During Nokia's Capital Markets Day event, held yesterday, a few screenshots showing Symbian^3 were shown off as part of Kai Öistämö's (Nokia EVP, Devices) presentation. While the big Symbian UI rewrite will not happen until Symbian^4, there are still some significant changes in Symbian^3. Read on for further details and commentary.
Read on in the full article.
Yeah come on Nokia. This looks much cleaner. How about offering more fonts as well?
i'm thinking of that bad ben afleck movie, with the laser powered mirror that bends light so you can see the future (or whatever that plot was supposed to be)...
look at the last two screenshots - the ones with the "might be for an even later version of the UI" disclaimer... look at the DATE.
Wednesday, February 20th, a quarter past 12..... in the year 2013.
2013 I say - on Feb 20th 2013 at 12:15, this UI will be released to the masses!
(you get that i'm just playing around, right?).
February 20th is not a wednesday in 2010, nor in 2011 - and it wasn't a wednesday this past february in 2009. That screenshot is of the calendar year 2013. is this for a reason? hey, why not just pretend it is?
bitflung - Heh, heh. Might just be (possibly) that you're reading a little too much into the screenshots? 😉
Vaporware.
Are supposed to sit and wait 6 or 8 months for this?
By then the iPhone 4G HD and Android 5.0 will be out.
Will current S60 5th ed phones be upgradable to this?
Maybe not *that* big of a change (like one could expect) but a change is a change and honestly i'm starting to feel a little bit excited about Nokia and next year! I have been long thinking about the N97, but the negative reviews kept me from buying it. But the N900 has gotten so far a lot of love, so hopefully this is the direction Nokia will follow with their upcoming products. I am SO ready for a TOP product from Nokia, give me the N97's design (QWERTY+touch), 4"+ OLED-screen, 8MP camera with 720p, 1500mAh (or better) battery sleek UI and my money is yours!😊 Oh, come spring, come!😃
So where is the clock? And the bluetooth/wlan/gps indicators?
Tho I like that they're going the Maemo route, and having a dedicated back key (traditionally the right softkey) and the Options menu is on the app's title (traditionally the left softkey).
Oh, also, still sad to see the S60 swirl being phased out for what looks to be a Motorola UIQ (!) style menu icon.
Good news.
But i guess they need to offer a mid-range device with Symbian^3 like 5800 and not a high end device. Why? because i can pay 350-400$ for a mid-range device till Symbian^4 high end one arrive,but i cant pay +700$ then after 8 months i upgrade to Symbian^4. Who will pay when he know a greater thing is coming soon?
Same thing with Maemo 5 to 6. but the duration is longer here.
Just afraid from one thing,Symbian^4 will use QT as the base (am totally blind about applications developing) but are you sure that applications written for Maemo 6 will be compatible with Symbian^4 without tweaks?
Rafe, can you please clarify something for me? You said that the single tap approach is a contribution to SF from a company. Now, is it 1) just the idea 2) the idea + some code to do it? If 1), the whole SF approach seems incredibly inefficient. The idea should be self-evident, obvious, no brainer etc. etc. etc. Why would they have to get a proposal from the outside for something like that?
NGA my ass! Those same semi-transparent (dimmed) buttons of the video player and photo applications, the i8910 HD has them right now!
In the camera app, select one of the widescreen formats (for example, w6M), and - lo and behold - the buttons on the sides become semi-transparent. Similar deal for the video player: play a video in landscape using the Samsung video player, tap on the video, and there it appears a row of semi-transparent (dimmed) buttons.
As for some of the other features: 3 homescreens, HD capture and playback, widgets of any size on the homescreen... it all sounds awfully familiar. What's next? A 3D task switcher? 😃
Which begs the question: how many of these features are really new in Symbian^3, and how many instead are already present in Symbian^1, but disabled on Nokia handsets because they lack hardware graphic acceleration?
Therese nothing new about the screen shots , Don't you think we already have what we see, one screen-shot is nokia n97 and another one is nokia n900.Wondering what they are going to improve in another 6 months .
1) no, S60 does not have e.g. multiple home desktops 2) what exactly would you suggest they need to improve on the set up of the screens in screenshots?
This to me is the significance of the new UI:
"Note that the bottom toolbar has four shortcut buttons. This ties in with some of the concepts that were demonstrated in a recent Symbian concept UI video. This represent a move away from having all commands 'hang-off' an Options menu."
Menu, menu, menu. That was my S60 experience. It's a distant memory on my 3GS.
Did Nokia mention which technology will be used to actually implement this (really nice looking) UI's, was it Avkon or Qt?
I do hope it is Qt, because with Avkon going to retire with Symbian^4 in a year's time, there's too much porting to do if there's a new Avkon now and Qt next year.
svdwal wrote:Did Nokia mention which technology will be used to actually implement this (really nice looking) UI's, was it Avkon or Qt?I do hope it is Qt, because with Avkon going to retire with Symbian^4 in a year's time, there's too much porting to do if there's a new Avkon now and Qt next year.
The sad thing is Nokia had the lead on all this touch screen stuff with S90. The potential was all there and could had progressed nicely as the hardware became faster. Except some numpty decided to go with S60 then retro fit touch stuff.
Group51 wrote:This to me is the significance of the new UI:"Note that the bottom toolbar has four shortcut buttons. This ties in with some of the concepts that were demonstrated in a recent Symbian concept UI video. This represent a move away from having all commands 'hang-off' an Options menu."
Menu, menu, menu. That was my S60 experience. It's a distant memory on my 3GS.
That toolbar is already present in V5, on a 5800 (for example) the touch sensitive symbol at the top right beyond the screen area drops down a set of shortcut logos. Same for the three-bar button, a screenful of icons pops up. The transitional stuff is already being done, not much new in the shortcuts.
And not much wrong with menus either. They do the job very well.
Unregistered wrote:Vaporware.
Are supposed to sit and wait 6 or 8 months for this?
By then the iPhone 4G HD and Android 5.0 will be out.
No-one expects you to do anything. You are free to do whatever you like and buy and use whatever you like.
This looks like a good direction for Nokia. But there is nothing revolutionary here. i hope nokia make some moves to get ahead in the game rather than playing catchup. do we know yet if future versions are going to support caategories for calendars and tasks?
mdanuz wrote:Therese nothing new about the screen shots , Don't you think we already have what we see, one screen-shot is nokia n97 and another one is nokia n900.Wondering what they are going to improve in another 6 months .
Don't get caught up on the screen shots, they will be different when launched on Symbian^3. Symbian^3 is way more than a new home screen. I suggest you check out the Nokia Capital Day as it is quiet informative (although a large pdf). http://cmd.nokia.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=107224&p=irol-cmd09_overview click on webcast and once you have filled out your name you can get the pdf.
Symbian^3 is really a step in the right direction for us (Nokia), you will be pleased 😊
Cheers,
Kevin
I cannot see anything mind blowing or special about this screenshots. I would not buy a device just because of this
lekovodolaz wrote:I cannot see anything mind blowing or special about this screenshots. I would not buy a device just because of this
Well that was a usefu; input. Can you show me a phone screenshot anywhere on the web that is mind-blowing or special, and would make me buy a device?
No?
Thought not.
I'm tired of the touch-screen hype. No love for keyboard devices?
Why are we STILL waiting for something like these screenshots? It just seems like we have to wait years still to get some ging like android or iphone OS from nokia and symbian. Why are these other companies able to do things in a timely manner, while it takes nokia literally 4 years to compete? Iphone will have been on the market for 5 years by the time nokia simply plays catch up. Even android made an announcement, then put out a very good OS. This article with these screenshots is just the same thing we've been seeing, that is a concept UI. How many more times are we gonna see future "what might be" screenshots from symbian and nokia? Are they ever gonna actually put out the real thing at some point? And yes i know about the road map. Its just taking FOREVER.
@RogerPodacter: I don't think most people realise how complex the SW in a modern phone is. Since you mention Android, it wasn't until 4 years after Google bought Android Inc. that phones began to be released, although the SDK made an appearance earlier. I can't find any figures telling me how long they worked on it previously.
Don't take this as an indication that Nokia is only working on this now, more that now they are confident about when it will be done. If they weren't confident then they would have been much less direct about timescales.
Nokia should ask HTC to make a Sense Version for Symbian!
Kevin McIntyre wrote:Symbian^3 is really a step in the right direction for us (Nokia), you will be pleased 😊 Cheers, Kevin
Having seen the PDFs, it looks like Nokia is well set up to cope with anything 2007 can throw at it.
I have seen much mention of the improvements that Consumers who utilize "Touch Devices" should look forward to; however, what should consumers who are more inclined to none Touch Devices (say Qwerty Devices ala the Nokia E-71 / E-72) be looking forward to?
I am hoping that Nokia is successful with this, but 2010 is looking like a Make or Break year for you.
How boring!