Symbian^3 Officially Unveiled – Devices Expected to Ship Q3 2010
February 15th, 2010 • Mark Guim • Filed Under •
The Symbian Foundation unveiled the Symbian^3 (S^3) platform on Monday at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. It will include significant usability and interface advances, HDMI support, multi-touch gesture, multi-pages homescreen, and more. The first devices using the OS are expected to ship Q3 this year. Nokia showed a preview of their vision of S^3 in a video.
Judging from the video, I already like the multitasking thumbnail previews, but I’m a little concerned about the widgets implementation. The widgets all seem to be locked to one size! This is just a preview though, so I can’t complain too much. I’d love to hear your initial thoughts!
jacobian on 15 February 2010:
wow the demo video looks amazing.this will be a great OS for nokia then.I really curious though what kind of phone would use this symbian 3 anyway?
coopere on 15 February 2010:
beautiful, just beautiful. and finally. let me hear the apple fanboys and symbian haters say anything now. i'm sure they will say it is too late in the game, but really. its right on time i believe.
but in all this, i just hope current models like the n97, n97 mini, 5800, x6, etc will be able to enjoy this interface via a firmware update like how google do theirs with android. it would suck if it can't and it will definitely cause sales of these devices to slow down significantly because the devices with the new UI will launch soon.
don't disappoint us nokia. please.
Robbie on 15 February 2010:
Looks nice, was that demoed on a capacitve screen? I wonder if it's going to be just as smooth on a resistive screen?
jonsonsama on 15 February 2010:
that has to be a capacitive screen, I know that resistive can have multi-touch, but I'm sure its much easier to use it on the capacitive screen… So i'd hate to say this but the N97, and the mini version probably won't be able to fully utilize the functions. But who's to say that they won't get the update for it?
Robbie on 15 February 2010:
Yeah i'm sure it is capacitive. I hope if it comes to the N97 that it will at least be optimized for the phone and be smoother than what's on it now.
tateblaze on 21 February 2010:
To the Nokia executives: mind blowing!! pinch to zoom, kinetic scrolling, swiping photos. truly ground breaking. Never seen this before or have we? …
as a former N82 user, I'm glad they finally came around but please don't act as though all this is a fresh approach. its almost insulting and borderline offensive.
tateblaze on 22 February 2010:
To the Nokia executives: mind blowing!! pinch to zoom, kinetic scrolling, swiping photos. truly ground breaking. Never seen this before or have we? …
as a former N82 user, I'm glad they finally came around but please don't act as though all this is a fresh approach. its almost insulting and borderline offensive.