In early November at the 2010 Symbian Exchange & Exposition in Amsterdam, Jo Harlow, Executive Vice President of Smart Devices at Nokia, said: “In early 2011, there will be things like split-screen text entry, portrait QWERTY and Swype integrated into the UI, as well as a new browser and a new browsing experience that is much more modern. The updates will come in the first half of 2011.” In April of this year this elusive software update got a name, Anna, and today at the Nokia Connection event in Singpore we finally got information as to when it’ll actually be available. Devices like the E6 and X7 are already shipping with Anna onboard. People buying one of the existing Symbian^3 handsets on the market around July are likely to get Anna preinstalled. And if you actually have a Symbian^3 device in your pocket right now, such as the N8 or E7, then you’ll have to wait until August. In other words, a full 9 months later than when it was first talked about.
We’ve yet to review a device running Anna, but we’re confident that the tweaks Nokia has done have made the OS all the more bearable to use. From the bright rounded icons to the keyboard that no longer requires you to flip your device sideways, it’ll be a step up, especially compared to the first touch enabled version of Symbian, which made you want to stab someone in the neck with a phone charger. What we’re concerned with is Nokia’s continued inability to deliver both hardware and software when they say they will. Anna should’ve come out months ago. If you want to be even more picky, it should have been what Symbian^3 looked like from the start.
They’ll be up to 10 more devices running Symbian coming out over the next 12 months, here’s hoping they’ll be exciting enough to drive some sales while the rest of us wait for the first Nokia Windows Phones.