I came across a picture of the Nokia 3110 Classic on Mobile Burn. Let’s examine at the UI for a moment.
Looks like S60 right? It isn’t. The 3110 Classic runs S40 3rd Edition.
Notice the time, signal strength and battery status in the upper right hand corner even though we are in a menu and not on the active screen? Why isn’t that in S60?
Ever since I got my first S60 device in September 2006 I’ve been noticing all the small things that I didn’t have access to anymore. Things I’ve been used to for a long time on my old trusty 3220 running S40 2nd Edition.
When I had more than 1 missed call from the same number, S40 would tell me the time of all the individual calls. S60 doesn’t.
S40 has a countdown timer. I used it multiple times a day to set myself reminders. S60 doesn’t.
S40 has a single button you could push and all your favorite shortcuts were there. No limit to the number of them either! S60 gives me a fixed number of icons, 6 to be exact on my N93i. I can’t hide them.
Why is there a gap between S40 and S60 usability? No matter how feature rich our "mobile computers" get, they are phones first. I’d like S60 to maintain that ethos when designing their next version.
Maybe a Nokia employee on the S60 team should use a 3110 Classic for a week and write a report on the differences. After all when it comes to getting ideas to implement in the next feature pack of S60 why not look inside the company, to the people who make "low end" devices?
(I’d do it myself if given the opportunity wink wink)
Update: If you’ve got the time, then read this review of S40 3rd Edition. Mobile Review walks you through the entire OS and you can really get a feel for how user centric the design philosophy is.