Delivering powerful, complex and sophisticated communications and personal management applications on a device little bigger than an audio cassette tape with a screen which would barely occupy 3% of a 15" monitor is a singular challenge. Nokia believe that they have met this challenge in their Series 60 Platform that is used in the Nokia 7650 and the forthcoming Nokia 3650. Nokia developed the Series 60 User Interface to delivery ease of use to their future generation of Smartphones. The challenge was to develop a User Interface and physical navigation mechanism that was capable of being used single handed, was simple to use when accessing sophisticated messaging and multimedia and encouraged users to use it. The result is both an interface paradigm and a collection of applications which sits over V6.1 of Symbian OS. While I have been able to exercise the Series 60 User Interface for sometime using the SDK it was with some interest that I approached the Nokia 7650 to see how it worked on a device. In many respects I found that the emulator is a poor substitute for the hands-on experience of using Series 60. A great phone we had the chance to review is the Nokia 7650, a cell phone that has been created to compete this year's market. Released around 01/4/2002 the 7650 is supporting the networks GSM 900 / 1800. Being of size 114 x 56 x 26 mm while weighting only 154 g, this item's size will satisfy its most skeptic users. The Nokia 7650 is equipped with an interesting camera of 0.3 MP / 640 x 480 px. It comes with a 830 mAh Li-Ion battery, letting a talk time of 4.00 hours and lets in standby mode about 150 hours. Its creators added a 3.4 MB memory, enough for your daily tasks! A cool thing of the Nokia 7650 is the speaker phone, which is useful in the car for example! The screen on this cell phone lets installation of wallpapers of 176 x 208 px.
The User Interface
Basic navigation on the Series 60 takes place through one of 4 controls, three press buttons and a 5 way rocker switch, giving left, right, up, down and, on pressing, a select or activate action. These buttons can be supplemented by device specific controls, which on the Nokia 7650 includes a "voice" button and the on/off switch, which can also be used to access the phone profiles, keyboard and device locks. The graphical interface consists of a window with three zones or panes that can be overlaid by temporary messages and menus. The three screen zones are the Status, Main and Control panes as illustrated below.
The status pane contains 5 sub elements, the Title, Context, Navi, Signal and a Battery/Universal indicator.
While the status pane is usually visible it may be hidden in certain applications. The Main pane displays the application specific interface and usually consists of a list, a grid or a find (in association with a list). These can be replaced with status and soft indicators when the phone is in idle mode.
The Control pane indicates the actions that are achieved with each of the two soft keys at the bottom of the display. It also includes an indicator to show if a list has items above or below the currently displayed portion.
Overlaid over these elements are pop up, windows that display temporary information such as error messages or soft key menu options.
There is also a separate interface standard for games designed to maximize the space available for the game playing area.
The Applications
Series 60 provides a rich set of standard applications for:
* Personal Information Management, Phonebook, Calendar, Notepad, Photo Album, Pinboard (favorites), Clock, Calculator, To-Do, Composer, Unit Converter and Voice Recorder
* Synchronization, SyncML to the 1.0.1 specification for over the air synchronization of phonebook and calendar details
* GSM Telephony Applications, Advanced Phone features, Call Logs and Message Indications, User Profiles, Speed dialling plus a framework for support of Voice dialling and Voice tags, and
* Application Installation and Management, to allow applications to be loaded over the air or from a connected PC, the Java implementation is Symbians standard MIDP Java implementation.
* WAP browser using the 1.2.1 specification
* Messaging support for MMS, SMS, Nokia Smart Messaging based on specification 3.0.0 and POP3 or IMAP4 email
In addition to these standard application each phone is likely to have a unique set of vendors and phone specific application, the Nokia 7650 for example has an application to control the Camera and two games.
In Use
Nokia have suggested that the Series 60 is not only easy to use but encourages users to explore the functionality that the phone delivers. One interesting experience of the Nokia 7650 regards a person who has always had access to email and a digital camera, but has been an infrequent emailer. The process of turning on the PC, downloading the pictures and writing an email has always seemed more effort than getting a set of photos developed, scribbing a short note and posting them, because these services have always been accessible as part of the daily routine. Since she has had the opportunity to use the Nokia 7650 she has probably sent more emails in a couple of weeks than she would have done over the previous year. The immediacy is probably the key factor, see it, snap it, write it, post it all in a matter of minutes.
I found myself strangely compelled by the interface (which contributed to this article being posted a day late!). Despite initial reservations, largely based on the fact that I expected to find Series 60 disappointing when compared to the Series 80 interface on my 9210 I found this not to be the case. True the functionality is not as rich as the 9200’s, the absence of a notification alarm on To Do list items for example. However Series 60 should more than meet the requirements of both corporate and private users, people who want a phone that does more but don't want the size or cost of a 9200 series communicator or PDA and phone.
Conclusion
The Series 60 interface is in many ways all that Nokia suggest it is. It's simple to get to grips with yet powerful enough to deliver functionality that should more than satisfy the target owners.
The additional features of Series 60 phones, such as the Nokia 7650's camera and the Nokia 3650s ability to record and playback video also add to the appeal of these devices.
Given that competing platforms are not able to deliver the same ease of use, performance and features it is difficult to see Series 60 not being hugely successful. Device numbers are likely to be significant and the opportunities for developers tangible. Perhaps the greatest opportunity with Series 60 is that it will bring powerful computing to new ranges of consumers who are largely untapped as purchaser’s of add-on software.
