R.I.P. Symbian

Published Jun 12th, 2013 6:25PM EDT
Nokia Symbian Shipments End

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What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Once the most popular smartphone platform on the planet by a massive margin, Symbian is now officially dead. The Financial Times on Wednesday reported that Nokia has built and shipped the last batch of Symbian smartphones it will ever produce. The platform will now fade away, remembered only occasionally alongside other mobile operating systems that helped shape an industry before being crushed by their successors.

“It took 22 months to get a Symbian phone out of the door,” a Nokia spokesperson told FT. “With Windows Phone, it is less than a year. We spend less time having to tinker with deep-lying code and more time on crafting elements of the experience that make a big difference, such as around photography, maps, music and apps in general.”

On a personal note, Symbian was my beat when I began my career as a tech writer, and I thoroughly enjoyed covering the platform as it helped birth the smartphone industry as we know it today. R.I.P. Symbian.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.