The S60 developer platform is built upon Symbian OS. For a detailed description of the S60 platform and the APIs it offers, see "Overview of the S60 platform ".
The S60 Platform SDK for Symbian OS, for C++ (S60 C++ SDK) lets you develop and test applications written in C++ for S60 devices. For this purpose, the SDK provides a range of tools, APIs, libraries, documentation, examples, and a free GNU C Compiler Embedded (GCCE) compiler to build applications for mobile devices. You can view and test applications on an emulator provided with the SDKs.
The S60 platform comes in various versions (For more information, see "S60 platform evolution").
Different S60 mobile devices run different versions of the S60 platform; in many cases applications will work on many platform versions. When in the analysis and design phase of your development process, you must choose the target device(s) best suited for your application and then choose the corresponding platform(s). The C++ Developer's Library is based upon S60 3rd Edition and S60 3rd Edition FP1. For information between compatibility between platform releases and target mobile devices, see the Device Specification in question on Forum Nokia.
For more information on Symbian OS, see the Symbian OS Library .
For information on new features and changes in the latest release of the S60 platform, see S60 2nd/3rd Edition: Differences in Features. Note in particular that there is a binary break between S60 2nd and 3rd editions which means that applications built on 2nd edition cannot be run on S60 3rd edition and vice versa without first being recompiled. For more information, see "Compatibility and porting"
Note: Coding with C++ for S60 has some unique features compared to standard C++. For more information, see S60 Platform C++ Coding Conventions .