Despite rumours to the contrary, the Symbian mobile phone operating system is alive and well, apparently.

An updated version of the mobile phone platform, Symbian Anna, has just been released. This will run on the Nokia N8 (pictured here), Nokia C7, Nokia E7 and Nokia C6-01 handsets. The update offers some new icons, updated to the web browser, portrait keyboard and various other updates and polishes. The update also adds NFC (Near Field Communication) support for the Nokia N7, better integration to Microsoft Communicator Mobile, and some security tweaks

If you have one of these latest Symbian-powered phones, you can get the Symbian Anna update from the Nokia Ovi Suite, although if your phone has been customised by your network operator (i.e. you’re on a Vodafone-branded Nokia N7), then you may have to wait until the operator-customised version is made available before you can get your hands on Anna’s goodies.

With Android and iPhone dominating the market, the Google/Motorola takeover getting lots of interest, and the Nokia/Microsoft deal being big news for the Finnish manufacturer, it’s easy to forget the once-proud Symbian – Nokia has a commitment to supporting the Symbian environment until at least 2016, and there are apparently another ten Symbian phones in the pipeline. Anna’s younger sister, codenamed ‘Belle’, is also in the works.

Still using a Symbian OS phone? We’d love to know what you think of Symbian these days… Or have you all migrated to Google or Apple?