Almost 1000 ideas have been submitted to Symbian Ideas since its public launch in October 2009. After such a short time, it’s exciting to see that eight ideas are currently being implemented and a further twenty-one have been validated and require an individual or company to develop and contribute the code for the new or enhanced platform features or applications.

• The functionality to paint using the Image Editor is being developed by Ixonos, a foundation member, and will be available in Symbian^3, the latest version of the platform that will be “feature complete” by the end of Q1.
• The ability to change the default browser on your device will be available in Symbian^4, thanks to a contribution from Opera.
• Users will be able to synch their Facebook contacts with those on their phone in Symbian^4, thanks to a contribution from Nokia.
• The ability to pause music when headphones are disconnected from the device, an update realised by Nokia and will available in Symbian^3.

Symbian applications that are under development as a result of ideas submitted to Symbian Ideas include:

• “Carbonfund“, a mobile CO2 calculator which calculates your carbon footprint and allows you to offset it using Paypal. Developed by OpenPath Products in collaboration with Carbonfund.org and Open Mobile Solutions, a beta will be demoed at Mobile World Congress.
• A Wikipedia widget to help you access Wikipedia from your mobile both quickly and with ease. Developed by Ivan Litovski of the Symbian Foundation, who re-purposed code that is now freely available on the Symbian developer website. The widget is now available for free from Symbian Horizon.

For the uninitiated, Symbian Ideas is a way for anyone to influence the Symbian roadmap and the future of mobile. Users contribute ideas for the enhancement and extension of the Symbian platform (the operating system, the user interface, the applications) and the way the Symbian Foundation functions. Now that the Symbian platform is completely open sourced, there is no barrier to developers who wish to experiment, innovate and implement ideas.

The Symbian Ideas community is not the exclusive domain of developers. The hope is that individuals with diverse types of expertise and insight will escape their silos and use the site to propose, refine and implement new ideas for mobile. These individuals might be users, they might be healthcare professionals, or bankers, or automotive engineers… anyone with insight and ideas. Innovation is has sometimes seen as the product of an isolated ‘eureka’ moment. But it has also come to be viewed as the result of pooling diverse opinions and skills in order that existing concepts and ideas can be combined in new and unexpected ways. Bringing a diverse community together, with a common subject to debate, will make the Symbian platform truly innovative.

Via : blog.symbian.org