The Symbian OS Architecture Sourcebook: Design and Evolution of a Mobile Phone OS is a book that takes a different approach to that of most Symbian Press books; it is not so much a 'how to' book but a 'what and why' (and, to some extent, a 'who and when') book. It delves deep into the decision-making processes that shaped Symbian OS, occasionally revealing the names of key individuals and their roles in the developmental process. This book gives readers the inside story, the scoop if you like, on the success that is Symbian OS.The book also contains a component by component reference breakdown of the Symbian OS System Model, deep analysis of the roles that each component plays and how they have evolved. In addition, five case studies explore various aspects of the history and evolution of Symbian OS in depth.

This book summarizes the most important facts of C++ development for Symbian OS mobile phones. All relevant topics of the Accredited Symbian Developer-exam are dealt with. The concepts and tasks are explained in-depth, so you will almost certainly learn about new details that you were not aware of before - no matter how experienced you are.
The main target group of this book are people who do already have experience with Symbian OS and want to expand their knowledge or prepare for the exam. However, it is equally well-suited if you do already have programming experience and want to learn the facts about correct Symbian OS development as fast as possible. Keeping those two reader groups in mind, it naturally rules out people just starting with development. Even though the book includes a quick review of the most relevant C++ topics, the pace will be too high for beginners. For them, other books like "Developing S60 Applications" will be more suited, which introduce readers to the relatively complex world of development for Symbian OS at a slower speed and with more practical examples.

A big advantage of this book is hat it's - at the time of writing this text - new and therefore covers the latest aspects of Symbian OS 9 (e.g. Platform Security, RBuf-descriptors, ...). Most other currently available Symbian OS books do not include those parts yet.

A short word of warning: Some sections of this book are identical to "Symbian OS Explained", which was written by the excellent author Jo Stichbury as well. That book is also highly recommended - but if your budget is limited, you should probably not buy those two books at the same time. Which one you want depends on your needs. The "Primer"-book is more up-to-date and more fact-oriented. In contrast to that, the "Explained"-book is based on Symbian OS 8 and therefore does not yet include some new concepts, but gives a broader overview of topics that are not directly relevant for the exam, but are still very useful.