I am a Windows Mobile user, one of the few in this lovely world of tech. What can I say? Money is tight. Anyways, when Skyfire was released I was pretty excited. I will be honest, I felt a little left out when the iPhone and Android phones were released. Real mobile browsing seems to be a near requirement if you want to be cool now a days and I was still stuck with mobile IE. A pitiful mobile browser at best.
I downloaded Skyfire and it was honestly worse than using mobile IE because it was so damn slow. But the potential was there and I kept Skyfire around, mainly to feel cool like all the other nerds out there. After a numerous amount of updates the program steadily got better but was still not usable as of yet. Well Skyfire 1.0 has made it usable, but still not that great. Copy and pasted directly from the email I recieved here are the list of updated/added features.
- Thumbnail interaction. Click on links immediately after the page loads without having to zoom in. This is especially helpful for high resolution phones, and for familiar sites where you know right away where you want to click. It makes getting to the content you want on the page simpler, quicker and more efficient.
- Improved zoom. Double-tap or double-click to zoom over any element, including links, images or videos. The zoom interaction is smoother and more responsive as well. Best of all: when you zoom in you will get readable text instantly.
- Enhanced navigation. When you navigate back or forward, you return to the last viewport (e.g. zoom level and portion of the page). Thus eliminating the need to pan and zoom into the section you were viewing on the previous page. We remember even the viewport when you select a page from your history. We have also added shortcut keys, (9) for forward and (7) for backward navigation.
- Improved page handling. AJAX-intensive sites such as Facebook and Gmail work smoothly. If larger parts of the page get updated then the client will more quickly and accurately reflect this.
- iFrame handling. We have a solution for full-width iFrames in Skyfire
- Fast start. Put Skyfire to work before the start page is even loaded . Now, you can type a search or URL in the Superbar while Skyfire is connecting in the background.. Plus, we’ve improved connection performance.
- Reconnect to last state. Leave Skyfire in the background Skyfire will disconnect to preserve battery life. Once you come back to it (after minutes, hours, days) it will reload the same page to the same zoom level and focus. Thus you can continue right where you left off. When you exit and start again, Skyfire you will always land on the start page.
- Connection helper. Skyfire provides suggestions when a network connection cannot be established. If it’s due to a network configuration (common in GSM land), then we provide suggestions to help out. This is especially useful if you are with a carrier/data plan that places restrictions on certain APN configurations, which interferes with Skyfire.
- Enhanced search results. Google results now include video, news articles, local results all blended on a single results page and ordered by relevance. Vertical search categories are still available.
- Improved RSS feed search. Find your favorite custom RSS feeds through the improved Add-Feed feature, found under the Customize menu on the start page. Search by site domain, feed URL, or even topical keywords.
- Easier sharing of RSS items from start page. We’ve exposed a simple “Share this article” link below each RSS story displayed on your start page to make it easier to share interesting items to Twitter and Facebook
- Remember last connection (Symbian only). Skyfire can now remember the last connection for you, so you will not have to choose a connection every single time. In addition if you want to change the connection type while you are in Skyfire you can do so.
First thing is first, yes, Skyfire is MUCH faster and actually boots in a relative amount of time that I am now willing to set it to my default browser. The zoom is also much better, before the zoom was sporadic and limited. Now I have more control and the zoomed on page renders much faster. Also, Skyfire stays true to their word about AJAX intensive apps working better. I was able to get on Gmail in a snap. Still, Skyfire still has issues.
Trying to watch a Hulu video on Skyfire via my Windows Mobile phone crashed Skyfire twice. This resulted in a whole reboot of my phone, an agonizing process for Windows Mobile. Second, iFrame handling was sporadically working and caused Skyfire to crash one time. Not all that enjoyable. Third, while AJAX based pages worked a lot better, Myspace crippled Skyfire. It was running slower than molasses and it eventually just froze on me.
These issues need to be worked out, I am now comfortable with using Skyfire for regular web pages, but for more AJAX heavy pages there still needs to be a little work. All in all though, great update and while it isn’t all that great the potential notch just went up a bit for me.
