RSSSkyfire 1.0 mobile browser launches today
By Tim Conneally | Published May 27, 2009, 10:07 AM
Since launching in public beta last September, full-featured mobile browser Skyfire has been installed by more than a million North Americans. Today, the official first version has been released, and is available for free on Windows Mobile 5 and 6, and Symbian S60 3rd Edition handsets.
Skyfire has striven to provide a PC-like browsing experience on phones since its earliest stages. All pages are rendered on Skyfire's servers instead of in-phone, and it supports Flash 10, Silverlight 2, Ajax, and JavaScript, making most rich media fully available even on 2G data connections.
In version 1.0, general improvements have been made to the browsing experience, with links available when pages are fully zoomed out, increased startup speed, improved AJAX rendering, and a new network configuration mechanism which assists in connecting to Skyfire's servers.
Like the beta versions of Skyfire, any previous builds must be uninstalled before installing 1.0.
I've been using Skyfire since last October. I've tried every mobile browser I could find, and this one is the best in my opinion. The beta version had a couple of minor issues (Flash played a bit slow) but this new one is fast and every easy to use, especially on a touchscreen phone. I highly recommend it.
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|hmm... is it anywhere close to Opera Mini 4.1?
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|Anyone know what kind of revenue model they will eventually adopt? Given the fact that they utilize servers they are going to have some pretty hefty operating costs. I just hope it's not another monthly subscription fee.
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|Not a good sign. first site I attempted to load took 1 minute and showed a blank page. (msnbc.com) Samsung i760/WM 6.1
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|meh. Rendering was broken/ugly for zooming in on sites I did get to work. Will try again for 2.0 release.
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|grr...plz come out for the iPhone... Too bad even if it does, it may not be able to support Flash...DANG IT
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|Apple won't allow Skyfire on the App Store, since it's a direct competitor to Safari.
EDIT: Also, you might have missed the fact that pages, Flash and all, are rendered on the server, not the device. Flash will work on any device Skyfire can be installed on.
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