Symbian ^4 UI First Look

The Symbian Foundation today released the images for UI proposed by Nokia for Symbian ^4 operating system based on QT , which also works on Maemo platform and as Symbian Foundation wrote “ Qt-based UI layer is intended to supersede the S60 Avkon UI Framework “  so expect an all new OS outlook .  There is also a lot of technical jargon which I’ll skip and drop straight to the pix

As you can see that Symbian is moving more towards multi screen standby , not the simple twin mode in E71 ,  E72 but three full screens of customizable widgets , hence the three dots in the bottom of the pic along with the extra large clock widget superimposed over back graphic .  Symbian 4 also tends to be more inclined towards touch screen with the keypad icon , supports drop down menus like in Nokia 5800 with the small arrow pointing down .  The battery and Cell strength indicator are also shifted to one corner .  With the networks increasing their presence and lessening white areas, I think the cell strength could be a waste of on screen resources and the phone can simply beep or give out a warning once the signal strength drops certain threshold . There seem to be support for customizable widgets and where to place them as the Clock Widget seems superimposed and seems that it could be moved .  Given the small screen factor , can the widgets ne resized , Nokia could work on it , I can simply resize the image making the image and text smaller as a pic . There is a todo list which again is superimposed and later email etc widgets could also be added

In the image viewer , it’s more or less like that of Nokia’s beta Image Viewer with scrolling options and tight integration with OVI Share .

OVI is coming out to be big in Nokia’s strategy and is being complemented with many other services ranging from emails to apps download to pics ,  hopefully but than it will be available in Pakistan

Video Player in landscape mode , shows the transparent bar , which is new in Symbian and solid icons are already being used in N900 /  Maemo

In all I like the new UI ,  the first devices are expected in Q1 2011 so the wait is not so  long .  I’m expecting the first devices to show up at Nokia World 2010 .