So long, Symbian Belle. Hello, Nokia Belle
Symbian Belle, the spruced-up operating system available on a host of Nokia handsets, is now called Nokia Belle. No word yet on if "Symbian" is officially out of Nokia's dictionary.
Is it finally time to say good-bye to the Symbian name?
Nokia announced on its blog today that the Symbian Belle operating system it has been touting over the last several months has been renamed Nokia Belle.
"The all new Nokia Belle (previously Symbian Belle) user interface will soon be available for download to some existing smartphones and begin shipping with a selection of smartphones that are already on the market," the company wrote on its blog.
Nokia has been slowly but surely moving away from Symbian. Earlier this year, the company signed an agreement with Microsoft that makes Windows Phone 7 the "principal" operating system in its product line. However, the company has not totally abandoned Symbian, and will likely continue to use it in some capacity.
Whether or not Nokia has decided to rename its Symbian installation to Nokia from here on out, though, is currently unknown; this could simply be a change for the specific software version. Nokia has not immediately responded to CNET's request for confirmation that it will no longer use the Symbian name.
Even though it has a different name, Nokia Belle has all the features previously announced in Symbian Belle, including six available home screens (up from three) and Toggle widgets to more easily complete tasks, like changing profiles.
Symbian Belle shipped with Nokia's 701, 700, and 603 handsets. The Nokia N8, C7, and C6-01 are now shipping to China. In February, Nokia plans to make Belle available to existing owners of the E7, N8, and several other handsets, as a software update.