Symbian Anna with NFC to arrive in July

Nokia has now set a date for the release of the Symbian ‘Anna’ operating system update that will switch on the near field communications capabilities in its NFC phones.

Nokia
ANNA: Connecting people with NFC from July

Nokia N8s, E7s, C7s and C6-01s will ship with Symbian Anna from July. By the end of August, anyone who already owns one of these devices will be able to download the Symbian Anna upgrade from their PC or over-the-air from the software updater in the phones.

As well as NFC, Symbian Anna includes a number of other features such as split screen view while typing, a faster web browser, refreshed Ovi Maps and check-in to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or local social networks.

Currently, the Nokia C7/Astound is the only Symbian phone to include the hardware required to support NFC functionality. A second Nokia NFC handset, the N9, which runs the Meego operating system was also announced today, along with NFC-enabled speakers and a music receiver.

Nokia promises up to ten further Symbian-based smartphones will be unveiled over the next 12 months, but there’s no word yet on whether or not they will support NFC.

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