New Nokia smartphones to get new features faster

Nokia is changing the way it updates smartphones based on the latest version of Symbian. Instead of receiving big upgrades, the products will be upgraded on a more continual, incremental basis, Nokia said on Thursday.

For its updates, Nokia will no longer refer to Symbian 3 -- which is used on, for example, the N8 -- or the planned update Symbian 4, according to the company. Instead, much of the work that has been done to improve the user interface on what was version 4 will arrive sooner to existing products, new CEO Stephen Elop said during a conference call, but didn't elaborate on a more detailed schedule.

Symbian 3 is an improvement over previous versions of the much-maligned OS, but it still can't compete with the usability offered by Apple's iPhone iOS and Android-based smartphones.

The change is possible thanks to Nokia's decision to now solely focus on the Qt development platform, which is used to build user interfaces and applications, for both internal and external development. This will also be a boon for developers, according to Nokia.

Nokia's first MeeGo device will arrive in 2011, CEO confirms

Nokia will start shipping its first product based on the MeeGo operating system in 2011, new CEO Stephen Elop confirmed during a conference call on Thursday.

Elop, who became Nokia's CEO on Sept. 21, likes what he has seen of MeeGo since he took over the company, but it is clear that the product will arrive next year, he said, without going into any product details. Elop said one change he will make at the company is to start talking about new smartphones closer to the actual launch.

The MeeGo OS, announced in February, merges Intel's Moblin and Nokia's Maemo Linux-based OSes. Nokia and Intel hope that advanced smartphones, netbooks, connected TVs and tablet computers will all use the OS.