tag:,2009:/1/tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.11987- 2009-10-30T13:31:28Z Comments for Mobile Browser Skyfire Releases New Features Movable Type 4.23-en tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.11987 2008-09-24T17:00:00Z 2008-09-24T22:52:44Z Mobile Browser Skyfire Releases New Features With all the hype surrounding the iPhone and Google Android, users may have forgotten about one of the best mobile browsers available for Windows Mobile and Symbian owners. We're talking about Skyfire, the award winning mobile browser that we can't get enough of! Skyfire gives mobile users one of the best web browsing experiences... Corvida With all the hype surrounding the iPhone and Google Android, users may have forgotten about one of the best mobile browsers available for Windows Mobile and Symbian owners. We're talking about Skyfire, the award winning mobile browser that we can't get enough of! Skyfire gives mobile users one of the best web browsing experiences to-date. It's also one of our picks for must have windows mobile applications. Today, Skyfire users can get a great update that breathes new life into this mobile browser. Here's a look at what's new with Skyfire.

]]> What's New

If you've been waiting a lifetime to get off Skyfire's waiting list, you don't have to wait any longer. With the release of version 0.8 of Skyfire, the application is now available to all Windows Mobile users with compatible devices. So what's new with the app itself?

  • New Super Bar that combines search and URL entry into one bar
  • Skyfire can now be set as the default browser
  • New search bar on the Homescreen
  • New start page redesign
  • Faster start-up and page loading times
  • Share a link via SMS
  • Invite friends to download Skyfire via SMS
  • Save an image
  • Download files

One of the most popular capabilities that Skyfire has over Safari on the iPhone is the ability to play flash videos. This means you can browse popular video sites such as Youtube and Vimeo, or music sites such as Last.FM and Imeem, to play media clips on the go. Playback speed and quality has noticeably improved in the latest Skyfire update. With videos, the mobile browser's playback quality would suffer significantly when zooming into a video while it was playing. In our tests of the latest update, this bug seems to have been fixed and playback quality stayed the same when zooming in and out.

What we think will be a really popular new feature is Skyfire's ability to download files. You may be thinking that you can't download anything outside of a Word or PDF file. Well, you're wrong. We were able to download .mp3 files, Gmail attachments, .CAB files and more to our Windows Mobile handset. Skyfire lets you choose where to save a file and presents you with a progress view of your download. However, you won't be able to do anything else while the file is downloading.

Two Big Problems

We encountered a major bug that we feel users of Skyfire should be aware of. Before the update, if Skyfire lost service we would simply have to quit the application and restart it. In this update, Skyfire attempts to reconnect instead of dropping the connection completely. However, we never got the browser to reconnect. Instead, a continuous loop of reconnection attempts occured and we eventually had to exit the browser and restart it.

Another big problem with Skyfire is that there is still no option to import your Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) bookmarks. We deemed this to be a high-priority feature in our initial review of Skyfire. For new users, this will be very important and could be a deal breaker for those who live in their mobile browsers and have one too many bookmarks.

Even Better Than Before

Skyfire users will not be disappointed with the latest update. In fact, we feel the small changes that have been made will make the browsing experience with Skyfire even better! Symbian users can expect an update very soon, though Blackberry and Palm devices still aren't supported by Skyfire.

]]> tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.11987-comment:111929 Comment from josh 909 on 2008-09-25 josh 909 http://www.electricfirefly.com.au any news on when skyfire is planned to be made available to people outside the US?

anyone?

]]> 2008-09-25T21:48:16Z tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.11987-comment:111949 Comment from Rich Applications Consulting on 2008-09-25 Rich Applications Consulting http://www.richappsconsulting.com/ Great Overview. The version 8.0 offers some really cool features. It is a great application for Windows Mobile users.

]]> 2008-09-26T04:18:00Z tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.11987-comment:112432 Comment from tim2d2 on 2008-10-01 tim2d2 please help the german community !!!
it is not possible to download on a german cellphone cause the number had to be a +1-xxxx - No. :-(
If the response of the download-request is a legibly link, please send it to tannenhof@imail.de
THANKS !!!

]]> 2008-10-01T07:15:59Z tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.11987-comment:113209 Comment from Jérémie on 2008-10-08 Jérémie This browser is a real pleasure to use :)

I live in France, but i can use it with a WLAN connection.
I hope a release will be available soon to use the French phone network.

The most important point for me is that we can use deezer.
So you have a real good radio every where :)

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