Symbian S60 announced touchscreen User Interface

The big news this week in the Symbian community has been the announcement of Symbian’s coming S60 touchscreen user interface. I have a feeling that this will very much resemble the UIQ interface (which has been sold to Sony Ericsson). I have not found any information on whether this UI will support multi touch technology (?) meaning being able to use two or more fingers at the same time for a better user experience.

Rafe at All about Symbian (or was it Stefan at Intomobile?) shoot this great video of the announcement.

The S60 touch UI is flexible to suit the different needs of the user while also retaining a familiar look and feel. S60 touch can be used with a finger or stylus and supports all the familiar S60 applications, as well as various text input methods. Everybody can find their preferred way to input text. It also supports Asian languages. [via: S60.com]

There’s a also this podcast by Phil Schwarzmann at Voice of S60 interviewing Minna Karvonen, the product marketing manager for the S60 UI.

Other bloggers on the new interface:

Darla Mack - S60 Announces Touchscreen UI - Yes its True and The Podcast Proves It!

All about Symbian - S60 Touch Interface Launched

Intomobile - Video: S60 Touch screen officially announced

Symbian Freak - Nokia to launch touch-screen version of S60 platform!

Symbian Guru - S60 Touch UI Announced

Read more for full pressrelease.

S60 smartphone software evolves to enrich the user experience

October 16, 2007

Expanding the platform with intuitive touch user interface, sensor technologies and complete web video experience

Symbian Smartphone Show, London, UK - As Internet is entering into the core of mobile experiences, Nokia continues to implement new innovations for S60 on Symbian OS(TM), the market leading smartphone software, to develop the best possible mobile experiences for people.

S60 will introduce new features that enhance the user experience and enable manufacturers, developers and operators to design new types of mobile devices, applications and services.

The touch user interface in S60 smartphone software offers licensees the opportunity to develop devices with a variety of input methods, whether it is a touch screen with a traditional keypad, touch screen with a qwerty keyboard or touch screen alone, supporting both finger or stylus optimized input, in addition to the range of access options that already exist today.

S60 touch user interface comes with support for tactile feedback, which means that there is a physical pulse and feedback when the user taps on the screen. This provides better awareness of the device’s response improving the user experience.

Existing S60 3rd Edition applications will run on touch enabled devices unmodified. Tools will be made available for developers to further optimize the touch experience of their applications.

From motion and orientation to proximity and light, sensor technology is expanding to new areas and shaping the future for mobiles. S60 brings sensor support to the platform as a generic solution enabling support for a range of sensors in S60 devices. These technologies open up a new kinetic world to the user and offer completely new opportunities for application and game developers.

Also, the new UI Accelerator toolkit will allow device manufacturers to develop rapidly and easily impressive graphical effects and new types of interactions, further increasing the user appeal and excitement.

S60 will be the first mobile software platform to deliver the complete Web video experience as Flash Video will be integrated with the Web Browser for S60. This allows people to view on the go Flash-enabled Web sites and Flash Video, such as YouTube, as they would do on their desktops.

S60 and 3, the mobile media company that launched the first 3G network in the UK, will demonstrate at the Symbian Smartphone Show in London X-Series devices based on S60, and the vision both share of creating great Internet experiences on mobile devices. "We are constantly on the lookout for new innovations to enhance X-Series, our offering for Internet on the mobile", said Ken Johnstone, Director of Products, Global 3G Handset & Application Group, at 3. "The user experience is central to everything that we do, and we believe that X-Series provides the best-in-class Internet experience on the mobile."

"S60 on Symbian OS offers a great platform to innovate with Internet services", said Matti Vänskä, Vice President, Mobile Software Sales and Marketing, Nokia. "We see experiences converging, and people demanding more and more of the functionalities that smartphones offer, both of which highlight the significance of ease of use. The focus of our strategy is to give people choice and simplicity - both key to delivering the best user experiences to add value to people’s lives."

These technologies will be available for all S60 device manufacturers during 2008.

At the event, Samsung showcased their latest S60 devices, the new Samsung i450, Samsung i550 and Samsung i560. To date, 65 devices based on S60 and Symbian OS have been launched, 36 of which are based on the latest S60 3rd Edition.

S60 has been the leader in converged device software since the introduction of the first S60 device and continues to lead by a clear margin, with 53% global market share in Q2 2007 (Canalys, 2007).

Via S60.com