Symbian^4 UI Concept Screenshots Emerge

The Symbian Foundation has already unveiled to the world the fact that it plans on making a series of major UI changes with the future releases if the Symbian platform, and now a series of UI concepts for Symbian^4 have made it into the wild. The Foundation made available on its developer website a series of documents related to the Orbit and Direct UI proposals offering enthusiasts and not only the possibility to have a look at what the future OS releases might bring to the table.

According to the S^4 UI Concept Proposal document, available here, the upcoming users interface is mainly aimed at simplifying the experience delivered to people. Thus, the OS should come around with renewed layouts, as in the diagram below, context menu support for list items, and four user-facing libraries: Contacts, Music, Photos, Applications, as well as a redesigned Control Panel.

The list of novelties that should improve the user experience also includes:
flattened command distribution with elimination of ‘tunneling’ Options commands
Applications Library replaces Main Menu
Homescreen supports irregularly shaped Homescreen widgets, free placement of Homescreen widgets, and improved move and delete functions for Homescreen widgets
guidelines for autosaving content reduce Save commands
improved task switcher minimizes Exit commands and provides improved visual access to backgrounded ‘continuous experience’ applications (e.g., music playback, active call, etc.)
prompts to users minimized
redesigned settings/personalization information architecture
refocused Power menu includes master volume and vibra on/off controls
interaction and layout patterns applied to all applications

Symbian^4 is expected to make an appearance on handsets sometime in the first quarter of the next year, after reaching the functionally complete stage sometime during summer, and getting through hardening in early 2011. The currently existing UI libraries and framework, AVKON, will be replaced by the Qt-based Orbit and Direct UI, which represent in the end the major change that Symbian^4 should land on the market with.

So as to make an idea of how these changes might materialize in the end, one should have a look at the screenshots attached to this article. For the time being, these are only user interface concepts for Symbian^4, and things might change a lot until the OS flavor actually makes it to the market. Those who would like to learn more on what Symbian plans on doing with Symbian^4 should head over to their developers website.