Jo Harlow, Nokia's Senior VP of Symbian Smartphones was in Amsterdam for the kickoff of the Symbian Exchange and Exposition, giving us the chance for a sit down with the seven year Nokia veteran. How could we resist given the recent launch of Symbian^3, Nokia's new iterative approach to Symbian updates, and then Monday's (expected) bombshell that the Symbian Foundation wouldhand over operation responsibility for the OS to Nokia. While the full transcript is available after the break, we wanted to highlight the following:
- Symbian user interface improvements are Nokia's top priority. According to Jo, "We are planning a few user interface improvements in early 2011 including split screen text input, portrait QWERTY -- there will be other improvements coming shortly after particularly in the visual appeal of the graphics of the device."
- While Jo stopped short of saying that changes in the Symbian Foundation will accelerate Symbian updates, she did concede that it eliminates a step making things "simpler" -- and that's a positive thing.
- Jo also reminded us that Nokia's plans for MeeGo stretch beyond traditional handset formats. And just like Symbian handsets will form a "fat center" in Nokia's device portfolio, she expects Nokia's more diverse MeeGo offerings to be "pretty big and fat as well."
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