What’s New with Symbian Anna?

Nokia brought Symbian Anna to India along with their launch of the X7 and E6. Not that you haven’t heard of Anna before, but in case you’re wondering what the latest Symbian version is all about, Nokia had conducted an event titled “Get to Know Symbian Anna” and ZOMG gave a quick lowdown on what the new OS had to offer.

One pretty apparent change is that the icons throughout the interface are rounded. Add to that, there’s real time scrolling so as you scroll, transitional animations will follow your touch. You can also scroll between the main homescreen panes.

Rounded Icons look cool

A much needed update this, Symbian Anna’s browser is updated giving the application support for HTML5, hardware acceleration for fluid CSS animations and the overall look of the browser looks quite clean without any unnecessary icons. Nokia has still managed to keep the more commonly used functions like a Back button and an address bar constantly available. Browser version 7.3 also has support for Flash Lite and multi touch. Obviously all this wouldn’t make a lot of sense without any improvement in performance, which has also been promised.

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Browser’s got an update as well

There’s a new virtual QWERTY keypad that has been incorporated and the older T9 keypad has been ditched. Also, unlike virtual QWERTY keypads found on most phones that have the digits on the first line only, Nokia has placed them over a few rows. The Ovi Maps have been improved, although it’s the same app available on Nokia Betalabs, where you can download full maps over the air. The email application has got an update albeit a small one. There’s more space to check mails and the UI has been improved and is a tad quicker than the earlier versions. There’s some change to the calendar app, with a Dual Pane layout in monthly view.

So that’s about what the Symbian Anna has to offer. It cannot be termed as a major revamp to the user interface but even then, it seems to be a lot better than the current iterations of Symbian. The interesting bit however, is that Symbian Belle which will be the next update is going to be a different platform altogether. Nokia says, “If you like Android, you’ll love Symbian Belle.” Check out a video overview of Symbian Anna by Nokia India’s Product Manager below.