Nokia plans second Symbian overhaul and dual-core

Nokia in a presentation for the International Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing on Tuesday revealed that it plans a much more aggressive update schedule for its phones and for Symbian than in the past. The OS should get four to five updates in the next 12 to 15 months, some of which will touch on longstanding weaknesses compared to Android and the iPhone. A much more contemporary look with a more flexible home screen, a more upgradable web browser with HTML5 support and simpler firmware updates will be part of the upgrades, senior manager Gunther Kottzieper said.

About 50 changes, including the interface and browser, would come with a release in early 2011, he said. The company had hinted that it would shift away from having just one or two major updates a year to a more gradual but constant process after its retaking of Symbian control in November, but the first update is likely to include much of the work that would have gone into Symbian^4.

The firm also plans to address chronic speed problems with its phones. It will finally have 1GHz processors in its phones during the spring or summer, about a year after Apple and most Android phone designers achieved the same. More graphics memory would come along with the update, Kottzieper added. Dual-core was also coming, although it would arrive by fall 2011 or early 2012; most rivals should have theirs earlier this year.

Hinging on its focus on photography, it should have a smartphone with an optical zoom lens in about the same time frame as the dual-core upgrade.

Nokia has been criticized for letting software and performance slip in many of its phones with an emphasis on prioritizing hardware schedules over optimized software and of dismissing real threats to its smartphone market share from companies that could move faster with upgrades to both areas. It only added multi-touch input this year, three years after it came to the iPhone, and still has Symbian elements that have gone partly or mostly unchanged for much of the past decade.

Its approach has so far led to major decreases in smartphone share as customers flock to Apple and Google while its sales increasingly skew towards basic phones.

By Electronista Staff