Communications Technology

BARCELONA, Spain–Microsoft isn’t the only one showing off a revamped operating system this week. The Symbian Foundation also made the trip to Mobile World Congress 2010, where it took the wraps off its open-source Symbian 3 platform.

Symbian 3, marketed as “Symbian^3,” brings a host of much-needed improvements and enhancements in three key areas: user interface, multimedia, and performance. It won’t be “feature complete” until the end of the first quarter, and then it will be another four to six months from that point until we see actual devices, but the outlined changes look promising.

In the area of usability, Symbian 3 makes a shift to a single-tap interaction model across the user interface, so you’ll no longer have to go through multiple steps to complete a simple task or muddle through the confusion of which menus require one tap or two, as we’ve recently experienced on Symbian devices like the Nokia N97 Mini.

In addition, the platform now allows for multiple home screens with a widget manager to help you customize each panel with the information you want, such as e-mail, weather, social networking, news feeds, and more. A simple swipe gesture will help you navigate between the screens, and multitouch support enables gestures such as pinching to zoom and flicking to scroll, making Symbian phone use much easier.

Along the same lines, Symbian has implemented one-click connectivity for all applications, so you can set global settings for how the phone connects to the Internet so it doesn’t ask you each time whether you want to connect via cellular network or Wi-Fi. A new networking architecture in Symbian 3 also ensures that the devices will be 4G-ready.

Multimedia will be huge, as Symbian 3 offers HDMI support, so you can plug your phone into a TV and watch an HD movie at 1080p quality without a Blu-ray player. Discovering new music will be easy with a song identification application, as well as the ability to purchase tracks from the phone via a music store of your choice. Finally, with 2D and 3D graphics acceleration, the handsets should be capable of high-performance gaming.

These are just a few of the Symbian 3 highlights. Unfortunately, when we met with Symbian, it didn’t have any devices to demo Symbian 3. The photo gallery below shows some of the work done with the user interface, but it’s pretty bare-bones. The YouTube clip above gives you a better look of what to expect. Also, remember, Symbian 3 is a stepping stone to Symbian 4, expected to be completed by the end of the year, bringing a major operating-system overhaul.

No Tags

Motorola on Thursday said it will split into two separate companies in the first quarter of 2011, roughly a year from now.

The company had initially planned to spin off the mobile devices unit on its own. Now Motorola plans to spin off the mobile devices and home units into one company led by Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola. Jha will have a portfolio of mobile devices and home entertainment technology such as the company’s set-top boxes.

The second company will comprise Motorola’s enterprise mobility solutions and networks businesses (statement). That company will be led by Motorola co-CEO Greg Brown.

Brown and Jha will assume their roles as CEO of their respective divisions effective immediately.

Motorola shareholders will get shares of both companies via a tax-free stock dividend. Both companies will use the Motorola brand.

No Tags

Norwegian browser company Opera Software said it would reveal a version of its Mini browser for Apple Inc’s iPhone next week, offering faster download speeds.

Opera said the browser would offer consumers up to six times faster download speeds than Apple’s own, and cut data traffic by up to 90 percent. Massive data traffic from iPhone mobile phones has caused problems for many operators’ networks.

Analysts said Apple could try to stop rivals from access to the iPhone so as to maintain control of its Internet browsing function, which has been a key behind the success of the smartphone.

“This is a provocative move by Opera which will result in a tricky and high profile PR exercise for Apple should it decide not to allow Opera mini through the App Store,” CCS Insight analyst Geoff Blaber said.

Opera said it saw no reason why its browser, the world’s most widely used on cellphones, should be rejected. “We have not submitted it yet to the Apple App Store. However, we hope that Apple will not deny their users a choice in Web browsing experience,” said Jon von Tetzchner, co-founder of Opera.

In Europe Opera was the key driver behind the European Union’s push to have Microsoft Corp open Windows to other browsers.

Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, said there was little chance Apple would allow Opera browser to be installed on the iPhone.

“Apple doesn’t want Opera on the iPhone. The company isn’t open and already offers its own browser,” Kay said.

Rob Enderle, analyst at Enderle Group, said FCC’s continuing review of Apple’s anti-competitive practices — after Google said it tried to stop access of Google Voice application — was likely to help Opera.

“They won’t like it but will likely allow the application through after a review period,” he said.

Opera shares rose on the news and closed 0.5 percent higher at 19.80 crowns on Oslo bourse. DJ Stoxx European technology shares index fell 0.5 percent.

An Apple spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

No Tags