Nokia S60 with Touch Interface Launched

[Nikos Kartalis]

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

As Internet is entering into the core of mobile experiences, Nokia continues to implement new innovations for S60 on Symbian OS, 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 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.


Special thanks to Rafe from AllAboutSymbian.com for the video.

[Nikos Kartalis]

Here is the pure video directly from s60.com