Nokia has officially lifted the lid on Symbian Belle, the next-generation face of Symbian that comes hot on the heels of Symbian Anna and will be touching down over the next few months. Read on for all the details!
Nokia has made the point many times that the adoption of Windows Phone as its primary smartphone OS didn't mean Symbian would be left out in the cold to quietly fade away, and you can't accuse it of not being true to its word.
After all, we've only just had Symbian Anna heading out over the air and here we are talking about Belle, its successor.
And the good news is that despite a wide array of changes and new features, Symbian Belle will be heading to existing handsets just as Symbian Anna has.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves – first, let's have a look at just what Symbian Belle has to offer.
We'll kick off with free-form resizeable widgets. Core elements such as the clock, email, music player, favourite contacts and the calendar come in five different sizes, and can be arranged however you want to create a more personalised look and feel. Symbian Belle also introduces 'toggle' widgets, which provide an instant switch for the likes of Bluetooth and your profile.
Nokia has doubled the number of homescreens you have to play with from three to six, so you're unlikely to run out of available screen real estate for all your favourite apps and functions.
Next up is an improved status bar, which has a flatter, more uniform look and incorporates a pull-down notifications tab covering various common settings and displays notifications of incoming messages, missed calls and the like.
The navigation and options bar at the bottom of the screen has also been overhauled, moving to a more modern look similar to the Nokia N9.
Moving on to apps, and Symbian Belle introduces a new suite of powerful business apps from Microsoft, which includes business-focused IM client Lync, Sharepoint, OneNote, Exchange ActiveSync and PowerPoint Broadcaster.
The lock screen has been evolved, and now displays missed calls, messages in your inbox and more so you can get key information without having to unlock your phone, and it also now supports coloured wallpaper backgrounds.
Another exciting development is the deep integration of NFC into Symbian Belle, which will allow you to share pictures, connect to accessories and check in with a single tap.
And rounding things off is visual multitasking, which now allows you to flick between larger live images of your open apps and see what's going on in at a glance without having to make them active.
We may still be celebrating the arrival of Symbian Anna, but we're sure you'll agree that if anything Symbian Belle is a much bigger step forward and introduces some really exciting new features.
Symbian Anna update: 10 things you need to know
Nokia has confirmed that all handsets currently running on Symbian Anna will be able to run Symbian Belle too – so that's the Nokia N8, Nokia E7, Nokia E6, Nokia C7, Nokia C6-01 and the Nokia 500.
But of course Symbian Belle will also be the OS of choice for some interesting new handsets Nokia has in the pipelines for the next few months. We've already seen some of them today, and there are certainly more on the way.
What are your initial impressions on Symbian Belle? Is there any one feature that jumps out at you as particularly special? Let us know in the Comments below!
Check out our official Symbian Belle screenshot gallery:
