Today Nokia announced the first smartphone to use the new S60 5th Edition user interface, the 5800 XpressMusic. This new version of S60 adds quite a few options, not the least of which is support for touchscreen displays. What else is new, and what does it mean to you?
New features that S60v5 supports include, obviously, touchscreen displays, and also the new widescreen resolution. Advanced sensors are also supported, including proximity sensors, accelerometers, and others. The most important thing is that, for the most part, native applications written for S60v3 devices will be compatible with the S60v5 devices, such as the touchscreen 5800 XpressMusic.
However, a new set of tools for developers has been made available today at Forum Nokia, allowing developers to dig into the SDK and create some stunning applications that can directly take advantage of the new features in S60v5.
For consumers, we’ll have to get our hands on the 5800 XpressMusic and other S60v5 devices to really get a taste for the various changes. As of now, aside from the touchscreen and higher resolution displays, it seems that S60v5 offers roughly the same support as S60v3 Feature Pack 1 and 2.















