The Symbian Foundation has taken the wraps off its new open-source Symbian 3 platform.

Symbian 3, marketed as "Symbian^3," has a number of improvements and enhancements in user interface, multimedia, and performance. The Foundation tell us that it will not be ready until the end of the first quarter, and then it will be another four to six months from that point until we see actual devices.

Symbian 3 uses a single-tap interaction model across the user interface, so you'll no longer have to go through multiple steps to complete a simple task. Symbian devices like the Nokia N97 Mini have required a dance of the keyboard and an intimate knowledge of the manual to get anything to work. (On the 5800 and 5530 nothing ever worked, regardless of tapping. sub.ed.) You have multiple home screens with a widget manager to help you customize each panel with information.

A simple swipe gesture will help you navigate between the screens, and multitouch support enables gestures such as pinching to zoom and flicking to scroll. Symbian has bought in one-click connectivity for all software.  It is possible to create global settings for how the phone connects to the Internet for example. Symbian 3 also ensures that the devices will be 4G-ready and has HDMI support, so you can plug your phone into a TV and watch an HD movie at 1080p quality without a Blu-ray player.

With 2D and 3D graphics acceleration, the handsets should be capable of high-performance gaming.