Symbian OS to get new user interface

Damian Koh | Aug 09, 2009

(Credit: Symbian Foundation)

At last, a piece of good news we've waited an eternity for: The Symbian S60 user interface will be completely reworked in the not-so-distant-future.

We've said it before that the Symbian S60 operating system desperately needs a fresh coat of user interface in order to continue competing in the market. It's a competent smartphone software, but the UI is dated and it's hard to resist stealing a few longing glances at other handsets which provide more interactive experiences.

In a recent interview, Symbian Foundation catalyst and futurist David Wood told Tams60 blog that there will be significant changes to the Symbian interface. Current S60 Avkon APIs will gradually be phased out in favor of the Qt programming environment. Updates to the software, starting from Symbian^2 (based on S60 5.1), will be rolled out every six months. This will culminate in Symbian^4 with a major UI overhaul. For end-users, this revamp can be expected late 2010 to early 2011.

Developers, on the other hand, will have to start work earlier as Wood said there will be a large break in binary compatibility in Symbian^4. This means existing applications will have to be rewritten to work going forward. Wood posted the release plan on the Symbian blog earlier this year. It's a good read especially if you want to know what to expect in the near future.

Via Tams60 blog

Filed under: Mobile Phones
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jhei

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jhei says...
This is great! But, what will happen to our old Symbian OS? If they'll update it with the new UI then that should be good news. Oh by the way. Is the S60 Touch (5th edition) UI included?

Aug 09, 2009 21:47