In a development that makes clear the revolutionary impact of Apple's iPhone, a start-up company unveiled at the DEMO 08 conference a new mobile Web browser that may bring iPhone-like browsing to phones running Windows Mobile 5 and 6.
Skyfire, currently in private beta, makes mobile browing "just like" using the Web on a PC, the company said, even if sites are built with Flash, Ajax or Java technologies. What's more, the company said, smartphone browsing isn't any slower than browsing on a computer.
And just like on the iPhone, users can watch YouTube movies, interact with social networks and listen to streaming music, the company added.
'Real Web' Support
"For too long consumers have been promised the 'real Web' on their phone, only to be disappointed by slow rendering, error messages, no Flash support, watered-down WAP pages or second-rate mobile versions of their favorite site," Skyfire CEO Nitin Bhandari said. He added that Skyfire eliminates all those frustrations "at a speed not seen before." The Skyfire browser, he said, will "fundamentally change" how people use smartphones.
Chris Shipley, executive producer of DEMO, called Skyfire a "simple and elegant" product that addresses "one of the biggest pain points in the mobile experience today."
Skyfire's ability to let smartphones handle video could be a milestone in the growth of rich media on the mobile platform, currently at only 18 percent, said Seamus McAteer, senior analyst for M:Metrics. "Technologies that improve the user experience of mobile applications will bolster the adoption of mobile media as it becomes increasingly mainstream," he said.
iPhone-Like Browsing on 3G
Apple developed a special version of its Safari browser for the iPhone. While major handset makers like have rushed out iPhone copycats with touch screens and MP3 players, they have so far failed to match the iPhone's seamless Web browsing.
Coupled with a data plan from AT&T, Apple's exclusive carrier partner, iPhone buyers can browse the same Web sites they view on computers, not dumbed-down versions tweaked for mobile browsing with such technologies as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).
But one of the major gripes of iPhone owners is that they are locked in to AT&T's poky Edge network. Buyers of Windows Mobile smartphones, on the other hand, can use the carrier of their choice, and many of those phones work on speedy 3G networks.
Protocol is Key
How does Skyfire do it? In press interviews, Bhandari said Skyfire spent the past 18 months developing an efficient protocol that Skyfire servers transcode every web page into. By having the servers recode the pages into a format the phones can handle, users experience fast, rich Web browsing.
"The delay added by the server is actually such a small percentage of the time we're actually saving ... that it's actually a huge benefit in the end-user experience," Bhandari said.
Skyfire plans to release a version for Nokia's Symbian platform within several months and support for other platforms is in the works. Bhandari said the company may develop versions for Google's Android platform and the iPhone as software development kits become available. As always, search and advertising are potential revenue models.
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