MWC: Nokia's Jo Harlow talks Symbian^3

Nokia and Intel's launch of MeeGo on the first day of Mobile World Congress opened up a whole new avenue for Nokia, moving away from its traditional Symbian S60 alliance.

We decided to have a chat to Jo Harlow, head of smartphones at Nokia to see what the Finnish manufacturer has in store for the antiquated platform.

How do you see the future of S60 now you've launched MeeGo?
The launch is good news for S60 - it expands the base of developers using Qt tools because apps are developed for any number of devices then there's the potential to open up the Symbian user base too.

If the app is completed based on Qt rather than Qt N Native then they can develop for both platforms.

It expands the developer ecosystem using the developer tools we've put in place that we're bringing together with Maemo and Symbian

When will you be bringing the next version of Symbian out and what will it feature?
We now have release one out, and Symbian^3 is the first Nokia-based product on Symbian. It'll be launched near the end of this half of 2010.

What we're doing with S60 is a new hardware configuration with 600mhz processors so the user interface and experience changes and becomes much faster.

Symbian^3 is about the UI itself and removing some of the things like double tapping and the prompts but also bringing pinch and zoom and flick scrolling plus one-touch connectivity.

You will need a capacitive touchscreen like on the X6.

Why wasn't Qt used for developing Ovi Maps?
For future releases, that's where it will be going but there's a reason why we haven't used it for maps. Until we get to Symbian^3, we can't do it. You can't port Qt apps to current devices so Maps is designed to work on current devices.

Talking about the Eseries, how do you plan for the next generation of them?
We believe we have a good franchise with the E71 and E72. But obviously consumers for the Eseries represents a different types of people as we'll experience more form factors. You'll always see the candybar form factor at the core of the Eseries range but you'll see other form factors too.

Has the Communicator clamshell form factor gone for good?
I can't say that the clamshell form factor of the Eseries is gone for good.

Is Series 60 predicted to move down the range to supplement S40?
The role of Symbian is to take services and other experiences to the mass market, The role of Series 40 is particularly important for the emerging markets and in the low-end where Symbian can't achieve to bring the internet to everyone but in a more affordable, more accessible type of experience.

So the idea is not that Symbian will replace S40 but they both play their role.

How will the non-N and Eseries be perceived?
I think similar to what we've accomplished with 5230 arguably in the low end of smartphones, high end touch feature phones. We've taken something into that competititve battle ground.

In a consumer behaviour perspective things have changed as people have started getting active in mobile internet and applications. That behaviour's moving to the mass market and also in emerging market, consumers want to move on from what's been and move to smartphone capability.

What's the distinction between Symbian and MeeGo? Where are the borders?
MeeGo gives us the opportunities to look at different types of devices that you wouldn't classify as a smartphone even though they have connectivity, whether that's ereaders, tablets, or other computer-based devices.

All manufacturers will look to them.

That type of internet based computer-like experience is what you'll see from MeeGo but Symbian is based upon phone functionality. It's about what is a classical smartphone and putting functionality around that. Some peope use devices for 30% and some 70% of their functionality. With Symbian, the phone functionality is core.

Can MeeGo replace Symbian?
I think that Symbian has limitations in terms of being a platform not suitable for a range of other devices. MeeGo can't replace Symbian because when we talk about the mass market, it's about the transition to more of an internet-based OS, and when you talk about the whole world changing, that's a big leap to make.

Maybe in the future MeeGo can replace Symbian, but not now.

Our role is to take services to the mass market and to look at how they behave and what they're prepared to step to. How quickly could MeeGo replace Symbian? It's a lot longer until that will happen.

Will Meego chip away at the top of the Symbian series?
In 2002 when we introduced S60 people asked whether it would replace S40. I think you need to look at where will the market go for mobile devices.Where is that going to evolve too?

There's an evolution that particularly Meego supports that's beyond what we know what a smartphone is today. There's the smartphone business and we need to use the right smartphone platform to exploit that rather than having one thing to serve everything we do.

Will voice still be focused on smartphones?
What is consumer's number one frustration? That it's a great phone but doesn't work for making calls.

The challenge is not to satisfy one consumer need and leave core needs behind but to satisfty both. It's why the evolution of Symbian^3 to 4 is so important.

We've stayed focussed on delivering great phones even through Symbian and so that's why the focus is so strong on renewing the UI and making it a better experience.

Do you think Symbian's been through evolution now?
What I see on the horizon gives me confidence. As I look further, we'll also bring innovation too. Symbian is a robust platform, it's feature rich and the key challenge for us is to make it more usable.

As it's a platform that scales I'm very optimistic about Symbian in the future.

Do you think Nokia will be the biggest backer of Symbian?
Samsung has said publicy they're not moving away from Symbian.

I think that all manufacturers are looking for competitive platforms to build devices on and with Symbian^3 and 4 that platform is competitive and there's no reason why other competitors will not react to that.