Nokia Introduces Web Widgets for S60

Nokia S60 Widget

Today Nokia announced the addition of Widgets and Web Run-Time to its S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 smartphone platform. Widgets are lightweight applications built on common web standards like CSS, Javascript, and AJAX. Web Run-Time is the platform that these applications will run on in the S60 environment. It is based on the same core technologies as Nokia's wildly popular S60 web browser.

Widgets will allow S60 users to keep up to date in real time with their favorite Internet sites and data sources. For example, the WeatherBug widget, shown above, tracks weather in the user's area, while a Reuters widget might keep a list of current headlines at the user's fingertips. In the future, widgets will also be able to interact with the core S60 applications, such as the contacts and calendar.

The Web Run-Time and Widget tools and documentation will be available to developers starting in Q3 of this year. We should start seeing S60 3rd Edition FP2 handset coming onto market in Q1 of next year.