Ironically, while the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry mobile platforms have been pretty much covering the smartphone market, previously major players such as Palm and Symbian are now trying to catch up with them. Symbian for one has recently released S^3 which signals the mobile platform’s transition into the free, open-source route.
And now, even while fans are still awaiting for Symbian ^3 phones to come out, Symbian is already hard at work on its latest version – Symbian S^4.
The folks at Fierce Wireless checked out the latest iteration of what use to be the most popular mobile platform, Symbian S6 and unfortunately were underwelm by what the new Symbian platfrom has to offer. Basically, the new Symbian S64 looks and acts a lot like the iPhone and Android. Although Nokia informed Fierce Wireless that what was demoed during the Mobile Web Congress is still a work in progress. It is by no means the final look and feel of Symbian ^4.
Symbian S^4 will be a completely redesigned mobile platform which was built from the ground up including a new programming language in place. Previous Symbian OS were built on C++, but now it is based on Qt. So this means that old apps written for old versions of Symbian including S^3 will not run on the new Symbian S^4.
It’s still a long way to go before we see if Symbian will be able to reclaim its lost glory and whether there will be new cool phones to run on Symbian S^4.