Symbian handsets to start shipping with Anna from July

The Nokia Connection 2011 event is still going on and CEO Stephen Elop just announced on stage that that the existing Symbian ^3 devices will be getting the Symbian Anna update in July.

This includes the N8, C7, C6-01 and E7. All the new devices from July onward will ship with Anna pre-installed and current devices will get it through a software update by the end of August.

Apart from this Nokia has also confirmed that they will be launching 10 new Symbian smartphones over the next 12 months and that they will continue to support the Qt framework, which is the core of Nokia's smartphones, as part of their 'next billion' strategy.

For those unaware, Anna is the first major update to Symbian ^3 operating system. It brings an improved homescreen, redesigned interface icons, portrait QWERTY keypad, a new web browser and improved Ovi Maps.