1. Scott Weiss, User Interface Manager of Symbian Foundation has posted an update of the progress for Symbian^4 UI development.

2. From the blog, there’s nothing much to report actually. If you are expecting new screenshots or video of the upcoming Symbian^4 UI cncept, you’ll be disappointed.

3. However, Scott did summarize briefly of the contributions and ideas that have been generated as well as the sheer amount of interest from the community who want to see a better Symbian in the future.

4. It has to be noted that Symbian^4 is still under heavy development and it will be a good year or more from now before we can see the actual product on real hardware.

5. There’s also 2 videos showcasing the same Symbian^4 UI concept that have been circulating on the interwebs for some time. They showed the photo gallery and the homescreen.

6. What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0eJY5pREjE

1. Symbian^4 is not yet ready and they are working hard to bring it feature complete towards the end of this year.

2. Symbian^4 will bring a new DirectUI user interface. A whole new experience of smart mobile operating system.

3. The new UI will stand head to head with other modern smartphone operating system (iPhone, webOS, Android, Maemo).

4. Among Symbian^4 UI featuers are :
- multiple home screens with different wallpapers (also available in Symbian^3)
- context sensitive toolbar
- easy multitasking with task-switcher icon
- more to come!

5. Symbian Foundation will release more information in due course. Meanwhile, you can take a look at The Symbian UI Brainstorm blog for some really cool ideas regarding Symbian UI.

Source : http://twitpic.com/photos/OlyG

2. “We will continue to invest in Symbian as our dominant smart-phone platform in the foreseeable future,” said Nokia Chief Executive Olli Pekka-Kallasvuo.

3. “Let me be clear. Symbian is our platform of choice. Today, and in the future,” added Dr. Kai Oistamo, Nokia Executive Vice President, Devices.”

4. During the presentation from Dr. Kai Oistamo, some screenshot mockups of what is to be believed as the redesigned Symbian^3 UI made an appearance. You can view the video HERE.

5. AllAboutSymbian and Engadget did some coverage and pretty much summed everything up.

6. I want to share what I think of the new mockup. I understand this doesnt mean anything because what we see now are only mockups and designs. Not the real thing running on real hardware and available for public. But what the heck I am excited to see Symbian’s overhauled.

Symbian^3 UI Multiple Home Screens

My comment
- Probably, this is Symbian^3. It does look similar to the current homescreen implementation on Nokia N97 and N97 Mini (both are Symbian^1).
- The little dots at the bottom of the screen indicates the multiple screens and which one is displayed.
- The left softkey area is still labelled as “Options” and the right softkey is labelled “Calls”. Meaning it is still using design reference from S60.

Concept - Probably Symbian^4 UI Home Screen Landscape

Concept - Probably Symbian^4 UI Home Screen Portrait

My comment
- This looks like a new home screen for Symbian^4.
- Notice how the battery and network indicator are placed together on the top-left to optimise screen real estate and give space to Application launcher (aka S60 Menu), and a dropdown arrow which indicates a sensitive context menu which will change according to applications.
- The widgets on the home screen also looks more organic and blends with the system. They comes in different sizes and shapes and different levels of transparency. This, together with the multiple home screens reminds me a lot of Maemo 5 on N900

Concept - Probably Symbian^4 UI Photo Gallery Portrait

Concept - Probably Symbian^4 UI Photo Gallery Landscape

My comments
- The photo gallery shows some interesting concepts. Notice the “Back” button on the top right? It reminisce me of UIQ 3′s back button
- The Application launcher shortcut is not displayed. Probably to make more space.
- There’s also a dropdown arrow next to the “Back” button, probably will be used to host options and menu.
- 4 shortcuts to the most used functions are present. This includes sharing, or posting it to online services. Meaning direct access without digging into menu.
- The display is also optimised and you can see photos inside photo for easy browsing and jumping from one photo to another.
- The landscape screenshot mockup shows the battery and network indocator are grouped together to the left of the screen and the 4 shortcuts.

Concept - Probably Symbian^4 UI Music Album Browser

Concept - Probably Symbian^4 UI Video Player

My comments
- The music player looks like implementing the popular Coverflow idea made famous by Apple
- This kind of thing require more powerful graphics technology. I guess, Symbian’s Screenplay is used.
- The Video player, also has some special laver for controlling buttons. Probably the controls only appear when the video is paused or when the screen is touched.
- I’m not saying this is good or bad but designing a new and intuuitive and iconic User Interface is not an easy thing to do. Nokia, among others, should be applauded with its effort in redesigning Symbian’s UI.

Final thought
1. It’s great to see Nokia emphasizing on it’s long term Symbian support

2. From the mockups, there’s not much to be excited. But I can see some design consistencies and unified philosophy. This is important to make the UI consistent in all aspects.

3. Again, please bear in mind that what we see now are just mockups. From now to the end of 2010, there’s a plenty of time and things may change.

4. These mockups are showing touch screen UI only. Which is great but I think, there are many things that Nokia and Symbian have not revealed to us public.

5. I believe Nokia and Symbian are also cooking a new UI for non-touch smartphones.

Oh my… The next 1 year gonna be very interesting with regards to the Symbian world…

- Asri al-Baker

2. But how true, this assumptions are? What do they base their observations from? Does an outdated UI qualify to be a dinosaur? Or, If it’s not made by Americans it’ll be doomed? Or if it doesnt become American media-darling, it will fail? Why choosey?

3. To be honest, I am a little bit disappointed by the way media portrayed Symbian. I mean, lets look at Windows Mobile for example, it’s market share is going south, the UI is still ugly and stupid, but nobody makes noise about it like they did with Symbian. Why the silence?

4. The old Symbian (under Symbian Limited) is dead. That might be true (depends on how you look at it), and the new Symbian (under Symbian Foundation) hasn’t shown it’s strength yet. Why kill it?

5. The new Symbian OS & UI (under the name Symbian ^4) will be made available in the market somewhere in the end of 2010 (if everything goes as planned). Nothing is concrete about the new UI untill a real device is released. Why make noise?

6. There are millions of legacy Symbian smartphones in the world at the moment. Ranging from S60, S60 3rd-Edition, S60 5th-Edition, MOAPs, UIQ, UIQ3. These are still used by millions of people (regular people, not geeks), in their daily lives. Why they still use Symbian?

7. In many parts of the world that is not Geekland, people took years to change their phones for many reasons, price and technology are among them. These people will only change phones when they lost the old one or it is hit by a truck! Why so strange?

8. Symbian Foundation is working very hard to continue Symbian’s proven legacy and to break new grounds with new technologies. For example, EKA2 is one of the best kept secret by phone manufacturers like Nokia and Sony Ericsson but it is now opened, fully opened and accessible for others to take a peek into it and see why Symbian is more advanced and more efficient than any other mobile OS in existence. Others can learn a lot. Why nobody make noise about it?

9. iPhone and Android, said to be the new mobile OS that will bury Symbian to the ground, has not yet reached the said momentum. I cant see any Android powered device sold openly in my place. What?

10. If something is not born yet? How can you kill it? The new Symbian is NOT yet available in the market and people are already saying it’s dead, it’s dying, it wont survive, yada yada yada… Come on people, back to reality please….

- Asri al-Baker

2. I dont know why or how but it seems that everybody is picking on Symbian nowadays.

3. Someone has got to do the job of bearing the torch and defend Symbian. And Lee is doing it great.

4. The piece at The Register talks among others about how Google could be the bigger threat. But they missed some points.

5. How come something that has not been proven yet can be considered as a threat? Say whatever but Android is new. And it’s not proven as a robust OS unlike Symbian.

6. Oh well… It’s all about the media aint it… You have to be media darling to get attention, no?

Source – AAS

2. Bear in mind that this is NOT the final or official Symbian UI developed by Symbian Foundation that uses Qt. This is just a concept from developers.

3. The company developing this concept is Tieto. They also attended SEE09 to demonstrate their techonologies.

4. The concept UI is running on an existing S60 5th Edition (Symbian ^1) smartphone.

5. Lets hope more goodies will be made available for Symbian

2. Clearly, both Symbian and Maemo have a lot to offer.

3. The new Symbian Foundation OS is not yet released. So, IMHO, it’s unfair to compare a product that is still in development with a finished product.

4. Whatever it is, read it with a pinch of salt…

2. During SEE09, Lee Williams showed a concept video of what might look like.

3. This is a mockup, artist’s impression of future Symbian UI.

4. Please take note, however that this is not to be called the definitive Symbian UI for the future, it’s just a concept. An imagination, a work in progress.

5. Whatever it is, enjoy the video!