Nokia’s Response to the iPhone – Nokia Tube

We are currently all waiting for Nokia to tell us more about their new S60 Touch UI. Their new kind of input will unique the great advantages of the S60 user interface and the touch control which has become so popular through the iPhone.

Now they have officially told us about the first device which support the new UI – It’s called “Tube”.

Shown in a slide at the Evans Data Developer Relations Conference in Redwood City, Calif., Tube looks similar to the popular iPhone. The Nokia device showed graphical displays, such as a promotion for the movie Shrek the Third. Other capabilities will be featured, such as the ability to upload photos.

“It’s our first touch device,” said Tom Libretto, vice president of Forum Nokia. Interfacing with the system is done via touch similar to the iPhone. He said the company has not published the planned date of shipment for Tube.

Nokia believes it can compete with iPhone, and during his presentation, Libretto compared volume shipments of iPhone to Nokia’s shipments of phones. Since the launch of iPhone in June, Apple has shipped 5 million to 6 million of the devices, paling in comparison to Nokia’s device shipments, Libretto said. “We’ve done that [volume] since we’ve had dinner on Friday,” he said.

The Tube will support Java, something Apple has been reluctant to do with iPhone.

Well, nice to hear the name of the device and that Nokia is working hardly on a phone with touch control that can compete with the iPhone (should be so hard actually ), but we are still waiting for real information about features of “Tube” which shall be released the third quarter 2008.

Source: Infoworld over Endgadget Mobile