New Delhi, Aug 20 (IANS) Setting at rest speculations, cell phone
major Nokia has confirmed it will launch a full touch screen handset by
the end of this year.
“We have been working on the Series 60 platform for touch screen
user interface and a mobile device is expected to be launched by the
year-end,” Devinder Kishore, Nokia India’s marketing director, told
IANS.
The Nokia full touch screen phone, codenamed the ‘Tube’ was also
featured in the latest Batman movie “The Dark Knight” and will be
Nokia’s second full touch screen device, the first of which was
launched in 2003 but was later discontinued.
The past year has seen cell phone majors such as Samsung and LG
debuting their full touch screen mobile phones in the market after the
success of the Apple iPhone.
It is widely anticipated that Research in Motion (RIM) - the makers
of Blackberry - are also working on a full touch screen phone,
codenamed ‘Blackberry Thunder’.
Nokia first unveiled the touch screen S60 interface last October.
“The new software would allow licensees to develop devices with a
variety of input methods, such as touch screen with traditional keypad,
QWERTY keyboard, or standalone touch screen, supporting both finger or
stylus optimised input,” a Nokia statement had then stated.
Mobile phone maker Symbian Ltd, in which Nokia held a majority stake till a few months ago, has developed the S60 platform.
The Finnish giant announced the acquisition of the remaining 52
percent stake in Symbian in June this year from Sony Ericsson,
Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, Panasonic and Siemens.
“With the acquisition of Symbian, we will be able to offer our
customers more innovative products and the latest technology,” Kishore
said.
On being asked about the Apple’s OS X, the fastest growing mobile
operating system, Kishore said: “Symbian is the largest mobile phone
software developer globally and it is up to our customers to decide how
popular and accepted our software is.”
OS X recently displaced Microsoft Windows for mobiles as the number
three mobile phone operating system after Symbian and Blackberry.
Google, which some time back announced the Open Handset Alliance
(OHA), is also working on a mobile OS - Android, based on the Linux
platform.
Kishore said the Nokia Music store, which the company launched last year, will be opened in India by the year-end.
“The music store is doing well in the UK and we hope the success will be matched when it is launched in India,” he said.
