Symbian OS v9.5 announced

The world's most popular smartphone platform, Symbian, is taking a step forward this week with the announcement of version 9.5. Nine and a half versions sounds like a lot, and, well, it is -- but when you consider that Symbian has its roots in Psion's ages-old EPOC, it's pretty darned plausible to think that they've come this far. New features are very multimedia-centric, reflecting the reality that modern phones are becoming true multimedia convergence devices; the camera subsystem alone accounts for 35 new goodies including orientation tilt sensor support, autofocus spots, and red-eye reduction. No word on when Symbian's largest clients -- Nokia's S60 and Sony Ericsson's UIQ -- will integrate the latest version, but we think it's pretty safe to say that they will.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 25th 2007 6:24PM]

I believe that symbian 9.5 will be addressing battery life optimisation which is very welcome indeed. These mobile "multimedia computers" as Nokia likes to call them, are very power hungry while the batteries are getting smaller to keep the overall size down, but all this at the expense of usability.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 25th 2007 6:42PM]

i'm addicted to s60 smartphones, and i'd rather carry a brick-device with a good battery than have a small, sexy device which dies after 2 hours of internet usage... truth you say chidz :-s optimisation and bigger, better batteries are what they should be aiming for

[(Unverified) Posted May 14th 2007 9:36AM]

Does anyone know if you can already download 9.5 anywhere, as I would like to upgrade from 9.1?