In All About Symbian Podcast 138, Rafe talks to Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation. The interview covers a wide range of topics, including the Symbian Foundation's planned application arena, the universal web runtime, the forthcoming Symbian Exchange and Exposition, Qt and the Symbian Foundation, the challenges of openness and open governance, and more.
Read on in the full article.
Steve, you should have also tried to get some info of what the interface might look like. Or maybe just some abstract images or something. Or are there any videos of what the new OS is supposed to look like? I'd like to get an idea of its new look😊
Sorry Rafe i thought Steve did this interview😊 my bad!
Symbian^2 and Symbian^3 will look much like the current releases in UI terms. Symbian^2 for example makes the homescreen of the N97 part of the platform release. It also increases the possible resolution size.
The big changes (for touch anyway) will come in Symbian^4 which should be in devices late next year / early 2011.
Ok thanks. Is there anywhere i can read about that info? I had no idea symbian 2 and 3 will continue to share the existing UI. There are many critics out there hoping for a revolution in terms of UI with symbian 2, saying the OS is "old, dated and lagging behind other OS's". I don't share these views and actually think current s60 handles multi tasking the best of any OS out there today. And the code is very powerful coupled with lower spec hardware. A true engineering feat IMO which is wit i think its the most advanced. But i'm in the minority on this one and people would call me crazy. But the UI is the biggest criticism. We know kinetic scrolling is coming which will help s60 gain some credibility with these people.
But i'm just wondering what symbian's thoughts are on the above i specified. And if they've made anything definite i can read about.
There's no specific resource on that, though there should be an article on AAS soon on this subject. There also some stuff on the Symbian Blog that is worth checking out.
As you say some of the view on Symbian OS are misguided. You can make an argument about the UI layer on S60 5th Edition, but you have to do so in context. People saying that its bad (on the web) doesn't make it so. Kinetic scrolling is a good example - the average person actually understand the scroll bar concept better than kinetic scrolling (because it is what they are use to on the desktop). I'm not saying kinetic scrolling is bad - it works very well on mobile devices - but it has its limitations too. Some of the criticisms of S60 5th Edition boil down to - 'its not like the iPhone / Android etc.' - which is true, its not, but that doesn't make it bad. Look at one handed usage for example - easier on the 5800 / N97 that other devices. Yes S60 5th Edition has its problems but they are less severe than many people make out.
Speaking about Symbian generally is misleading - e.g. what about S60 3.2 - neat total dominance in the consumer smartphone space for non touch devices (for very good reasons).