According to Scott Weiss, User Interface Technology Manager at Symbian Foudation the current 5th Edition of S60 is just an "in between" solution until they relase a brand new interface made from the ground up for touch screen phones, according to him we will have to wait until the end of 2010 before it hits the market.

IMO, the current Nokia UI (S60v3- I can't comment on S60v5 as I've not used it) is perfectly fine. For example, the E71 (which I use) is easy to operate and not difficult to use at all. I was able to use most of the functions effectively after 2-3 days. Eye candy and transitions are of no use as speed and reliability are more important than visual effects.

I think Nokia is already late, think about it, s60 Version 5 (which came subsequent moblie OS X/ iPhone 2.0) was their chance to change the game software-wise and they blew it! Can you honestly see them starting from scratch after all they have invested in that sinking ship (Version 5) already? I'm not a hater I love s60 but its clear even coming from Mark that a serious shake down is needed. Not just facelift, something far more radical and drastic, a complete over haul of the existing people, get some ex-apple engineers in the mix (look what it did Palm). They got to stop seeing themselves as Mobile Phone Company but more as legitimate Mobile OS innovator as well. From earlier comments, some would love their Nokia hardware with Android OS. I think they should seriously consider that…

The UI on the hero is very tempting. I'm already sold. The only thing that's holding me back is that it has no flash on the camera and that adobe flash 9 was integrated in the ROM. I heard flash 10 will be introduced to android and symbian phones later this year which is sweet. My ideal phone is nokia hardware with faster processor with nice UI like the hero with wider screen with flash 10 support on the browser and of course faster browsing experience and multitasking! pretty soon there will be a phone like this. iphone will left behind because of their arrogance on not wanting adobe flash on their phone. And iphone has bad phone signal and bad battery as well. They will be left behind.

Very true Mark..I mean sure Nokia does phones and it does them GREAT..granted people do like the fact that Nokia keeps it more or less the same and un-fancy and not so *kewl* looking as its competitors..but I too believe that it's been really long now since Nokia funk-ed it up a little..I love Nokia fones but everyone else around me seems to be having a lot more fun while using their fone and I wanna experience something like that too..I mean what's a touch interface if its not fun while using it with some "cool" 3d graphics..it cudnt possibly hurt that much..Granted some people aren't looking for gud luks and are rather concerned with what's inside..but take the example of the hero..or touch diamond2 it's a Winmo but while using it u cant really tell and it's a lot of fun while using..it's all about creating a great user experience right?..then why not?..if Nokia's reading this I think they need to jot this down..

WOW, that UI looks amazing. could give apple a run for their money. i totally agree about how nokia are lagging behind the rest in terms of this. they have everything else other than that necessary bit of eye candy/wow factor

Nokia could certainly make some upgrades to get some of the buyers sitting on the fence (and who make their device purchase decisions based upon superficial things like the screen view of the UI) to buy the Nokia devices rather than the others in the market. The trick is to do so while staying true to the S60 benefits most of us ascribe to (e.g., the underlying facets of the S60 OS: stability, computer-like processing, multi-tasking, upgrade capability without being locked into one ecosystem, etc.). Perhaps the Symbian Foundation holds some promise here?

While the HTC UI does look nice in that integrates social and picture sharing networks etc. nicely (although I don't personally use them much), its very customizeable etc, am I the only one who things it looks a bit gluttered and messy at times?

ps. And the hardware look hideous to me..

i'm one who is pretty happy with nokia's current s60 UI. Sure the touch needs kinetic scrolling thru the OS. And nokia needs to make some good quality apps and widgets like gravity. And that alone is enough for me and will give them a little respect in the industry from all the "nokia's UI sucks" bashers. One last thing is nokia needs to beef up the homescreen a little more. Widgets are nice but its still missing something i can't put into words. But overall as a capable and good multi tasking OS i think s60v5 is just fine. Kinetic scroll is coming soon and the usual tweaks are coming too. We just need better quality apps!

Nokia hardware with Android software... right now that is my idea combo.

I am getting my N97 this week though... please tell me it is worth it?! :-)

Surely I can't be the only one who thinks this is going to royally piss me off. I'm a firm believer in if it isn't broken don't fix it, and that it's up to me as a consumer to learn how a system works and become proficient at it rather than have a corporate engineer I've never met and will never meet try to make some kind of wild ass guess what I'll like.

NOKIA, just build them and be consistent so I don't have to relearn a new UI every year or so when I buy a new Nokia smartphone. I don't want fancy schmancy preteen pretty oooh lookit the purrty UI, I want what's there left the hell alone.

If I wanted the iPhone I'd *buy* the iPhone. For the record, yes, I've owned an iPhone, I had one for 6 months before I couldn't take it anymore and got rid of it. It was pretty but that's it, it was *horrible* as an actual smartphone. I couldn't type by touch (yes, I actually do T9 and use qwerty phones without looking at the kbd), it was slow, wouldn't multi-task, and just generally all around couldn't do what a S40 featurephone could.

</rant>

Ya, I agree with Bart here. I had an iPod touch 2g for about six months before getting the Nokia 5800, and while the Nokia doesn't look quite the same in terms of usability I find S60 to be a huge step up.

Long hold on the menu button for a task manager: awesome. Multitasking: awesome. WiFi management: awesome (in the iPod, I was constantly going to Settings -> Wireless -> On and then when I was done, going through the process to turn it off). Mass storage support for managing audio + video files: awesome. Podcasting app and non-HTML email app: awesome (yes, I may be in the minority here on the HTML email camp, but I have not yet once had the need or desire for anything but text based.. command line junky I may be). Anyway, the list goes on and on, but the point is that for the price point and the general user experience I don't feel any need or want to stray from S60.

The Hero looks a very compelling device. GUI looks great, seems to perform fluidly too.

Has full feature set and by all accounts a great touch screen (with multi-touch).

Far more mature app market than OVI. Though the quality of apps is always the clincher of course.

1st handset to give the iPhone a run for its money.

N97 is also potentially very interesting (although HSDPA speeds lags behind others) but the GU is a mess and not at all consistent IMHO.

Nokia really need to leave it behind do a real S60 Touch GUI for these devices.

Lots hot.

The Sense UI doesn't break any google apps, it simply doesn't come with the "with google" branding. No applications or functionality changes, it's simply a branding/marketing issue that i believe has to do with some kind of certain licensing. As you can see in the video there is still the google gmail app. I purchased an unlocked euro edition that i should have this week and i also spent a few weeks with the N97 as well and am currently an iphone 2g user on tmobile. Will be interesting to see the +/-'s of all 3 platforms.

I agree, we just did the TWiNS show and mentioned the same ideas in our podcast. Nokia needs a facelift

Granted. It does look nice. But then Windows Vista *looked* nice, but how many downgraded their machines to XP? It's too early to tell if HTC are on to something... Didn't Rafe mention that this new interface layer might break some Android apps? If true, then it could be a very poor move for HTC.

Regardless of new snazzy devices from Apple, Palm and HTC it's becoming clear that Nokia have lost their swagger. But don't these things go in cycles?...

True.. these things go in cycle. Looking forward to Nokia's response.

Looks like their response might have an Android flavour.