S60 5th Edition introduces a set of new features. In addition, the Nokia N97 SDK introduces new APIs and features that only function in the Nokia N97.
S60 5th Edition introduces a new user interaction model supporting Touch UI, tactile feedback, and a sensor framework allowing for the inclusion of accelerometers, magnetometers, and tap sensors.
In Touch UI, the device screen is sensitive to the user's finger and the device stylus, which replace the physical keys of the device as the main navigation and software manipulation methods. This kind of UI enables a variety of design possibilities that are impractical in traditional keypad-based mobile applications.
To support touch interaction, S60 5th Edition delivers on-screen ITU-T and full QWERTY keyboards, as well as handwriting-recognition input.
S60 5th Edition also introduces support for the nHD display resolution (640 x 360 pixels).
The use of resistive touch screen with a high resolution enables both finger touch and detailed stylus control. The UI components provided by the S60 platform fully support touch.
While the new interaction model brings new considerations for application design, you can still build on your previous S60 experience. For more information, see Porting applications to S60 5th Edition devices.
In addition to the standard C library support in Open C , providing access to standard POSIX and middleware C libraries, S60 5th Edition introduces support for Open C++.
S60 5th Edition provides the Open C++ APIs (Standard Template Library (STL) and the IOstream and Boost libraries) as part of the platform. This removes the requirement to include the Open C++ .sis file in the installation package of any application using these standard C++ APIs.
S60 5th Edition is built on Symbian OS v9.4. This upgrade of the underlying OS provides improvements to demand paging so that this feature is used for all items in a device’s internal memory. This offers faster device boot-up and application startup times, and reduces the likelihood of out-of-memory situations.
New Gallery UI makes it easier to handle image and video content in the device. It can be also used as a starting point for viewing of images and videos. Images and videos can be also edited directly in the device.
Improved media consumption experience with better interoperability with the media management environment in a personal computer.
A unified approach for handling OMA DRM and Windows DRM content makes media application creation easier and keeps the design more consistent.
Selected devices may also provide support for Windows Media (WM) DRM 10, WM Audio 9, and WM Video 9 codecs.
S60 5th Edition improves Flash Lite support with the inclusion of Flash Lite 3.0. For more information on using Flash on the S60 platform, see the Flash Lite Developer's Library on Forum Nokia.
S60 5th Edition supports Web Runtime (WRT). WRT brings the power and convenience of widgets to mobile devices. Widgets are lightweight Web applications developed using standard Web technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and AJAX. Mobile widgets give mobile device users a full Web experience with instant access to the most essential Web 2.0 services and Internet content.
Existing Web based tools can be used to design and implement WRT widgets. The S60 5th Edition SDK supports the WRT environment and networking functionality for developing and testing widgets in the emulator.
In addition, WRT has been integrated with the S60 Platform services through Service APIs. This means that widgets can access device features and information through new JavaScript extensions.
For further information on WRT and the service APIs, please see the Web Developer's Library on Forum Nokia.
S60 5th Edition contains new C++ APIs.