The S60 middleware was a multivendor standard for smartphones that supports application development in Java MIDP, C++, Python[2] and Adobe Flash.

[3] S60 consists of a suite of libraries and standard applications, such as telephony, personal information manager (PIM) tools, and Helix-based multimedia players.

It was intended to power fully featured modern phones with large colour screens, which are commonly known as smartphones.

Originally, the most distinguishing feature of S60 phones was that they allowed users to install new applications after purchase.

Unlike a standard desktop platform, however, the built-in apps are rarely upgraded by the vendor beyond bug fixes.

S60 was mainly used by Nokia but they also licensed it to a few other manufacturers, including Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Samsung,[4] Sendo,[5] Siemens Mobile, Sony Ericsson, Solstice and Vertu.

Sony Ericsson notably was the main vendor using the competing UIQ Symbian interface.

This separation of UI from underlying OS created both flexibility and some confusion in the market place.

[12] The software is faster than the previous S60 5th Edition and takes better advantage of hardware capabilities to create a snappier performance.

Carla was expected to be released in late 2012 or early 2013 and feature a new web browser, new widgets, new NFC capabilities and Dolby Surround audio enhancement.