This is the 4th and final part of our “Introducing S60 V5” Series.
S60 V5 is Symbian’s new Touch UI. While many things remain the same as the previous S60 v3, the new updated OS and UI does bring about a couple new things here and there.
We cant really talk about any version of S60 without talking about how open an operating system it is, allowing you to install and uninstall applications to help really personalise your phone to your needs.
There’s more to it than that though. S60 allows you to Multitask, keeping applications open in the background, start a new application or keep switching between the two(or three or four or as many as you want). There’s even copy-paste support (which we talked about earlier in the series) which can come in unbelievably helpful at times, and is something most mobile OS’s lack, even today.
With this in mind, today we’re going to focus on Application on S60 V5. We’ve already spoken a bit about it in part 3, but we hope to take that further with this post. This was done on a Nokia 5800, so some things might be different or not present on other S60 V5 devices like the upcoming N97 or Samsung Omnia HD.
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Using the Menu and Multitasking :
S60 v5 arranges all your applications in a grid like menu, by default.
You can change the menu view though. Depending on your device, you can switch from the Grid view, to a List view among others.
You can re-arrange these icons how ever you want, or place them into folders. Yes, you read that right, Folders.
You can create and delete folders, and place whatever applications in whichever folders you want(or folders within another folder). This has always been a standard feature of S60, but S60 V5 improves on that a bit. Folders you create have the standard “folder icon”, but some already present folders of the OS like Music, Applications, Internet, etc have their own icons.
Any applications you install though, appear inside the “Applications” folder. Like I said earlier, you can choose to move this application shortcut icon out of the folder to wherever you would want it. For example, I’ve moved the Google Maps application to the main menu on my 5800. I also moved the Gmail application to the Internet Folder.
Coming back to Multitasking, S60 allows you to keep a couple applications running in the background.You can view your background or opened applications, by pressing and holding the menu key. You can
Of course, depending on the amount of ram your device has, you can only keep so many applications open in the background before the OS will try to shut some down if its running low on ram. Its rarely a problem on S60 V5 though.
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Firmware :
Like we said earlier, S60 is an operating system, and every operating system requires minor updates once in a while to fix any bugs or problems.
In S60 v5 (like before) we have “firmware” or “software versions” which is the version of the os specifically for your device.
Every so often, there might be an update for your software version, which you can get using your device via wifi or any other dataplan. Nokia devices also have the option of using a pc with Nokia Software Updater for windows, to update in addition.
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Applications :
As we mentioned early on, S60 allows you to install and delete applications as you please.
We’ve already covered installing applications, but here a few extra things we might have missed.
When it comes to an example of an installed application, my favourite app has to be Google Maps on S60 V5:
With its new latitude feature, Google Maps works amazingly on S60 V5. You can use your finger to touch and move around the map on screen, zoom in and out, etc.
It’s free and its installable. Gotta love it. There’s tons of other great S60 Applications out there though, this is just one of many.
Most apps on S60 also come with a Help Menu, if you’ll ever need it.
The help menu gives you very detailed and useful info on applications. Of course, in most cases, you’ll never need to check help, once you get the hang of S60.
There’s also a File Explorer App built into S60, if you ever feel the urge to tinker with your files in a more intricate level.
Moving on, right now S60 doesnt really have an App store, the closest being the “Downloads!” folder in your device.
But both Nokia and Samsung have announced S60 App Stores specifically for their devices, coming up in a couple months so this looks like something that will be improved soon.
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That’s it for our 4 part Introducing S60 V5 Series ! Hope you’ve had fun reading it. S60 V5 has a LOT of potential, and we’re excited to see where Nokia and other Manufacturers take it.
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what is the green circle beside the application icon on the menu screen can it be removed?
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