Before delving deep into the history of mobile apps development (through the last few years), we might as well figure out what mobile application actually stands for. Well, if we go by way of definition (Wikipedia), A mobile application or mobile app, as it is commonly called, is a software application designed to run on Smartphone’s, tablet computers and other mobile devices. So, basically it is software that allows users to do a plethora of things, however the history of mobile app should naturally begin with the history of the mobile device and the first mobile phone whose microchips had the required software to send and receive voice calls. But where it all began?

According to many, a Motorola employee by the name of Martin Cooper is a key player in the history of mobile phones. In fact, he invented the first mobile phone that was considered fit for general use. Even though handsets that could be used in cars had been developed earlier, Martin Cooper’s was the first truly portable mobile telephone. Cooper no doubt made mobile phone history when he made the first ever call on a handheld mobile phone in April 1973. But there was a big gap before mobile apps appeared on the scene.

As a matter of face, the first noticeable apps appeared on Psion’s orbit of PDAs that used the EPOC operating system. Released in early 90s, the 16-bit machines allowed users programs that included Word Processor, Database, spreadsheet and diary. Later versions running 32-bit Operating System that came up with 2MB RAM allowed users to have additional apps through a software pack.Incidentally, EPOC, which was programmed in Open Programming Language allowed users to create their own apps, that later formed the basics of the Symbian operating system.

Next in line was Palm that emerged as a rival to Psion (in the same PDA gamut) with a cheaper, poorer functionality range of devices – Palm Pilot. As these were received by users in increasing numbers, Palm quickly released a new generation of devices that utilized the Palm OS. Surprisingly enough, it had a touchscreen GUI and came with jillions of basic apps as also numerous third party apps programmed in C / C++. Also, Palm OS3.0 and later versions included a WAP browser.

WML or Wireless Markup Language that was based on XML was developed by the WAP Forum for use in Wireless Application Protocol enabled devices. However, it was alright for the low bandwidths prevailing in the late nineties. Also, much of HTML was stripped out of these for recovering processing power. But the lack of content and the need for users to go through a WAP portal, instead of accessing web pages straightaway eventually brought its end.

As days passed and feature phones got faster, the possibilities for phone apps enlarged appreciably while it was Java Micro Edition that took the hot seat to provide a platform for developing them. However, Java Micro Edition (ME), which began its journey in the form of JSR 68, replacing Personal Java soon became so popular that it evolved into countless number of standards for use across phones, PDAs as well as other embedded devices that include Set Top Boxes. Incidentally, Java ME or JME was considered as the irrefutable king of mobile platforms – it was used in the Bada and Symbian Operating System, while implementation was there for Windows CE, Windows Mobile and Android.

As mentioned earlier, Symbian grew out of Psion EPOC Operating system. Initially developed by Symbian Ltd – a joint venture comprising Psion, Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia – the OS was simply fantastic. Some five or six years ago, most probably in 2009, 250 million devices were using Symbian OS.However, it was Nokia that actually drove the development of Symbian OS. The S60 platform was used on nearly all Nokia handsets as well as some Samsung and LG ones. The use of various fragmented platforms (Sony Ericsson and Motorola used UIQ and there was MOAP(S) for NTT DoCoMo), each with its own API meant that there were a variety of deployment techniques and no standard market place for apps.

But the incompatibility of apps across platforms and the failure to fully move to open source (several key components were licensed from third parties) heralded the swan song of Symbian. There were also problems with malware, a browser which didn’t support multiple windows or compress pages and a nightmare process for typing in non-Latin text.No wonder that in 2012 Nokia jumped ship for the Windows Phone platform and other OEMs gathered beneath the banner of Android with its single, unified market place for apps.

You must have perceived that by now we have come to the end of our story. Symbian, once the largest codebase that ever moved to Open Source, is now license-only and Nokia’s activity towards the development of the OS has been outsourced to Accenture.