Due to the UI change when compared to S60 3rd ed., applications have to be optimised for 5th ed. After Epocware announced the optimisation of their apps, now is the turn for SmartphoneWare as they are presenting three of their applications optimised for the S60 Touch UI.

Best Reminder, Best TaskMan and Best ScreenSnap are available for purchase right now so you can install them on your 5800 or if you’re planning to buy a N97 on the first half of 2009, keep these in mind.

Would you like to see S60 5th ed in action? Visit The Nokia N97 Blog for a live hands-on video.

Well that, you decide, what I can tell is that the N97 is certainly the best S60 Touch UI-based phone. If you read in some reviews, of the lucky ones who got their hands-on, or even in their news articles, you would know that the N97 is not a common phone.

The design was derived, by the looks of it, from the TYTN II, from HTC. The touchscreen? iPhone size, but no multi-touch.

Full keyboard should satisfy both Nseries and Eseries user, this is like a convergence of two categories, a true flagship. The only problem is that there is no 8 megapixel camera to beat competitors.

What’s so unique about it? The 32GB memory of course, oh, and there is a memory card slot!

What we do know is that it will be expensive, but while I wait for mine, you should check out some Nokia N97 reviews, so that you get your own opinion, in order to comment here.

So, what do you think?

As we told you before, Nokia has united few of the people involved in making 5th edition happen, and these have spoken about the platform in a podcast.

You can hear it above, and also download or embed it on your own blog.

A PDF slide is also published, which you can download here, and in the same document, a rumour has come up of a Nokia Communicator with touchscreen.

A touchscreen Commmunicator is inevitable, and would really be a great addition to the manufacturer’s portfolio, especially if it looks that cool, but in the document, it does confirm that it’s just a concept.

file name:	S60_5th_Edition_SDK_v0_9_en.zip
description:	This is the installation package for S60 5th Edition SDK for Symbian OS. This SDK enables application development in Symbian C++, Open C/C++, Java™, and Web technologies for devices based on the S60 platform. The SDK is based on S60 5th Edition and Symbian OS 9.4. The SDK includes the all key resources needed for application development (documentation, API reference, examples, and an emulator), excluding an IDE.
date of publication:	2008-10-02
type:	Software Development Kit
topics:	Java Open C/C++ S60 S60 5th Edition Symbian C++ Web Technology Browsing Full Web Browsing Nokia Web Browser JavaScript Web Runtime (WRT) Widget for S60 XHTML
language:	English (en)
encoding:	Zip Archive (.zip)
intended audience:	Developer
see also:	Carbide.c++ v1.3, the development tool for C++ for Symbian OS and Open C developers

There will be a live audiocast on S60 v5 by:

Matti Vänskä,
Vice President, Mobile Software Sales and Marketing, Nokia

Eero Kukko,
Head of S60 Platform Marketing, Nokia

Kaisa Hirvensalo,
Communications Manager, Nokia

Press release after the break.

S60 5th Edition brings new, advanced multimedia and Internet experiences to devices with touch user interfaces and sensor technologies
October 02, 2008

Direct link to audiocast: http://www.nokia.com/A41196476.

S60 5th Edition SDK and tools available for software developers

Espoo, Finland - Today sees the introduction of S60 5th Edition, the latest release of the world’s leading, open smartphone platform, S60 on Symbian OS. The S60 5th Edition has the most advanced set of features that enable new innovations and new experiences for consumers that want to fully embrace the use of smartphone products.

With S60 5th Edition, the user interface is extended by the introduction of touch and with full support for tactile feedback. Enhanced display resolution support and a new Widescreen mode further compliments the touch UI and enables engaging visual experiences. Also, for the first time, the platform includes a framework for the use of advanced sensor technology. This all allows S60 device manufacturers to create innovative new device concepts for a wider range of user segments, while preserving the rich capabilities of the existing software platform. The first S60 5th Edition based device, designed for music lovers, was announced today - the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

S60 software continues to lead in the support for and use of internet technologies, and includes the Web Browser for S60, which supports desktop-quality browsing with Adobe Flash Lite 3. With the touch enabled products and S60 5th Edition, Internet browsing is made more convenient by enabling scrolling Web pages and interacting directly with Web content by touching with a finger or the use of keys or stylus. The ecosystem now has more options, and user experiences are further enhanced with touch optimized toolbars and easy access to browser and internet application options.

Sensors enable very intuitive and smart usability for the key S60 applications. For example, silence the phone ringing by turning the phone upside down. The sensor framework in S60 5th Edition provides easy integration for wide range of sensors into vendor’s devices, and enables them and developers to take advantage of sensor data to create new exiting and intuitive applications and features.

S60 5th Edition’s new features continue to provide a complete solution for multimedia experiences. New image and video editors in the S60 5th Edition make it simple to capture and edit pictures and videos directly on the device, before sharing them with others. Users can for example decrease red eye, crop image highlights, adjust image quality or add text and graphics to pictures. With the video editor, users can quickly cut and merge videos and sound directly on the device. Support for large, high resolution displays makes it possible for users to better enjoy widescreen multimedia and these features.

“S60 5th Edition’s new features and added functionality significantly enhances the products that intend to provide rich multimedia and Internet experiences for consumers. Intuitive sensor technologies, interactions via touch, and tactile feedback creates delight and excitement for consumers and unparalleled innovation opportunities for developers and internet content providers,” said Lee Williams, Senior Vice President, S60 Software, Nokia. “With this release we will see manufacturers create and extend their portfolio of products with new types of devices addressing a broader range of consumer needs.”

The implementation of the S60 Web Runtime in S60 5th Edition adds support for S60 Platform Services, which enables creation of personal and context aware Web widgets. Platform Services gives these Web standards based applications access to numerous applications and features of the S60 platform, such as calendar, contacts, GPS, messaging, audio, and video. Widgets can also mash-up information from the Internet together with selected information from the user’s mobile device. These Platform Services are easily accessible to Web content developers and service providers via new JavaScript and Adobe Flash Actionscript extensions. All of these capabilities continue to provide the user with the most control over security and their own private data.

To lower the barrier to entry for new innovation, S60 5th Edition is also expanding its support for open source technologies through integrated support for Open C++. This support brings the Standard Template Library and other popular platform-independent C++ libraries to the S60 platform, extending the Open C offering. Together, Open C and Open C++ create opportunities for developers to utilize existing skills and code from other platforms in their S60 development projects, including open source components that run today on Linux and other open platforms.

“The versatile developer support offered by S60 5th Edition enables developers to write applications in a range of languages that they are already very familiar with,” said Tom Libretto, Vice President, Forum Nokia. “That familiarity and being able to arm developers with the tools and technologies that best suit their needs will allow for further innovation of new applications and services, not only for S60 5th Edition, but also for S60 3rd Edition Feature Packs 1 and 2.”

Developers are encouraged to leverage touch UI functionality in application design to get the full consumer advantage of touch in their solutions and create the best possible user experience.  From today, S60 5th Edition SDK and tools are available to download via Forum Nokia.

“The S60 5th Edition SDK presents an exciting opportunity for mobile application development,” said Erik Abair, senior vice president of engineering and co-founder of Kyte. “Development on this new platform will advance touch technology, provide more flexibility to create new user interfaces for our mobile application, Kyte Mobile Producer, and improve the overall user experience for consumers.”

“Over the years, SHAPE Services have observed an astounding evolution in Nokia mobile platforms and development environments which have been further revolutionized by the latest Symbian S60 5th Edition SDK,” said Igor Berezovsky, CEO, SHAPE Services GmbH. “It is great to see that Nokia was able to keep the original spirit of the S60 platform while continuing to provide compatibility for previous editions of S60. This allowed for quick and easy porting of Shape Services’ IM+ All-In-One Instant messenger to the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.”

The global smartphone market is growing. Almost 180 million S60 devices have already cumulatively been shipped by S60 licensees by the end of June 2008. More than a third of these are fully web-capable S60 3rd Edition devices.

• The fast and intuitive S60 touch UI
• S60 touch UI enables new types of application and mobile device
• Simplicity taken to a new level with advanced sensors
• Release the creativity with UI Accelerator Toolkit for S60
• Input and output methods
• Performance
• Functionality
• Design and usability
• Personalization
• User enjoyment
• Smart simplicity
• Expandable experiences.

I do recommend a read on these for you to get to know more about this wonderful platform that hopefully will revolutionize the way people use their phones:

• User Experience
• New innovations in S60 user experience
• Creating the total user experience