Nokia to get touchy-feely in 2010

It seems my plea to Nokia to start again with their smartphones succeeded in the end.

I am still not a fan of touch screen phones, unlike touch computers which offer a somewhat different feel. However with my previous experience of Nokia touch phones such as the 5800 XpressMusic which was a pleasure to use, if some might say a tad on the simple side, the touch experience could have been made better with a Symbian operating system. The music capacity and quality would kill the iPhone, not the touch capability.

Engadget took the scoop just before the weekend. But with this breakthrough, it surprises me that even Nokia are heading towards the more powerful end of the market with touch technology. It seems the iPhone has set a precedent that any non-touch phone cannot compete with one of its rivals.

Touch capabilities mean less buttons, which means a larger screen. The larger screen means more can be jammed in and better photos are a direct end result. Perhaps with my hatred still for small touch screen devices will be outweighed by the benefits, but for now I'm happy with a clickety-clackity keyboard on my BlackBerry.

I suspect that Nokia will start to take advantage of open-source Maemo - based on a Linux kernel and shell, designed to be flexible and work on mobile devices - and modified to the end of the earth by Nokia. Maybe this will dent Microsoft's venture into providing Office to Nokia users.

Any thoughts, dear readership?