New Symbian^4 Screenshots Surface

Unable to fully optimize its Symbian OS for touchscreen devices, Nokia was one step close to pull the plug from one of the most successful operating systems on the mobile phone market. Surprisingly, instead of giving up its Symbian OS, the Finnish giant stated that Symbian will aim in the future only mid-ranged Nokia devices, while its high-end smartphones will run the new MeeGo OS.

This means that we will have two operating systems entirely developed by Nokia: Symbian and MeeGo. Already announced together with Nokia N8, Symbian^3 is about to hit the market this fall and promises lots of improvements, as well as graphical enhancements.

While version ^3 is still yet to come, Nokia already works on Symbian^4 version, which is set for launch in 2011. The development of Symbian^4 is still in the beginning and will probably see more changes in the future. The following screenshots have been taken from an emulator of the OS and represent a glimpse into Symbian^4 visuals.

The pictures appeared for the first time on the Symbian Developer Wiki and were done using Qt for Windows SDK. Even though the screenshots show a completely redesigned UI compared to Symbian^3, there are still a few things missing like 3D effects and transparency. Perhaps some of these things will be introduced in the future, but we also have to take in consideration the fact that Symbian^4 is meant for mid-budget devices.

The screenshots seem to demonstrate the new OS's homescreen, a few pop-up menus and widgets, as well the dial pad, applications group and some wallpapers included. Overall, the Symbian^4 looks promising, but it's still not up to the challenge of its rivals, Android and iPhone. Even though, we don't know how it will look in 2011, I'm pretty sure that Nokia will centre its Symbian^4 OS on user-friendliness and less on functionality and visuals.