Looks like its the Time to say Goodbye Symbian, Despite talks of Symbian Carla and even Symbian Donna in the works for current and new devices alike, it now appears that the successor to the Nokia N8 might be the last new Symbian device we shall see from the Finns.

Nokia had originally promised continued support for Symbian following their plans to switch to Windows Phone as their primary OS last Mobile World Congress, with the intention of selling 150 million more Symbian devices before completely phasing the OS out.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop blamed the lackluster figures on ever-changing and increasingly difficult market conditions, influenced in particular by the demand for lower cost smartphones. "We now believe that we will sell fewer Symbian devices than we anticipated," he explained.

The full sourcecode for Symbian^3 has been released, unofficially, together with the bootloader for Nokia devices running the OS, opening the door to other platforms being installed on the company phones. That means that enterprising hackers could eventually install Android, Windows Phone 7 or other platforms onto Nokia hardware.

Unfortunately that sort of mod is going to take more than just access to the bootloader information in fact it will take a fair amount of code tweaking and modification, certainly if all the various hardware elements of Symbian devices are to be enabled for a different platform. Whether there is anybody left with the time, patience and skillset to do that and, most importantly, for Symbian devices remains to be seen.

SPB Software keeps bringing its SPB Shell 3DUI software to new platforms. After Android, the company is going for folks with Symbian^3 smartphones such as the Nokia N8, C7 and E7. If you have been reading our previous articles on SPB Shell, you know it replaces the phone default homescreen with a 3D interface from where users can quickly access various phone functions, favorite contacts and apps, as well as run widgets.

Like its Android counterpart, Symbian^3 version also costs $14.99, which may sound a lot, until you actually start using SPB Shell 3D. 

Symbian Belle is one hot Symbian Update which every S^3 users are waiting for. But this Udate is not coming that fast! At least we have got some screenshots to show how the Belle would look like.

HomeScreen :

New search widget 

New Main Homescreen

Android Inspired drop down status bar

Menu Layout and new Bottom Bar :

Universal Search in Menu

New Back button in menu 

Music Player :

Gallery :

The Nokia 500 has just been announced as Nokia latest Symbian Anna smartphone. The new phone is based on the Nokia C5-03 specs-wise but refreshes some of the key features, retaining the reportedly affordable price tag.

The Nokia 500 has a 3.2-inch capacitive screen with 640 x 360 pixel resolution and there is a 5 megapixel camera on the back. Connectivity is covered by 14.4Mbps HSDPA and 5.8Mbps HSUPA speeds, Wi-Fi, GPS, a charging microUSB port and a 3.5mm standard audio jack. There is 2GB of internal memory and a microSD slot for adding more storage.

The Nokia 500 comes with exchangeable back covers in different colors. Much like with the Nokia N79 back in the day, the Nokia 500 changes its wallpaper automatically to match the color of the back cover you put on it.