Will Symbian and MeeGo be Nokia's saviour?

Symbian^4 is expected to be released in the first half of 2011, along with a number of Nokia devices.

Symbian^4's major focus is user experience including a direct UI, and it is this version of Symbian that could provide more success for a company that has a traditionally antiquated operating system.

New features on the Symbian^4 UI include:

Tap indicators to access notification panel

Virtual back button along top toolbar

Integrated drop down menu on every screen

Titlebar and toolbar can be hidden to give more screen space

Long touch unlocks context-specific actions

Bottom toolbar provides access to extra services, such as Ovi Store, Maps and menu

MeeGo

Intel and Nokia announced MeeGo at Mobile World Congress in February 2010 in a joint press conference.

The OS is open source, but based on Linux and merged between Intel's Moblin and Nokia's Maemo platforms.

MeeGo is actually an operating system that can be used across a range of devices, although the first devices will be launched as smartphones by Nokia.

Nokia hasn't revealed much about its devices yet, but the operating system offers a whole range of new features including a flexible UI and speed enhancements.

MeeGo will support multiple chip architectures including ARM and x86, while allowing developers to produce application compatible across multiple platforms using the Qt development environment.

Although MeeGo is another place where Nokia could see success, it's another platform for the manufacturer to create devices for, and detracts from Nokia concentrating on getting Symbian^3 right.

Nokia argues that the reason it decided to develop MeeGo with Intel was to offer an alternative to its customers, although it tried this with Maemo and, after producing one device, the platform was abandoned.

Devices

In another attempt to get people excited about the brand, Nokia has introduced a decent-looking line-up of devices. The first to be released was the Nokia N8 and its spec list is pretty special.

With a 12-megapixel Carl Zeiss camera and onboard video and photo editing, it's clearly designed for multimedia junkies. Vanjoki told the audience at Nokia World that the Nokia N8 has had more pre orders than any other Nokia device.