In a move to expedite development of the Symbian platform, an executive from Nokia Taiwan said that the largest phone maker in the world may be skipping Symbian 2 and instead jump to Symbian 3 with support for multitouch in Q3 2010 and Symbian 4 in Q4 2010 or early 2011. A preview of Symbian 4 shows a more modern UI that keeps pace with newer interfaces offered by Apple and Google.

Symbian 4 is said to be based on Qt cross-platform framework after Nokia had acquired Trolltech in mid-2008. Qt will make it easier for developers to simaltenously develop applications for Symbian and Maemo, the open-source OS found on the Nokia N900. The company will still continue to offer S40, S60, and Maemo smartphones alongside Symbian 4 devices. Nokia has committed to being more price-competitive with S60 phones this year.

2010 will also witness a Maemo 6 release in the second half; the N900 is based on Maemo 5. Maemo 6 is supposed to bring some significant changes to the OS.

(via: DigiTimes)