Symbian 4 plans to take on iPhone and Android

Richard Goodwin

Nokia has handed in its proposal of its UI for Symbian 4 which it hopes will bridge the ever-increasing gap between Nokia and Apple - and now, Android as well.

As OSs go, Symbian isn’t up there with the best of them. However, Nokia plans to change all this with its newly proposed UI that was handed in on Friday to the Symbian Foundation.

According to the Symbian blog post, Nokia hopes to bridge the gap between itself and Apple with the proposed UI, which will now undergo open evaluation and scrutiny by the Symbian Foundation before its official launch in 2011.

Improvements wise, users can expect to see a reduction in user prompts, new autosaving features that will reduce save commands and a new interface layout, said Nokia’s proposal.

The Symbian 4 interface itself will have four main views: contacts, music, photos and apps. In addition to this, users will be able to customise their home screens with widgets, shortcuts and items - which, if we’re honest, isn’t really anything new.

Nevertheless, the new UI will also incorporate long-press context-based searches, which Nokia claims will allow users faster access to common commands.

Fortunately, users’ do not have to wait until 2011 to get their first taste of the new and improved Symbian OS as the Symbian Foundation will be releasing versions 2 and 3 before the final, and hopefully finalised, Symbian 4 lands in 2011.

According to reports, Symbian 2, the first open source version of the platform, will feature the fully customisable home screen. Symbian 3 will include single-tap functionality throughout the UI - so no more double-tapping nonsense.

Following these releases, Symbian 4 is expected to land with all the aforementioned functionality in early 2011. However, if this is all users’ can expect from the new OS, is it really worth the wait? Probably not when you consider that there is a new iPhone expected in June and Google’s Android OS being constantly updated and improved.