According to the latest post on the Symbian Foundation Blog, the times they are a'changin' as far as S60 is concerned...for good.
The term 'S60' that we have known, loved, and clung so dearly to is about to be taken out to the back of the barn and shot. The S60.com website has been shuttered, the content relocated and the Symbian name is officially set to take over for the Nokia-owned operating system.
Developers have been issued with a new Product Development Kit named Symbian ^2 (the ^ is silent...), incorporating the new Symbian OS technology for smartphones, elements of the old S60 stuff, as well as custom software for use with Sony Ericsson and Japanese NTT DoCoMo devices.
To keep things fresh, two new versions of Symbian will be released annually, with Symbian ^3 going out to devs 'in the Autumn'. This could mean some handsets showing off the shiny new Symbian by early 2010!
Even more interestingly, there are handsets available right now that are compatible with future builds of Symbian including the Nokia N97, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Samsung i8910 HD and the forthcoming Sony Ericsson Satio.
Does this mean the N97 could be a trojan horse for the new breed of Symbian, one firmware update away from becoming a real smartphone titan? Let's hope so, as S60 was definitely starting to show some grey hairs...great to see Symbian committed to keeping up in the race.(http://darlamack.blogs.com)
Is This The End For Symbian Series 60?
