Nokia's New Touch-Screen UI Takes a Bow

Nokia is showing off a series of new features for Symbian S60 phones, including a touch-screen UI that's strikingly similar to—your guessed it—the iPhone's.

Presenting at the Symbian Smartphone Show in London this week, Nokia played a video of a oddly familiar touch-screen phone that users could tap, flick, and rotate. The Finnish phone giant doesn't have an iPhone killer on tap, per se; instead, it's showing off features of its updated Symbian OS that mobile developers will have at their disposal.

While features such as touching menu icons on swiping through pictures are nothing new to iPhone users, Nokia does have a few promising tricks up its sleeves; for example, haptic feedback (i.e. vibration) so you can feel your taps on the screen, as well as Flash support for mobile Web surfing (a feature still sorely missing on the mobile version of Safari). The use of a stylus is also supported, which would come in handy when editing documents (I, for one, don't relish the thought of selecting words or sentences with my fingertip).

You can read up on more details at Nokia's Web site, but the best way to appreciate Nokia's upcoming touch-screen UI is to check out the video (available at Boing Boing Gadgets). Look for Symbian handsets with the new, touch-ready interface to hit the streets starting next year.

Related:
Press release [Nokia]
Nokia Shows Off iPhoneesque Touch Interface [Boing Boing Gadgets]