With the internet all a quiver with rumours of an iPhone slayer waiting in the wings, Nokia has fessed up that there’ll be a touchscreen S60 before the year is out.

The folks over at Pocket Lint prodded and poked Nokia until it finally gave in and squawked about the Tube:

“We plan to bring the first touchscreen-based Nokia S60 products to market this year. It is an important trend but it’s not going to be for everyone. We will continue to offer choice here so people can pick what works best for them”.

Here’s hoping its sooner in the year rather than later, what with HTC’s Touch Diamond due to ship in the summer and the 3G iPhone apparently landing any day now, if the recent stock shortages are any indicator of a new model. If Nokia doesn’t get on sharpish it’ll soon be a year before the first pics were revealed by NokNok back last summer.