Archive for: mobile browsers
- December 9, 2009 12:48 pm
Being on the mobile web just a few short years ago meant navigating extremely rudimentary WAP web pages and dealing with painfully slow load times. That is if you could even get a site to properly/completely load on your device. Thankfully technology doesn’t sit still and in fact runs a breakneck speed. In today’s world, we have browsers such as Mobile Safari, Mobile Chrome, SkyFire, and Opera mini to name a few. While all of the mobile browsers listed (and several unlisted) are all good in most forms, SkyFire is the contender taking the cake today. You see, that little browser that could was upgraded with a new set of numbers and freshened up feature set today. The enhancements aren’t minor ones either but are actually fairly worthwhile.
The newest SkyFire brings many features to the table such as:
- Sleeker, more finger friendly UI
- Crisper text & smoother scrolling
- Full support for higher resolution screens. Now natively supporting VGA and wVGA displays
What do you think? Worth your time? Let me remind all of you that besides the newly released features, SkyFire is the only (free) mobile browser that supports both Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. Now, personal mileage will vary as some lesser powered phones may have a few performance issues when encountering flash/silverlight content. But I surely can’t argue with the fact that something is better than nothing.
If I were you and had a device that was able to take advantage of SkyFire, I wouldn’t hesitate even for a second. Pick up your copy of SkyFire here and get ready to question yourself as to how you ever scoured the digital web without it…
TechCrunch
- November 6, 2009 10:43 am
Those enough who either don’t want a higher end smartphone or simply can’t afford one know that on your mid to lower-end devices web browsing is a chore. Pages render like crap, it takes forever to open a simple link, etc. Many phones as of late are capable of running some form or another of the Opera browser whether it be the free, almost universal Opera Mini to the more desktop-like Opera Mobile variant. Either way, Opera while not quite the reckoning force it would like to be in the desktop arena is certainly a large force in the mobile sphere.
The iPhone already has an amazing browser with Mobile Safari. But does that mean someone else couldn’t come along and do better? Without a doubt, no. If you haven’t gathered yet, I’m leading to a potential release of Opera on the iPhone platform — if Apple loosens the restrictions that is. Jon von Tetzchner, Opera’s CEO has come forward and announced that his company has already developed a fully working iPhone version of Opera. What isn’t immediately clear however is how this browser works. Is it more like a server side browser which pre-renders and crunches pages like Opera Mini? Or is it a more robust offering akin to the higher-end Opera Mobile? An Opera Mini-esque version would speed up iPhone browsing even more while greatly reducing load on the carriers’ networks. (AT&T turns and takes notice). Meanwhile, a version based off of Opera Mobile would I assume bring many enhancements and functionality that currently lacks in Mobile Safari. I wouldn’t rule out a touched up UI either. So how soon can we expect this?
Don’t get too excited yet folks. Apple’s SDK strictly prohibits any apps from duplicating the functionality of native iPhone apps which means any full, third party browser hasn’t the slightest chance of making it through the ban hammer that is the App Store approval process. When questioned as to if Opera has reached out to Apple, Mr. Tetzchner said that “at the time” (eluding to earlier this past year) the company had not attempted to contact Apple. Have they contacted Apple or even attempted to in the last few weeks or months? That’s anybodies guess. For now, the Opera team is sitting on this fully capable and most likely awesome browser that sadly won’t see the light of day anytime soon — if ever. Still, if Apple does ever open up in that sense, Opera will be right there ready and waiting.
Electric Pig > The Register
With the demand for mobile internet quickly growing and manufacturers rushing to keep up, the line between the traditional “smartphone”, “featurephone”, and “dumbphone” are quickly becoming obscure. It was only a couple years ago that a top of the line smartphone was the only way to enjoy WAP web pages and now, a few short years later we have HTML browsers cropping up all over the mobile device price range. But it’s about to get even better. AT&T has just released a generous selection of feature phones that…feature a fully capable HTML web browser based on the widely known and uber popular Opera mini web browser.
The new att.net web browser as it is renamed on AT&T’s devices features a unique three window approach. The three windows are broken down as such:
- The first page consists of a “homescreen” where users can enter bookmarks, configure settings, and enter the URL’s that they wish to visit.
- Page two is all about local information. Everything from restaurants and ATM’s to bars and gas stations, to maps and driving directions, this page is your local search mecca.
- Finally, the third and final page dishes up more global information such as the days top headlines, entertainment news, as well a buffet of other types of news from big name sites.
To date, this is certainly Opera’s largest carrier deal, solidifying there place in the mobile market. In my previous experiences with Opera mini on BlackBerry, (also taking into account the recent release of Opera mini 5 beta), users of AT&T’s new featurephones should definitely be pleased with their mobile internet experiences. If you have one of the new phones with the new att.net browser, send in a few pics to share with the rest of us.
IntoMobile
- September 16, 2009 5:42 am
Ladies and Gentlemen: Start your downloadin’. Mobile users longing for a more enjoyable browsing experience will have a reason to take up gymnastics this fine Wednesday morning with the news that Opera Mini 5 beta is out and ready for your consumption. Building upon the already amazing predecessors, OM 5 adds several key features such as:
- Quicker, more intuitive UI and navigation
- *Skins and Opera Link coming in future 5.x builds*
While all of the features they listed are very welcome additions, the added support for tabbed browsing finally makes Opera Mini a legitimate contender and option in the mobile browser marketplace. Not to mention, with the vast array of devices that Opera Mini supports, it appears that people far and wide will soon be experiencing the web with even greater ease. +1 Opera.
Source: Gizmodo
- September 14, 2009 3:07 pm
Packin’ a mobile device that either doesn’t have a browser that’s up to snuff or simply prefer the processing power and light load of Opera Mini? Good news…perhaps. A new teaser on Opera Mini’s site shows the simple tagline: “The Next Generation in Mobile Browsing”. What will it bring to the hot mobile browsing front? Will it decimate all other competitors? We’ll just have to wait a little longer as all of that information is relegated to “coming soon” status. See, it may not be the greatest news you were hoping for. Now you know something is coming but don’t know what and have to wait. The things we go through in life…
Source: Ubergizmo
The mobile web is chock full of explosive growth both from users and well as content publishers, advitisers, and so on. Navigating this vast environment until a few short years ago was archaic and painful at best. Thankfully, as technology has progressed, so has our ability to navigate that oh so loved environment. For Windows Mobile and Symbian users, Skyfire has finally let go of that pesky beta tag and is now a full fledged product ready and waiting for you to try it out. Gizmodo got some hands on time and loves the finished product. News regarding Skyfire’s Blackberry project was claimed to be “in planning.” However, we all know it is already in the works and coming as various screenshots of the Blackberry version in alpha stage have been running around. It’s worth noting that even in alpha stage, Skyfire for Blackberry has been dubbed “best Blackberry browser ever” – no small claim indeed. WinMo and Symbian users, enjoy your new found mobile browsing love. Blackberry users, hang tight, the wait is almost over.
Source: Gizmodo
Mobile browser competition has been heating up in recent months. With fierce competition between mobile safari, Android’s mobile chrome (more or less), Opera mini, Bolt, and Skyfire, we consumers definitely have some choices and some testing to do. As you can see from the screenshot above, the latest SkyFire alpha/beta(?) 2 build for Blackberry that has been released to testers looks awesome. If you recall, flash support is one of the many things coming along for the SkyFire ride – the holy grail of mobile internet usage. So, for the time being we’ll have to sit back and drool over simple pictures until we can get our hands on a public beta to put through the paces ourselves.
Source: Crackberry
As anyone who uses the mobile internet heavily on a Blackberry knows, even the browser in the latest 4.6 and 4.7 OS’s are less than perfect…by far. They’re slow, render like crap, and don’t support many things such as flash and silverlight just to name a couple. That is now old news as various Blackberry users have begun receiving emails asking if they would like to be in the Skyfire alpha team. I wish I still had a functioning Blackberry as I would definitely been into this. However I will have to make do with pictures from other oh so lucky individuals as I drool on my keyboard. At first, the alpha is only for Blackberry Bold users however will soon after open up to Curve, 8800, and Pearl users. Sorry guys, it looks as if the Storm isn’t going to be supported for the alpha at this time. I’m sure it will open up to the Storm at some point though. A copy of the email from Skyfire is inside.
The “mobile browser war” seems to in for a year of fierce competition. With Mobile Safari so far dominating mobile web use, the other mobile OS developers aren’t sitting down. Opera Mobile, Opera mini, Mozilla’s Mobile Firefox (Fennec), and Bitstream’s BOLT browser are all competing for you love and attention. In a press release to more or less gloat (hey with numbers like those above I would too) about their success in the last month. What kind of success? How about over 300,00 users who collectively visited over 15 million pages! That is a huge amount of traffic in just one month! So mobile web users have you used BOLT yet? Likes/Dislikes? Let us know! If you haven’t downloaded the Bolt browser yet you can get a copy right here. Hopefully BOLT keeps up the momentum as it is a very promising browser.
Source: Into Mobile
