Say Goodbye to Symbian on Nokia N-Series Phones

From DailyTech: In what appears to be somewhat of a turnaround for Nokia, the world's No. 1 mobile phone manufacturer announced that it is scrapping its ubiquitous Symbian OS on all future N-series models. Instead, its flagship phones will run MeeGo, a combination of two Linux-based platforms: Nokia's Maemo and Intel's Moblin.

The forthcoming N8 will be the last N-series phone to run Symbian, though the OS will still be featured on Nokia's feature phones and lower-end devices, according to CNET.

"The confirmation that MeeGo will be used for the next flagship N-series device shows Nokia is betting the ranch on this platform to beat high-end rivals such as Apple's iPhone," a researcher at British consultancy CCS Insight told Reuters.

The spiking of Symbian looks like an admission from Nokia of the operating system's failure to compete against the increasingly popular Android OS and Apple's iOS, which are both geared towards customization and additional applications for a user experience more akin to a personal computer. Symbian, on the other hand, was first-and-foremost a mobile phone OS. Like Android and Palm's webOS, MeeGo follows the growing trend of Linux-based smartphone software.

Announced by Intel and Nokia in February, MeeGo is set to power a number of consumer electronics, from netbooks and tablets, to smartphones and connected TVs. An early version of MeeGo for Netbooks was released last month.

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