More Nokia Touchscreens!? What's the Nokia Nautilus?

Apparently there’ll be three slim touch screens coming out from Nokia as early as fall. By Christmas, there maybe an addition to the internet tablet family with a new device musch like the N810, sporting 4.2″ touch screen and hidden slide out keyboard.

[Concept Nokia Phone – I’m loving the screen realty here – no space wated top or bottom]

The most exciting is the codenamed Nautilus. This is a very slim device with sensor activated ultrathin slideout keyboard featuring buttons that rise up for easier typing. According to Pocket-lint, the keyboard maybe extended through gesture based input.

[Captain Nemo’s Nautilus, from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]

In “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”, the Nautilus submarine is a masterpiece of technology, described by Jules Verne to as  “a masterpiece containing masterpieces”.  Is Nokia’s project Nautilus the ultimate convergence device ever to be made by Nokia, containing everything great they’ve been able to put in previous handsets so far?

Or is it just another living fossil of old handsets, with touch piggybacked onto button directed UI?

[Nautilus – living fossil]

Maybe Nautilus is all about Linux? Nautilus file manager/Gnome/Linux?

The latter is most comprehensible as it looks like it won’t be sporting S60, instead having a radically different UI. There’s hints that Nokia is pushing S60 to the mid-range/mass market devices, moving to Linux for the premium Nseries.

Based on Eldar’Murtazin’s blog/podcasts via  unwiredview:

1. Nokia is committing very serious resources to the development of it’s own new Linux platform (originating from Maemo but significantly rewritten and much more advanced). It will be launching the new type of mobile devices/computers/communicators based on it later this year.
2. These Linux based devices will  start the new Nokia high end product line, which will take place of the current N-Series. Nokia S60/Symbian devices will be moving from the top of the line to the mid tier/mass market segment of Nokia inventory.
3. The new Linux platform and devices most likely will be unveiled in late summer/early fall  at a big launch event in Germany

This makes some sense since S60 is amazing for traditional keypad handsets, but suffers in terms of touch. Take the 5800 – it doesn’t feel completely optimised for touch input. Some reviewers and consumers have already wished Nokia to start from scratch for an entirely touch driven UI. Perhaps, through Linux, will we finally a Nokia touch UI optimused for finger gestures/strokes? Or can the N97 show that S60 touch is more than capable?

Tags: Linux, N97, Nautilus, Nokia, Nokia 5800, Nokia N97, Nokia Nautilus, Nseries, S60, Touch, Touch Screen, Ultra thin

Category: 5th Edition, Nokian, Nseries, Rumours