Power outage delays Symbian Anna update for UK customers

Nokia apologises after servers are knocked offline

Nokia has apologised after owners of its Symbian smartphones were unable to download a software update released last week owing to a power failure on the servers hosting the upgrade.

Disgruntled V3 readers had complained of being unable to download the update online or over the air, while others said that it has not worked properly on their device.

"Once again Nokia excels at disappointing their customers. There is no Anna update for UK users, regardless of whether they use Ovi Suite or over-the-air software update methods," said one user called Dawkinski.

Another, called Carl Goss, said: "So the long awaited Symbian Anna for my new N8 doesn't work though does it? Tried updating using Ovi, it crashed, now only wants to update Real Golf Game! Hopeless."

Nokia said in a statement that the Anna update will be available as soon as the company can restore power to the servers that were knocked offline during the incident.

"We want to apologise to Symbian smartphone users. A power failure where a number of our servers were located caused download issues for some users," the firm said.

"Please bear with us - we promise you'll be able to download Symbian Anna again soon."

V3 asked Nokia whether it is aware of complaints that the upgrade had failed on some handsets, but had received no reply at the time of publication.

Handsets eligible for the update include the Nokia N8, C7, C6-01 and E7, and key business features include full meeting request support, hardware-accelerated encryption and secure intranet access for those using IPsec and SSL VPNs.

Symbian Anna incorporates a portrait Qwerty keyboard, a faster browser and enhanced maps. C7 handsets will also have near-field communication technology activated.

Nokia is to continue support for Symbian until 2016, but the platform will take a back seat when the first Windows Phone devices launch at the end of this year.

The delay to the update is yet more bad news for the ailing mobile manufacturer. Nokia reported operating losses of a whopping €487m in July while seeking to turn round its fortunes by backing Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform.