Nokia Symbian^3 UI demonstrated in detail, seeks multitouch devices (video)
Nokia VP, David Rivas, was in San Francisco yesterday touting Symbian^3 improvements. While we've heard and seen plenty about Symbian Three's enhanced user experience already, it's still worthy of another look considering Symbian's dominant marketshare. Besides, David provides a very detailed look as he walks us though elements like the customizable (and more finger friendly) homescreens meant to provide quick access to call features and at-a-glance data. Rivas also reiterates speed improvement claims over existing S60 5th devices (about a 3x improvement in graphics performance) that should "very very pleasantly surprise" users. Naturally, a faster UI coupled with a Symbian device running on something better than ARM 11 will also help here -- Nokia's only Cortex A8 device is the N900 running Maemo, not Symbian. David takes a veiled shot at Microsoft's new WP7 platform when discussing Symbian's true multitaking capabilities without any "tricks" -- apps are actually running in the background, not just freezing their state until you return. Multitouch screen control on capacitive and resistive (really?) touchscreen displays with Cover Flow-like album art navigation? Yup, it's all in there, as are hundreds of usability improvements (and fewer nags!) that should bring Symbian^3 up to the level of what everyone expects from a modern smartphone, according to Rivas. In other words, we'll have to wait for S^4 on early 2011 devices to see any real innovation. While the live demo was run on a laptop, we suspect it won't be long until Nokia starts showing off its live OS on a production handset. Until then, check the video after the break -- it's all we've got.
[Thanks, Rafael C.]
