So far, my personal experience with Skyfire has been pretty good. The only hiccups were around launch day when the servers imploded under the insane stress placed upon them by countless hundreds of thousands if not millions of users. So stay tuned iPad users, your day is soon coming…

Source: Skyfire (Twitter)
Via: 9to5Mac

Apparently “soon” means 2 days. Because Skyfire is back — sort of…in limited form. Skyfire CEO took to the company’s blog today to set the record straight, and notify the masses that downloads for Skyfire are re-enabled for certain “batches”, though said batches are first come first serve. The U.S. batch is already live, with more countries to go live in the coming days as resources/bandwidth improve.

Catch the official statement after the jump…

Update on Skyfire for iPhone from CEO

November 05, 2010

The last two days have been quite busy here at Skyfire to say the least. To everyone who wanted to download Skyfire for iPhone, thank you for your patience. We are gratified there is so much interest in the product, and we’re working around the clock to add capacity for more users.

We are going to open batches of downloads for new users over the coming days. The first batch will be in a few minutes on the Apple App Store. It will be first come, first serve.

Due to overwhelming demand, we are taking this approach because Skyfire believes a good user experience should come first, and we would rather have fewer, happier customers, and add new users as we can support them. We will open the first batches to US users only, with additional country support to follow shortly.

Please note that there may be some initial congestion as a flood of new users simultaneously try to use the service, but try again an hour later and things should smooth out.

We expect to open more batches frequently over the coming days. If you do not get a copy today, please follow Skyfire at www.twitter.com/Skyfire or friend our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/GetSkyfire.iPhone, and you will be the first to hear when we open new slots. We’re glad our App has folks so excited.

-Jeff Glueck

Source: Skyfire
Via: Engadget

A quick refresher as to why you should care about Skyfire:

• Play millions of embedded flash videos

• Desktop/Mobile options

• Private Browsing

• …And pure blinding speed

There’s plenty more to like about Skyfire, but you should really experience it for yourself. Pick up Skyfire in the App Store for $2.99 — [iTunes Link]

Update

Well that was quick — Skyfire has officially been pulled from the App Store…by Skyfire. Apparently, they drastically underestimated the wrath tens of million sof iOS users would place on their Flash-to-HTML 5 rendering servers. The short oversight nearly melted their headquarters (just kidding). In all seriousness, Skyfire has said that they are upgrading their systems as fast as possible and that we’ll see Skyfire back up in the App Store at the earliest possible time.

Did you snag it before it was pulled? How’s your experience been so far?

Via: Redmond Pie

For those unfamiliar with Skyfire, it’s a pretty awesome mobile web browser that’s been around on Android for several months now. The way it works is that it helps navigate Flash-heavy websites by stripping said content and then sending it back to Skyfire’s servers to compress and convert to HTML 5 video. From there, it’s back to the handset in a much more mobile-friendly format. In this case, the handset in question is the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Users looking for interactive Flash game compatibility and other non-video Flash-based services are still out of luck. Because of how Skyfire works, such things aren’t possible. But then again, if they were, Apple probably wouldn’t have approved Skyfire in the first place.

Look for SkyFire to go live in the App Store this Thursday (November 4th) at 9am for $2.99.

Source: Skyfire
Via: AppleInsider

The folks behind Skyfire are pleased to announce that an official iOS Skyfire app has been submitted to the App Store. The thing that made Skyfire so great on other platforms such as Android, was the way it handled flash video…or that is, how it didn’t handle it natively. Skyfire works much like Opera Mini — the rendering is done on a Skyfire server, compressed, Flash video converted to HTML 5, and then that compressed information (up to 75%) is sent to the phone. Using Skyfire as your main web browser, should it be approved, could literally give you more mileage on your daily crawl across the internet.

The way it handles Flash should appease Apple whom we all know is absolutely not a fan. The bigger picture, however, is that server-side rendering is a huge benefit for mobile browsers as they have to deal with mobile processors, smaller screens, and shrinking bandwidth woes. For now, it looks like we can be fairly certain Skyfire will be approved. According to the devs, they worked closely with Apple to assure that Skyfire complied with all of iOS’s and Apple’s rules. Though we can’t help but look back at the countless lapses of common sense that Apple has shown us regarding app approvals in the not too distant past. With that said, we are waiting and watching…

Source:
Macnn
MobileCrunch

…..and just like that, Fennec was beaten to the punch.

While Fennec may be the hot stuff in the media’s eye currently with pre-alpha’s jumping around, another contender need not be forgotten — SkyFire. It’s been around for quite some time to Symbian and WinMo users, though today it’s Android’s time to shine.

You may recall a leaked beta of SkyFire for Android surfacing about a week ago that was honestly kind of rough around the edges. The task of getting a public-ready version so soon is quite a surprise and caught me off guard no doubt. I was prepared to wait a solid 1-2 more months to play with SkyFire on Android. Nevertheless, what does SkyFire 2.0 for Android have to offer? Continue on…

• First off, the biggest treat with SkyFire 2.0 is Flash! That elusive technology has been reigned in and designed to turn the countless blue boxes and LEGO-looking icons into actual viewable content. All I can say is it’s not a moment too soon!
  **We must highlight however that it isn’t true flash in the phone’s browser. Instead, when the browser detects Flash video on a page, it engages in the server-side compression and conversion tom foolery to translate that Flash video into a more mobile friendly HTML5. Regardless, videos in the browser. Wo0t!

• Second, a sort of smart search “Explore” feature will allow users to click a single button and have all kinds of content aggregate based on what they’re viewing at that very point in time.

• Third, sharing web content is easy with the one-click share button. The now standard options for sharing content include: Facebook, Twitter, email, and SMS.

• Finally, SkyFire uses cloud-based technology for pre-rendering/crunching down web pages on their end and sending smaller (though still high quality) web pages to your mobile device. Opera Mini is one browser that also operates this way.

Overall it looks very promising. I’ve been playing with SkyFire since last night and am really impressed. The staple feature — sudo-flash — works beautifully and was buttery smooth on my DROID. I also like how easy and quick it is to switch between mobile and desktop version of websites.

The SkyFire team did an awesome job here. It hands down beats the stock Android browser in speed. And personally, I like the layout much better as well. We’ll continue flogging it for the rest of the week and report back later how much we love love/hate it! Stay tuned! Video and press release below.

• Download SkyFire for Android

• SkyFire for Android — Android Market Download

  Press Release

  Skyfire Launches the First Flash Video Enabled Mobile Browser for Android

  The first ‘mobile browser for the Social Media generation’ eliminates broken links from your Facebook stream, tracks Twitter buzz, and makes sharing easy.

  Mountain View, CA – April 29, 2010 – Skyfire, maker of the award-winning web-browser for mobile devices, today launches Skyfire 2.0 for Android, making the mobile internet experience faster, Flash-enabled and fun, with media recommendations and social features. Skyfire is one of the fastest growing mobile browsers in the world, ranking in the top 10 all-time apps in the Nokia Ovi Store and Windows Marketplace.
  Skyfire 2.0 for Android is built upon many of the popular features of Skyfire’s 1.0 browser, and uses cloud computing to give a “booster engine” to mobile phones so they can handle rich media like video. And now, Skyfire 2.0 for Android takes mobile browsing to a new level with the addition of the SkyBarTM, a new toolbar that lets users enjoy millions of videos previously unviewable on mobile, and also discover the latest buzz on any topic they browse.

  What is the SkyBarTM?

  The SkyBar brings the best of the internet to a mobile user’s fingertips, without any additional searching. By activating the SkyBar with a single touch, users are given access to Flash videos on a web page that otherwise would not play, related content recommendations, and easier sharing with their social networks.

  • Video –The “Video” icon enables users to play millions of Flash videos around the web that otherwise do not play on mobile. This unlocks content trapped behind those error messages with question marks and blue Legos. Behind the scenes, videos are translated into a format easier for the phone to play, like html5 video.
  • Related Content – The “Explore” icon brings the most relevant content on the internet to a user’s fingertips based on what they are viewing at the time. The Explore button pulls video, buzz, news, images and other sites from the web based on what is on the current page.
  • Sharing – The “Share” icon lets users share any article or video easily to their friends on Facebook, Twitter, or by email and SMS messaging, adding a comment, and all with a single click.

  The first mobile browser for the social media generation:

  “Skyfire 2.0 was built for the way people use social media and the web today. People are now starting their web experience by scanning their Facebook and Twitter news feeds,” explains Jeff Glueck, CEO of Skyfire. “Our new browser allows you to open those links and view the videos that your friends have shared. To make that work, people need a browser that can handle the full internet.”

  The Power of Cloud Computing:

  Skyfire on Android uses cloud-computing technology to enable this web video; the benefits for consumers include faster and smoother video playback, and extended battery life by offloading more of the work to cloud servers. At the same time, since Skyfire 2.0 is built on a webkit core, users get all the functionality they know on the default Android browser, such as pinch to zoom, copy and paste, find text on the page, open up to eight browser tabs, and more.

  Skyfire is one of the fastest growing downloadable browsers with usage increasing 500% year over year, and currently streaming over 25 million minutes of Flash video every month, more than any other mobile browser worldwide.

  Skyfire 2.0 for Android is available for download worldwide free at bit.ly/skyfireandroid.

  About Skyfire

  Skyfire is the creator of the Skyfire mobile browser, and has a mission to enable the “full internet” including rich media on mobile phones. The browser won the Best Mobile Application-People’s Voice at the 2009 Webby Awards and was named a Top App of 2009 by the New York Times’ Gadgetwise. Skyfire is based in Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. For more information, visit www.skyfire.com, or follow Skyfire on Twitter at twitter.com/skyfire.

  **Update: After a solid 24 hours, I can honestly say this is as good as it gets on Android for now. I did notice that not every Flash video would get converted or recognized correctly. But such instances were few and far between. What I really noticed however was the increased speed over the stock browser and ease of use.

  So far I haven’t witnessed any force closes or any other issues as far as stabilities concerned. I’d say SkyFire did a nice job. How’s everyone else doing?

  

  ]]> http://gadgetsteria.com/2010/04/29/breaking-skyfire-launches-worlds-first-flash-enabled-mobile-browser-for-android/feed/ 6 http://gadgetsteria.com/2010/04/07/skyfire-for-blackberry-put-on-indefinite-hold-browsers/ http://gadgetsteria.com/2010/04/07/skyfire-for-blackberry-put-on-indefinite-hold-browsers/#comments Thu, 08 Apr 2010 02:04:25 +0000 Mike Norris http://gadgetsteria.com/?p=26681

  Being a BlackBerry user is both rewarding and painful. One one hand, you have one of the best platforms for messaging — whatever type it is — and rock solid stability. However, on the other hand you have a platform that let’s face it, in the consumer age is falling behind faster and faster with each passing day. Just look at the BlackBerry browser — it’s a joke. RIM might as well not even include it for consumer oriented BlackBerries because it’s so slow, renders for crap, and is all around terrible. The BlackBerry platform as a whole needs some dramatic revelation.

  And that is precisely why Skyfire for BlackBerry is no more. *Gasps!* Yes, that browser that was shown off a couple months back was quite a looker even in it’s beta stage. It easily beat the pants off the stock BB browser and was promising enough from early previews to even unseat Opera Mini and Bolt. But again, that may not ever be.

  According to the Skyfire team, because of the unrefined and frankly, outdated BlackBerry platform when compared to more modern mobile OS’s such as Android, Windows Phone 7, and the iPhone, the BlackBerry is lacking. The biggest culprit as highlighted by the Skyfire team is the inconsistence, scattered nature of BlackBerry API’s and the downright laughable Java machine that is present.

  With all of this new found time on their hands, what will the Skyfire team do to pass the team? Work on their Android port of course! Good news for Android users, not so much for Berry users. Looks like the only saving grace BlackBerry aficionados have now is waiting for RIM to rollout that webkit-based browser they’ve been so feverishly busy on.

  Any of the aforementioned geeks and/or camps care to weigh in?

  IntoMobile > Skyfire

  ]]> http://gadgetsteria.com/2010/04/07/skyfire-for-blackberry-put-on-indefinite-hold-browsers/feed/ 3 http://gadgetsteria.com/2010/02/11/android-to-gain-another-browser-skyfire/ http://gadgetsteria.com/2010/02/11/android-to-gain-another-browser-skyfire/#comments Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:57:43 +0000 Mike Norris http://gadgetsteria.com/?p=23446 Holla! Whoop whoop! Time to get excited. Skyfire is coming to Android!

  Mobile browsing has steadily gotten better over the last several years with better hardware and software teaming up. Regardless of what OS, processor, or type of display you have, the only thing that truly matters in mobile web browsing is the browser itself. Even today, most phones have pretty craptastic apps installed called “browsers”, with some manufacturers even going as far as to brag about the “HTML” aspect. Even with “HTML”, most standard browsers suck.

  Truth be told, today we have several viable options that are worth a look, or two, or three. There’s the standards such as Mobile Safari on the iPhone and Mobile Chrome on Android, but those are more dependent on the OS. Instead, more “universal” browsers that are actually worth talking about include Opera Mini, Opera Mobile, Fennec, and SkyFire.

  Opera Mini is an amazingly successful mobile browser that spans across hundreds of devices and offers fast speeds in a light footprint. Opera Mobile requires more powerful hardware, but still offers an even fuller featured browsing experience while on the go if not a slightly slower pace. Fennec is the new wonder browser that debuted on the Nokia N900, with plans to move onward to Android in the not too distant future. But the real reason we’re talking about mobile browsers today is Skyfire.

  Skyfire, like Opera Mini users server-side compression technology to compress each and every page you browser before it actually gets to your phone. Doing that removes a solid 60%+ from your actual device’s data stream making your wait times and data usage much less — a very good thing. It’s already been highly talked up in it’s current Windows Mobile dressing for it’s speed, rending accuracy, and overall ease of use. Best of all (to some), it is 100% fully Flash compatible. Good news for Android users, it’s coming home.

  In an announcement today, Skyfire announced that they have acquired Kolbysoft — the company which makes the Android “Steel” browser — in hopes to better develop a new Android browser.

  According to Skyfire’s CEO:

  By adding kolbysoft’s talent to Skyfire, we’ll be able to fuse the best of Skyfire’s famed cloud-computing multimedia capabilities with the Webkit browser movement to create a better hybrid model for Android. Steel has been the most acclaimed browser in the Android Marketplace, adding features atop Webkit. Together, we’ll be able to do so much more.

  Don’t go waiting in any digital line to get early news on Skyfire’s new Android development as they’re still in the early stages. Now with Kolbysoft’s talent in the Android realm however, things should pick up. One last thing worth mentioning before we leave is that the Skyfire Android browser will run atop the WebKit rendering engine already used by the stock Android browser. Some may see this as a sour point. But, if Skyfire can work their magic in conjunction with the server-side compression technology, Skyfire for Android could be even better than Fennec for Android. Well, ok. Maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself there.

  Geeked?

  Gizmodo > Skyfire

  ]]> http://gadgetsteria.com/2010/02/11/android-to-gain-another-browser-skyfire/feed/ 0 http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/12/09/skyfire-upgraded-mobile-web-one-step-closer-to-desktop-parent/ http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/12/09/skyfire-upgraded-mobile-web-one-step-closer-to-desktop-parent/#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:48:11 +0000 Mike Norris http://gadgetsteria.com/?p=18971 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
  • New full screen mode
  • 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

  ]]> http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/12/09/skyfire-upgraded-mobile-web-one-step-closer-to-desktop-parent/feed/ 0 http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/08/11/skyfire-blackberry-browser-back-in-business/ http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/08/11/skyfire-blackberry-browser-back-in-business/#comments Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:16:36 +0000 Mike Norris http://gadgetsteria.com/?p=12502

  Alpha testers of Skyfire’s latest update to the BlackBerry version of the Skyfire browser will be pleased to know that after the little snafu a week or so ago that the alpha is back up and running with the latest alpha 3.5 — 1.0.0.12799. Even before this update, Skyfire was single handedly the best BlackBerry browser out there…even in alpha! Yet with the new update comes even more mouth watering features that will surely sweeten the pot. The new goods include:

  • Inline Text Entry
  • Click-to-call
  • Default Browser setting (finally!)
  • File downloads similar to native BB Browser
  • More improved scrolling
  • Reduced checkerboard instances
  • Alpha limit — automatically limits the amount of users who can connect to the alpha server to prevent a meltdown like last time

  A few issues worth noting revolve around the new inline text entry fields, cookie clearing (as in it doesn’t really clear), and timeouts when downloading large files. Though such things are of course common in alphas.

  All in all it is a rock solid update with the option to set Skyfire as the native browser and download files within Skyfire as the two biggest selling points. How about you? If you’re an alpha tester, what is your favorite addition with the latest release? For the rest of us, what would you still like to see from Skyfire in the coming alphas and betas? Sound off below.

  Source: BGR

  ]]> http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/08/11/skyfire-blackberry-browser-back-in-business/feed/ 0 http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/05/27/skyfire-for-winmosymbian-leaves-beta-blackberry-coming-soon/ http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/05/27/skyfire-for-winmosymbian-leaves-beta-blackberry-coming-soon/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 13:40:04 +0000 Mike Norris http://gadgetsteria.com/?p=9496

  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

  ]]> http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/05/27/skyfire-for-winmosymbian-leaves-beta-blackberry-coming-soon/feed/ 0 http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/05/12/skyfire-alphabeta-2-for-blackberry-spied-in-all-of-its-beauty/ http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/05/12/skyfire-alphabeta-2-for-blackberry-spied-in-all-of-its-beauty/#comments Tue, 12 May 2009 15:29:22 +0000 Mike Norris http://gadgetsteria.com/?p=8508

  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

  ]]> http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/05/12/skyfire-alphabeta-2-for-blackberry-spied-in-all-of-its-beauty/feed/ 1 http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/04/11/skyfire-browser-soon-entering-alpha-for-blackberry/ http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/04/11/skyfire-browser-soon-entering-alpha-for-blackberry/#comments Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:08:56 +0000 Mike Norris http://gadgetsteria.com/?p=6777

  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.

   

  Hello,
  You sent us an email asking about Skyfire for the BlackBerry.  We are looking for early Alpha testers to help us develop Skyfire for BlackBerry. If you like to be the first on the block, and on the bleeding edge (bugs!), please sign up and give us a steady stream of feedback so together we can make browsing on the BlackBerry the best it can be.

  To participate, you will need:

  • BlackBerry Bold, Curve, Pearl or 8830  (Note: we are kick starting the alpha with the Bold)
  • Live in the US
  • Participate under NDA
  • Post your feedback and experience in our User Forum
  • Be capable and willing to install new alpha releases as we publish them

  If you’d like to participate, please send an email to [redacted] and tell us

  • Preferred email address
  • Cellular carrier
  • BlackBerry model
  • BlackBerry phone number (to send you links to download)

  We’ll send you the NDA and details about the program.

  Thanks,

  Skyfire Support  

   

  Source: Boy Genius

  ]]> http://gadgetsteria.com/2009/04/11/skyfire-browser-soon-entering-alpha-for-blackberry/feed/ 0