Demystifying the new UI on the MWC’11 N8

If you’re an avid follower of all things “mobile,” you would know that Microsoft and Nokia have come to an agreement where Nokia is going to hedge their bets on the slow-selling new Windows Phone 7 operating system for their future smartphones. Despite all the negativity surrounding the future of Symbian, there’s room for some cheer.

A recent picture taken at an event in China the MWC (Mobile World Congress) 2011 in Barcelona has Nokia fans and mobile industry experts speculating on the future of Nokia and Symbian in particular. Yes, it’s the one with the less than flattering disembodied head of Jo Harlow, head of Nokia’s global marketing division.

I hear she’s a nice person but let’s not get carried away. That image of a lime-green Nokia N8 in the background is what made me get a THIRD N8 in about 3 months.

1. Wallpaper visible surface area:
The most striking change is the larger visible wallpaper. I tried using the same wallpaper on my homescreen but the auto-setup didn’t match with what was behind Harlow. Using the right-edge unlock trigger and the camera button in the picture as placeholders, I set about trying to manually set the image as a wallpaper.

While you can easily tell that the top bar was reduced by about 50% from the current UI, using my personal N8’s screenshot with the placement of the rocks in the misty waters, you can tell that the bottom bar was also reduced by 50% approximately.

2. Top-Left Bar:
The top-left is reserved for the operator name as denoted in the picture with “Operator” text on the homescreen(s). When accessing the menus, an image on Nokia’s Conversations site shows it replacing the operator name with “Menu” just like the current implementation. My only guess is that the “Menu” wording would get updated to reflect whatever sub-menus you are viewing as is with the current UI. Take for example: “System”, “Tone profiles”, “Themes”, “Phone”, etc.

3. Rest of the Top Bar:
The rest of the bar will display the same uniform set of information in every menu you are situated. The current industry stalwarts such as iOS, Android, and webOS are doing it. From left-to-right, we would be seeing the network connection type (example: Edge/3G/3.5G), phone reception strength, battery life (in the shape of the universal battery icon), and finally, the digital clock. Others like bluetooth and wi-fi icons could all be crammed there making it a very useful information bar. Best part about it is that instead of the current “tap-to-click” top bar, you get a pull-down top bar menu.

4. Bottom-Left Bar:
On the homescreen(s), the bottom-left bar would hold the call button (icon of a phone), but while accessing other menus, it would either be a homescreen or a back button (maybe a left-pointing arrow). Currently, it says “Exit” to get us back to the homescreen and if we were in one of the sub-menus, our option would be “Back” instead.

5. Bottom-Center Bar:
From the picture taken at the MWC, it looks like the multi-desktop (2×2 squares) icon when you are on the homescreen. This would bump the max limit of 3 homescreens to 4. Certainly a huge improvement and this resembles my Mac OS X multi-desktop “Spaces” setup. Either that or it could be the “Menu” button which I’m certainly hoping not. Now when you’re browsing around the menus, this same section will contain 2 buttons: Search (magnifying glass) and the Ovi Store.

6.  Bottom-Right Bar:
This is always going to have the “Options” button denoted by 3 horizontal stripes. The current UI has the “Options” button on the left.

7. Others:
Ever since the introduction of the original iPhone OS, everybody loves rounded icons. This may or may not come with shadows. Then there’s the desktop widgets which look like they’ve been improved (possibly on PR 2.0 update) and they no longer look confined.

Now that I’ve shared my thoughts on the matter, the possibility of the images from the MWC being a photoshop for marketing and/or guidelines for their UI development team is fairly high. What is most certain is that this GUI update if pushed out to users won’t be until late Q3 or Q4 this year and possibly be a listed as a PR 3.0 update. The latest firmware for Nokia N8 handsets at the moment is PR 1.1 so don’t hold your breath.