Great job guys, news posted now at http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/4869_Its_S60_3rd_Edition_Feature_Pa.php

Sounds pretty sweet!

I have a question about the messaging though: Is there still a way to force a text-only message to be sent as MMS rather than SMS? I sometimes do this because it can be cheaper for me to send long text as a single MMS rather than multiple SMS.

I'm assuming future FP1 owners can't upgrade to FP2, am I correct?

Where did you find those pics???
Can you give us a link with all the new stuff that FP2 brings!???

"In FP2 onward multitasking works like before, but in addition to that it can be found always under options menu (right softkey)."

Do you mean left softkey?

"Less clicks"

Fewer clicks :)

"If the final message has only text, it's SMS. If there are other media components included to message, such as pictures or video, message type is MMS. Small, but important change."

I don't like that, it'd end up costing me more money. If I want to send a large amount of text, I'd prefer to use MMS, as that can allow a huge amount of text, for only 30p. Whereas with SMS it's 10p per 160 characters.

"Another very visible change in all the applications and menus is having labeled softkey in the middle. The softkey has different functions in different apps and situations and labeling it makes UI easier to use."

In your screenshots, only one has a central softkey, one has none, and the other two have just a dot, when all four are more or less the same thing (menus). That's not very consistent.

The other stuff sounds good though!

Goood questions and comments.

Messaging has option to force message to MMS. It's possible to write MMS having only text.

It's not possible to upgrade earlier software to FP2. There will be new devices on the market on 2H/2007 having this release.

Labeling for middle softkey is visible only in portrait. In these pictures options menu is open, and then label is "dot" icon. We also have to remember that SW development is still ongoing and these pictures are not final. We might see some changes in texts etc.

Pictures are taken from proto device with FP2. If you have opportunity to come to 3GSM in Barcelona next week, you will see everything in real device there.

More information can be found from updated 3rd Edition overview document (http://www.s60.com/business/productinfo/softwareversions/3rdedition)

With this sentence,"There will be new devices on the market on 2H/2007 having this release",will you mean they will be selling in shops or will only be presented?

From a platform provider side I can just comment that we expect licensees to get the first 3rd Edition FP2 product ready and shipping on 2H.

Jouni, if no devices have been presented (and won't until Q2) how can you show us the FP2 running not in proto device? Do you mean an hybrid? like a NXX with a different FP uploaded for the 3GSM?

Also, I don't like this UI that much. It feels much text and less graphics. Having in mind that new UI's are rising like iPhone or Flash UI's etc, it seems that adding more text and less icons/graphics is a step behind. Is it because of speed issues?

Thanks for your infos!

Jouni can you tell us:
1. In Phonebook is there a video ringtone option?
2. Can we put a different sound in each alarm?
3. Can we put a background photo in Calendar for each month or whole year?
4. When we create a folder in the menu can we choose from different folder icons to put?
5. The wallpapers in StandBy screen are Fullscreen? Can we change the colour of fonts like in S40 phones???

I think these 5 simple things are very good to be implemented in the UI don't you think??
I hope NOKIA will make them come true in the near future!!

I have FP2 running on Nokia 6290. 3GSM visitors will also see this phone with FP2 demonstrated on S60 stand. But I want to emphasize that Nokia 6290 will use 3rd Edition FP1 when it comes to market. This one in my hands now and 3GSM demos is just a special prototype.

These screenshots happen to have lots of text but UI is very graphical. Actually "icon area" is bigger than earlier and we have thinner status pane on the top the display.

http://symbianguru.typepad.com/welcome/2007/02/s60v3_feature_p.html

Great news, and thanks for putting in terms we can understand. Looking forward to the stuff from 3GSM now.

1. In Phonebook is there a video ringtone option?

Video as a ringing tone is supported already on 3rd Edition FP1. For example Nokia N95 and Nokia 6290 have this feature.

2. Can we put a different sound in each alarm?

No sure what you mean, but you can one alarm for calendar and another for alarm clock. Inside one (e.g. calendar) application alarm can not differ.

3. Can we put a background photo in Calendar for each month or whole year?

Unfortunately this is not supported.

4. When we create a folder in the menu can we choose from different folder icons to put?

You mean having folders inside folders and having "deeper" UI structure? This is not supported.

5. The wallpapers in StandBy screen are Fullscreen? Can we change the colour of fonts like in S40 phones???

Wallpaper is not covering "status pane" area and "softkey" area. It's better for usability to have a clear background for softkeys. Font color can't be changed. I didn't know it's supported by Series 40. Cool.

Ciao

any details for Flash Lite implementation?
Animated ringtones?

Alessandro

I am not impressed.

And I have to agree with Alexandre, it is less graphical and heavy on text.

It looks more and more like Windows Mobile actually. The distinctive big app icons are gone. The third softkey makes it look cheaper (like S40). Will there really be a third hardware key on all new devices?

And there are now three different sizes for the status pane.

1. Big (like now) on idle screen

2. Smaller (without app icon) in Messaging and profiles

3. Smallest (in menu)

Thats inconsistent.

And while I understand the desire to make more screen real estate available for active use I wonder if it wouldnt be more appropriate to make this an optional feature.

You could press * once (like in Opera Mini) to reduce the status pane to a smaller size and press it twice to hide it completely, like when you are looking through a long list of messages or browsing the web.

And I really think this "active applications" thing should also be optionally turned off for us intelligent users. ;-)

This is a big ripoff. To make you buy new devices when in fact a lot of this can be made simple updates to firmware on current S60 3rd phones. The auto-selection of mesage type is just one example of that.

And yet I'm sure Nokia will continue to claim to be an environmentally friendly phone wile pumping out as many devices as possible, even though old devices should have had this firmware update instead.

in my personal opinion its not fair for us s60v3FP1 users not to get the FP2 update on our current devices such as N80 or N73, look at windows mobile they provide updates for free.

but anyway, i would preffer the FP1 interface more, those few screenshots shows more text and less graphics like the others said, and plus the middle button caption makes it look like a Motorola or the cheap S40 interface...

either ways we are satisfied.

and the interface is very "busy" looking with all the RSS feed bar and the shortcuts etc etc, the cleaner less crowded mainscreen the better it is... i dont know what other think.

Kevin.

Hi, have some info about Unicode in SMS? Here, in Czech republic, we use some special characters in texts, but it causes, that SMS is cutted down to 70 characters instead of full 160. Are you planning some tool, which can remove the special characters (ř->r, š->s etc.)? Thx

What fantastic news to read first thing in the morning.

Thanks!

Why oh why can't we create sub-folders?
Since it is doable, and I've already found a trick to do it, why can't it be "legally" added?
Is that too much of a trouble? Or do users always have to come up with tricks to make the phone do stuff that it's supposed to do...
I mean Nokia are branding their devices as "Multimedia Computers", PLEASE TELL ME IN WHICH COMPUTER ARE YOU FORBIDDEN THE RIGHT TO CREATE A FOLDER IN ANOTHER FOLDER?

S40 also has the possibility to change font size in SMS, what about FP2? I agree with some comments that txt-only MMS should be possible, as well. Last but not least, we Croatians also want to know when and if unicode problem (70 vs. 160 chars) will be solved... and once again, yes, it does work fine on S40...

Rita, mind to share the trick? :)

Khodak, i know fp1 has font size changeable to some extent. But I don't know if it is in sms texts too or not...

i forgot to mention, that those few screenshots cant do justice, only further screen shots will tell us how the interface will be like...

btw, Rita Khoury, ana souri men el sham, and i have an obsession with S60 just like u :) i wonder how many syrians and lebanese are like us.

Ok, here's my beef with Nokia...
We all love the announcements of FPx (Insert number here) as we can drool over some phone (ehm, multimedia device or whatever it is called this week).

Don't get me wrong, I *love* S60 phones, have been there since the 6600.

But Nokia is overdoing it. Remember guys, S60 devices are *premium* phones, not run-of-the-mill phones that come free when you sign up.
People supporting S60 invest they money on these devices, are often early-adopters, and technical-savvy.

The average N-series now is around US$ 400 now (never mind me having paid almost US$ 900 in local currency, take that for living in a third-world, strike that, developing country) and those who buy them, most of the time buy unbranded, unlocked phones.

Sorry for the rant, but what I want to say is that as I see, from what has been released, every upgrade for S60v3 (FP1 and FP2) *appears* that it could have easily been implemented to older phones. As it is, I'd bet 90% of the new features are hardware independent.

And for what, some features that are present in series 40 for ages (timed profiles, my one and only entry on the S60 wishlist), and browser and cosmetic improvements. Sure I want that, but do I feel I have to buy a new phone for it? Surely not.

Again, sorry for the rant, I just wish that kind of policy would change.

Flash lite components can't be used as ringing tone. It would be nice, but unfortunately not available in FP2.

It's possible to change font size in FP1 devices. Font size change affects applications and UI in general. In FP2 you can specifically change font size in common composer so it gives more flexibility.

There have been discussion about upgrading feature pack for existing devices. I'm with you guys and I'd like to see it to happen. It's more technical issue than business issue.

There are many features and improvement I haven't introduced. I just highlighted main UI and usability changes.

UI pictures are not giving good overall picture of FP2 UI. Overview document has some more UI screenshots. Flash UI demo in s60.com B2B section will be updated in coming days. I let you know when it's ready.

Oh yeah, one other thing: what's the deal with "Go To" application/icon? It's completely useless right now, only inbox, calendar and notes inside, without any option to add new shortcuts - or am I missing something? :-) Will this be implemented in FP2? Although it's rather silly to wait for FP2 for something so simple.
As far as font size changing in FP1, I guess I am missing it, too :-) It was possible on 2nd ed devices, "hacking" it with file manager and custom fonts, but I know of no user-option to change it in phone itself.

Can you please tell us all of the upgrades of the UI?? (software only)

I just read the overview document with the additional screenshots and I insist:

This is a step back for the UI. No application icons, not even small ones.

As a whole, less graphical more text oriented UI.

Sony and Samsung will be delighted.

For mass amrket appeal this is the wrong direction to take the S60 UI!

Also: The battery and signal meters are very hard to decipher at first sight in landscape mode and within menu in portrait mode. That was another distinctive advantage of the S60 UI until now. Big clock, big signal and battery meters, big app icon.

Now it looks like a mix of S40 and Windows Mobile.

Real bad.

@khodak: the 'Go to' application is already removed in FP1.

I just read the overview document too, and I agree with Marc (two posts above me).

I've been a "Symbian S60 only" person since 6600, and the UI changes here are for the worse. Nokia should take a cue from Apple; the main reason everyone buys apple is because its products, software (as well as hardware) just look pretty! Yes, PRETTY! Big icons, everything is graphical, etc.

Now I'm glad that Nokia doesn't offer FP upgrades, because I wouldn't want my N73 to wear the ugly FP2 UI.

@ Alexandre Silva
The trick is hard to summarize in a couple of words, I don't know if I'm allowed to post a link to my blog here, but u can find it there http://dotsisx.vox.com (again, sorry to Jouni if publicity is forbidden)

@ Kevin
well i'm lebanese and my guess is very few people here are really mobile accros. Just today, in a mobile shop, I ran into a guy asking if the "memory card was internal" i wonder how could it be a mem card and still be internal... hm :S

@ Jouni
Ok you are so excited about this FP2 but I see u didn't answer my very basic question, that I should ask again: if Nokia are calling their devices "multimedia computers", and i emphasize on the "computer" in that, then why and why and why and why and many more whys, can't we create folders wherever we want, like on any other device that would call itself a computer? More of it, it's doable! I have made a folder inside the My Own folder, and it's still there, even after refreshing, turning off-on the phone, taking out-putting back in the mem card,... and i can move apps/games to it :S it's functionning T.O.T.A.L.L.Y fine. So why isn't it legally implemented?

As a side note, if Nokia/S60 does make the home/standby screen an XHTML doc that is end-user editable (basically somewhat like what Win Mobile devices have) that would probably be a quite welcome change....however, it would likely do further damage to product identification--as the devices will look less and less like one another (at least here in US Symbian/S60 could use all the help they can get with getting the word out about their products) and they better do so quick, as Win Mobile devices aren't leaving a lot of room left in the market place.

I have been playing with FP2 Sw for a while and I honestly I don't see how it is less graphical than earlier. It has graphical icons on UI as always and in addition to this there are extremely cool graphical transition effects when changing between menus, opening or closing folders or opening or closing applications. I didn't mention this in the article but it's very visual change throughout the UI and can't be seen in still pictures.

I want to correct what I said about subfolders earlier. Creating subfolders seem to be possible. Sorry about giving you a wrong info. I have never really needed them, but flexibility is always for good.

Can we put .swf and .gif as Wallpapers or ScreenSavers???(alongside with slideshow)

Juoni:

Graphical animations are the first thing I turn off after installing Windows XP. I ant imagaine thats its of more use on a small smartphone screen. Sorry.

Taking away the big application icon on every single screen within the S60 UI is a clear, unequivocal, unmistakable reduction of graphics within the UI.

There simply isnt any discussion about it. Face it. This is obvious. Dont be in denial!

And the bif app icons actually serve a purpose. They indicate, where (within the S60 Ui) you currently are. Like a sign when you drive into a city, you simply expect to be the name and icons of an application you have just launcehd (called up within the multitasking environment) to he highly visible. Maybe they shouldnt be statically visble but only initially visibile. ANd when you scroll down the options the app name and icons simply scrolls down with the rest of the screen. Thats the was, the standard version of Opera Mini treats the page headers.

I also believe that the so called third softkey is pretty redundant.

One cpuld reduce the height of the status pane without sacrificing the app icons. I think, the S60 team should seriously take this idea into consideration!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Umm, is that all? Complete list of changes? Only thing I'm glad is timed profile.

I was hoping for some bugfixes too:

Phone book has a huge bug, I call it lazy coder bug, where you are only able to see First name and Last name in the phone book, although it is more than clear that it is more convenient to see nickname there too, or to search by nickname (or in fact to be able to search by any field written in the contact). People does workaround by writing the damned nickname to Last/First name field, not good guys, not good! Also it is impossible to search all certain type of companies, if you can't search by any field you wish, that causes one to write (again) wrong info to field, this time Company field though.

And another bug is the clock, is it still missing the timer and stopwatch capabilities? (There are 3rd party stuff for this, but for god sake why on earth it is missing in the first place!)

Is calendar still missing categories and colored labels/views, priorities? Calendar is not very informative currently, make it work with more of the common outlook calendar features like colors and multiple calendars.

What about profile which is silent but allows calendar alarms? Why is it missing? (Current workaround is to create Night profile with ring tone set to empty wav/sound file) Without it you can't create scheduled wakeups with your calendar...

How about way to create own Active idle hotkeys, like the one already, press # for a while to get silent profile? I bet there are tons of users who dreams of having for example bluetooth-toggle on just pressing * for a while or similar. Or simultaneous shortcuts, why not like pressing * AND # to get yourself to gallery or similar, the joystick ain't that handy! -- Really, people aren't that stupid, they use their phones pretty much everyday, and if they can crunch a few extra seconds by using fast shortcuts then they will use them, you'll just have to give them a shot to use them.

Ignorance is truly a bliss; I can imagine that being written to roof of the Nokia cubicles.

i know that to have this tech there must be the two part : soft + hard
so just wana know for v2 or v3
if nokia work on update firmware it is possible to havea little smilarity and the same fonction
on 6630 or n70 like those on the new smartphone
at least 50% of the news fonction are independate of hardware
so why do not working on
or we must put our v2 in the garbage and buy a new mobile !!!

please help me , i have n93 and i want to know can i update my phone to feature pack 2 .

can i update my n93 to feature pack 2 ??????

In web browser, there should be an option for directly saving any web image into the memory card. My N73 does not do this currently. Only this is supported if you use Opera browser for mobile.

Also an integrated password manager is welcome.

I have a simple question. In s60v2, you could uninstall themes from the theme menu, either through the softkey, or just by highlighting and pressing the "c" button. However, programs required you to go to the App Manager to uninstall.

In S60v3 FP0 (and FP1, according to Darla), it's the opposite. You can now uninstall applications straight from the menu, just highlight and press "c", while themes can only be removed through the App Manager menu.

Is this fixed in FP2? I don't care which way it goes, honestly, but I think it should be the same for both themes and applications.

(Personally, I prefer to be able to just press "C" on it in any menu and uninstall, but so long as there's uniformity, I'm ok)

I have a simple question. In s60v2, you could uninstall themes from the theme menu, either through the softkey, or just by highlighting and pressing the "c" button. However, programs required you to go to the App Manager to uninstall.

In S60v3 FP0 (and FP1, according to Darla), it's the opposite. You can now uninstall applications straight from the menu, just highlight and press "c", while themes can only be removed through the App Manager menu.

Is this fixed in FP2? I don't care which way it goes, honestly, but I think it should be the same for both themes and applications.

(Personally, I prefer to be able to just press "C" on it in any menu and uninstall, but so long as there's uniformity, I'm ok)

Jouni, you said "Pictures are taken from proto device with FP2. If you have opportunity to come to 3GSM in Barcelona next week, you will see everything in real device there."

Which FP2 device are you referring to at 3GSM? All the ones I heard about were FP1. Or was it the E61i? This page ( http://europe.nokia.com/A4344023 ) says the UI is "S60 platform 3rd Edition 9.1a", they seem to be mixing their UI and OS version numbers there. What is it really?

Tony, they had a development version of FP2 running on Nokia 6290. There are no devices with FP2 announced yet.

Yep, it's funny that Symbian OS versions and S60 versions are many times mixed in device specs. 9.1a refers to S60rd Edition (non-FP1). Symbian 9.2 is in FP1, 9.3 in FP2 and so on.

Rcadden. It seems that FP2 works like earlier 3rd Edition SW. Apps can be uninstalled from menu by pressing C, but themes have to be uninstalled from app manager. I agree there should be consistency. Thank you about letting me know. I check if we could have consistent approach in this.

i am not able to identify S60 product sales and support mail, contact details. plese send me if any one is know about that.

Is it real that neither FP1 nor FP2 has a simple timer and stopwatch?!

Well, if the Nokia N95 can't be upgraded for free to FP1+x I better don't waste my money and keep using my trusty Sony Ericsson W810.

when we could upgrade ou nokia 6630 S60 v2 8.1
to S60 V3 9.2
like upgrding my pc form win xp to win vista

@azulmarino Do you see the irony of your statement? You won't move up to an obviously better phone in every aspect simply because you can't upgrade the OS, while the phone you stick with will never get an upgrade, either.

Posted by: Ricky Cadden | May 19, 2007 03:26 PM

@Ricky Cadden I see no irony in my statement, because the W810 does everything I wished it does at the time I bought it, and even more, and I didn't bought it hoping it will be upgraded, and finally, the W810 is not a smartphone, even though it does some tricks that the N95 can't do.

Khodak, i know fp1 has font size changeable to some extent. But I don't know if it is in sms texts too or not.