Nokia shows off Symbian^3 UI

For those of you waiting for Nokia to hurry up and make Symbian usable and generally rocking, the road to glory took a step forward recently with this preview of Symbian ^3, whilst not completely rocking the cross platform code that is QT which also powers Maemo 6, it still never the less looks pretty nifty and will be seen on handsets later this year.

If this video is anything to by, its going to please Symbian fans no end. It even has the mythical ‘pinch to zoom’.

The first devices running the new platform are expected to ship as early as Q3 this year. Along with more efficient memory management, allowing more apps to run in parallel, Symbian^3 also includes support for HDMI, so users can plug their device into a TV and watch a 1080p movie. The new graphics architecture will use hardware acceleration to offer users a much improved user interface, with a refresh rate of 60fps as opposed to the current 15fps.

The new homescreen supports multiple pages for widgets, enabling the user to just flick between each one. Across the board we’ll also see a range of network improvements, including the ability to automatically switch from cell network to WLAN automatically, without user interruption. The platform is also ready for 4G networks.