There's no question that Symbian Belle makes some big steps forward when it comes to Near Field Communication (NFC), and Nokia has just let slip some exciting news: all Symbian handsets going forward will have NFC support built in. 

Is NFC the real highlight of Symbian Belle?

2011 has been a big year for NFC's emergence into the mainstream. From starting the year with the promise that the Nokia C7 would have its NFC capabilities unlocked by a future update, we're now at the point where Nokia has announced that update (Symbian Anna), and introduced a new range of handsets running Symbian Belle that have NFC features at their heart.

Not only that, we've also had with some innovative new accessories such as the Nokia Essence headset and the Nokia Play 360 wireless speaker touching down.

And the good news is that this is just the start: Nokia has let slip via Twitter that “all future Symbian smartphones will support NFC”.

So not only will Nokia's future Symbian devices be able to tap into the growing ecosystem of NFC-based tools and services in the smartphone market in general, but will also benefit from Nokia's own fast-developing NFC feature set and accessory range that we've seen emerge over the past few months.

Are you excited about NFC's place in Nokia's smartphone plans for the future? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments below!