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Symbian^4's home screen surfaces, shows new UI design

updated 03:20 pm EDT, Fri July 16, 2010

Symbian4 to have pop-up menus, easier management


As part of making some source code available, Symbian has quietly made available the first shots of Symbian^4's implemented home screen and has revealed some significant changes. The UI has changed from its concept form and now has a permanent, iPhone-like status bar at the top. There's now a menu just below for common features like the apps and task switcher, and the interface has more touch-friendly menus overall that include pop-ups where the finger is pressed.

Multiple home screens with widgets were seen before, but it now has an app launcher that can sort apps into categories and has what looks to be an as-you-type search feature.

Symbian^4 is due to ship relatively quickly after Symbian^3 and could be ready as soon as the end of 2010 or early 2011. Nokia is certain to use the new OS itself, but Samsung, Sony Ericsson and other major partners are expected to use it at the same time. The OS could be critical, as Symbian has been criticized for making irrelevant changes that won't close the gap with more advanced platforms like Android and the iPhone.






By Electronista Staff

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iPhone, industry, Symbian, Nokia, Android, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, mobile phones

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Previous Comments

  1. gitcypher

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2007

    +5
    07/16, 03:33pm | report spam | reply

    iPhone-like status bar at the top?

    Or Time, Signal and Battery indicators at the top... like every other mobile device.


  1. bleee

    Mac Enthusiast

    Joined: Mar 2002

    -1
    07/16, 03:38pm | report spam | reply

    Fix my E72 Nokia...

    Fix my crappy E72 interface and fix the mail client so that it actually support IMAP properly.


  1. c4rlob

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: May 2009

    -3
    07/16, 04:16pm | report spam | reply

    screen dots

    I like the nice round dots for the screen-counter at the bottom, but that conspicuosly doesn't match the ugly jagged icons in the top signal-bar area. A perfect example of disjointed copy-cat design. Apple popularized those dot icons for screen-counting in their own UI many years ago. If IBM or Microsoft were leading UI standards for smartphones those dots would be numbers or ugly paper-icons with a folded corner or dog-ear.


  1. WiseWeasel

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Apr 1999

    -2
    07/16, 04:19pm | report spam | reply

    Last Picture

    Are they really making people type text with an on-screen keyboard featuring a numeric keypad? Are they some kind of sadists or something?


  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +1
    07/16, 04:57pm | report spam | reply

    Re: Last picture

    Considering how well some people can type/text with a keypad, why not let the user do such if they so desire? There might be people who find it easier hitting one of 9 large buttons vs. 26 smaller ones.


  1. Gazoobee

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Feb 2009

    -3
    07/16, 05:18pm | report spam | (1 reply) | reply

    sucks

    Sorry to be so negative, but this UI sucks n many different ways. If this is all they come up with after their a** is being handed to them by Apple all over the world, they are indeed doomed.

    For starters:

    Two arrows at the top? Two menus? Two arrows for same menu? There is no way to make that look good or justify the use of the second arrow.

    Document folders? could they *be* more ugly? What's the little green square on each?

    The little grid icon on the top right I would take as indicating the presence of four pages (up down, left, right, etc.), but at the bottom it seems all the pages are left to right like the iPhone and there is only three not four. This makes no sense, but what the h*** else could that icon in top right be taken for? AT best, it *appears* to be a navigational indicator or control whatever the h*** it *actually* is.

    The only things about this interface that seem okay are the parts that are copied 100% from the iPhone.


  1. lessthebest

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2010

    0
    07/19, 04:20am | report spam | reply

    Hi guys

    You are commenting images that are captured by some developer from emulator like they are final version of program.

    The icons will be manufacturer related so they will differ from Nokia to Samsung and SE. So it's makes no sense to comment icons

    There will be different keyboard layouts to suit everybody's taste like in Symbian^1, ^2 and ^3. So it makes no sense to comment keyboard layouts.

    "The little grid icon on the top right I would take as indicating the presence of four pages (up down, left, right, etc.) ..."

    That thing in top right is context related back button. In application it is back or close button depending the context and in desktop it seems to be It's the "menu" button. So it doesn't have anything to do with desktops.

    "...but at the bottom it seems all the pages are left to right like the iPhone and there is only three not four."

    According to the first picture there also can be 7 desktops. So is it that there can be only 3 or 7 desktops... Why it couldn't be 1, 2, 4, 5 or 6 desktops? Come on.

    "Two arrows at the top? Two menus? Two arrows for same menu? There is no way to make that look good or justify the use of the second arrow."

    There is obvious mistake (or lack of icons). If the logic of Symbian is anything like in Meego then the left arrow should "minimizing" button (with different icon). It's the button which you use to go to Application switcher. There you can easily switch to another application ... You know Symbian can multitask. e.g.

    1. While writing email push minimizing button
    2. Maximize browser from preview and check open hours of restaurant.
    3. Push minimizing button and maximize email from preview

    SIMPLE


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