Skyfire sits on your iPad like any other app, but mimics many of the Safari interface elements. In addition to allowing you to watch Flash videos and listen to some Flash audio players, Skyfire adds some really cool social elements to the browser chrome. It does things that the ostensibly Facebook-centric browser RockMelt ought to do. Read on for screenshots and our initial review.

I watched almost a full episode of the Colbert Report right in my browser, with a minimal amount of loading that I had Skyfire perform in the background while I looked at another tab. Video quality wasn't great but it worked well.

Audio Performance

It's nice to be able to listen to the Flash audio player on Hype Machine, but that site's native player's ability to move from one song to another doesn't work in Skyfire. The Yahoo Flash MP3 Player that many music blogs use does not appear in Skyfire. Grooveshark? MySpace music? Nothing. I guess that means it's just Hype Machine that I was able to listen to Flash music on in Skyfire, and not that well there, either. The browser is really intended to support Flash video, not all Flash content.

Biggest bummer: you can't listen to Flash audio in the background using Skyfire, while running other apps. That's a real shame, but I wouldn't be surprised if the company changed that in future updates if at all possible.

Games

Nope. Not on AdictingGames or Kongregate.

Social Features

The best thing about Skyfire may be its social features at the bottom of your browser. They include a pop-up of your Facebook Newsfeed, a mobile Twitter client, a display of just links shared by Facebook contacts, a pop-up of the most recent and popular pages among your Facebook contacts and generally on the site that you're on right now (this is great), a Google Reader pop-up, an instant Facebook "Like" button for every page you browse on and a menu to post a link to all kinds of other services, from Twitter to Instapaper.

That's a whole lot of cool options and they are displayed in a way that isn't intrusive at all. Better yet, you can easily hide all the browser chrome with the full screen browsing button.

Overall Performance

Skyfire loads pages reasonably fast. Its interface is reasonably responsive but with some clear bugs. It's not as fast as Safari, but it does do things that Safari doesn't do. Some of those things are very cool, too, like the Facebook integration.

Hopefully Skyfire will be able to improve the browser's performance in time. If it can do that and incorporate more support for more types of Flash content, like music sites, then it would be a clear winner. Those are tall orders, though.

Hopefully Apple will approve this competing browser on the iPad. It's probably the most full-featured competition the company has seen yet. I've got my fingers crossed. So far, Skyfire for iPad looks like a strong, interesting, enjoyable, if somewhat shaky and incomplete, way to browse the web on the iPad.

Two features we really dig, however, are "Fireplace Feed Reader" and "Popular Content". The first one provides a list of links, images and videos posted by your Facebook friends, meaning all the random status updates and musings are left for later - this is just the meat of your Facebook feed. "Popular Content", on the other hand, looks at whatever page you're on and cross references it with Facebook to see what other pages on that site are popular with Facebook's 500+ million users. Pages shared by your friends float to the top, with the rest of the suggestions listed by overall popularity.

Skyfire's "OneTouch Search" also looks pretty slick, as you can search from the mobile browser and choose to focus that search on Google, Facebook, VideoSurf, Digg, Twitter or Amazon, all from a simple navigation bar.

Now, when we say we wish we had a browser like this for the desktop, you might retort "What about RockMelt?" RockMelt, however, simply added standard Facebook functionality onto the edges of your browser. Skyfire's new functionality sets it apart. There is no quick and apparent way on the Facebook website to just see all the content - the links, videos and images - posted by your friends. There's also no way to navigate to NYTimes.com and see what the most popular stories are, according to your Facebook friends. But now there is - for Android users, at least.

Take a look at the video overview and go get yourself a free copy before time runs out - Skyfire 3.0 is available free for a limited time in the Android Marketplace.

When the company submitted the app in early September, they called it a "test of whether Jobs' 'thoughts on Flash' ban is actually political rather than technical". Today, it looks like the ban has fallen on the side of reason.

According to an article on CNNMoney.com, Skyfire "isn't a standalone application, but rather a tool that works on top of Apple's Safari Web browser. As a result, the company said the app was given a rather rigorous review from Apple."

The app will only work for Flash video and not games, as it works by downloading Flash content to a server and translating it to HTML5, before sending it to the user.

Today, Skyfire will try to break through Apple's Flash blockade with the submission of its mobile browser, which transcodes Flash into HTML5 in real time, to the App Store. And according to its creators, Apple is going to accept it.

This isn't the first time we've expected to see Flash on the iPhone, but aside from a hack for jailbroken phones and a program that uses your home computer as a proxy server, Flash has remained off-limits for Apple's mobile users.

Skyfire operates similarly to Opera Mini for the iPhone, basing its Web-browsing capabilities off of a Webkit browser core shared with Safari and using cloud-computing to transcode Flash into HTML5 in real time. Flash video is translated every three seconds, with video data being compressed by up to 75%.

Skyfire also avoids the concerns raised in Steve Jobs' recent essay regarding Flash on mobile devices. By optimizing Flash for iPhones and network conditions in the Cloud, Skyfire improves performance and maximizes battery life while playing video. The browser also avoids alternate runtime environments and other security vulnerabilities.

Opera may have already broken the non-native browser barrier, but we'll have to wait and see if Skyfire can use this sort of end-around to bring Flash video to Apple's mobile devices while thumbing their nose at Jobs all the while.

In PCMag tests, the Fennec browser was installed on two devices. On each one, the browser had to be launched twice in order for it to run. But upon start up, only the checkerboard pattern displayed, not the expected introductory screen with instructions. By scrolling up and left, you could reach the address bar, but entering in URLs only returned errors. By kick-starting the phone's modem by first launching Opera, it was possible to get the title bar of various web pages to appear - but still no page would display. Other Fennec testers experienced the same issues.

Wrote PCMag.com's columnist Sascha Segan, "If this is a milestone, it's marking a pit stop. Better luck next time, Mozilla folks."

What Happened?

According to Mozilla Mobile team member, Mark Finkle, the problem appears to be memory-related. He notes that Windows Mobile devices have some restrictions around memory use and that's what his team is now trying to work around. However, it sounds like the team still hasn't yet nailed down the exact problem which is causing the bug. On his blog, he writes "when we figure out the true cause...we'll be sure to blog the details." (When?)

Checking in on the bug's status, it's still listed as "Assigned to: Nobody." But we're taking that to mean (we hope) that the entire Fennec team is working on addressing this showstopper of an issue.

Says one commenter on Bugzilla, the problem happens immediately following an allocation failure in gfxImageSurface, but no one else has chimed in to confirm his statement yet.

The Mobile Web: the Next Browser Battleground

Interestingly enough, while Mozilla's attempt at the mobile web was crashing and burning, another mobile browser, Skyfire, was releasing a landmark version of their browser, too. Skyfire version 0.9 for Windows Mobile and Symbian, a browser which already supports Flash 10, Silverlight, and Ajax, introduced a new "social" version of their software on February 12th.

In the latest update, Skyfire offers a Friendfeed-like start portal which delivers news from RSS sources as well as updates from Facebook and Twitter. It's pre-configured with feeds from Digg, ESPN, Google News, Hulu, YouTube and Yahoo! News, but those can be easily customized.

In addition to relative newcomer Skyfire, some of the most popular browsers for the mobile web comes from Opera, whose mobile software is currently installed on millions of devices worldwide. 

Although Skyfire and Opera may not have the brand-name recognition that Mozilla enjoys (well, perhaps Opera does), it's clear that when it comes to mobile web browsers, innovation can happen anywhere, from any company. What dominates on the desktop will not necessarily be what dominates on our mobiles, and for mobile web users, that could be a good thing.

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.

The new funding round takes Skyfire's total raise to date up to $17.8m. Currently in private beta for Windows Mobile, Skyfire will use the funding to expand their  browser to even more people on more platforms. The funding was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, and included previous investors Matrix Partners and Trinity Ventures. The funds will be used towards further rollout and distribution of the mobile browser and will add Jake Seid, Managing Director of Lightspeed, to its Board of Directors.

A Hands-on Look at Skyfire

Skyfire offers users a web experience akin to a PC with fast speeds and support for web technologies that most mobile handsets lacks. With Skyfire you can visit sites such as ReadWriteWeb, Youtube, Last.fm, CNN, and more just like you would on your PC. Skyfire loaded every website I threw at it without a hitch. I was even able to read my feeds in Google Reader and use features such as sharing an item and staring an item just like I would on my PC.

Usability

Navigating Skyfire is easy and intuitive. The homepage features three tabs that puts everything you need at your fingertips such as featured sites and sections, bookmarks, search, and your browsing history. The integrated search bar provides results from Yahoo and Google with links to view images, videos, and maps of your search results. Best of all, switching between each search engine was quick. All of these features were easy to use.

The zoom feature was a breath of fresh air from Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE). When you first head to a site, you'll see a full view of the with the option to zoom in with your keypad. A small cursor box will appear as you move the keypad around. Once you've selected a spot to zoom in on, Skyfire immediately renders a better view of your selection. From this view, you can interact with the page by selecting links, playing videos and more. When moving the mouse to scroll around the page, Skyfire automatically optimizes the other portions of the site for maximum viewing experience. Zooming out to fullview was as simple as pressing my keypad down again.

Audio and Video

Audio and video streams worked flawlessly on the browser. After testing the application against Youtube, I tried a bigger service: Hulu (Hulu coverage). Video playback was a little choppy which was expected. However, the performance far surpassed my expectations of the browser possibly choking and crashing.

Skyfire Supported Technologies

Skyfire is a free downloadable browser that aims to be the Safari of Windows Mobile among other mobile platforms.Right now, the application only supports Windows Mobile 5 and 6 handsets, both touchscreen and non-touchscreen. Skyfire supports web technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, Ajax, QuickTime, Java, Windows Media, and plans to expand with each new release of the application.

One Big Problem

One problem that many users may be concerned with is how Skyfire renders web pages to effectively deliver them to your handset for the best browsing experience. Its proprietary technology is server assisted and moves the heavy work to a server to keep the client's performance high. Essentially, this amounts to your data being stored in the hands of Skyfire. While I've had nothing short of a great experience with Skyfire, I recommend you choose carefully what sites and data you enter into the browser.

What Skyfire Lacks

The biggest drawback I experienced with Skyfire was its limited customization options. There's no way to change what's listed in the 'Featured' tab. We'd appreciate a way to add a list of a user's most visited sites instead of always heading to our bookmarks to grab them. For bookmarks, PIE allows for users to categorize their favorite sites into folders.Skyfire doesn't support this option.

When comparing Skyfire to Opera Mobile there were four things that I could not do with Skyfire:

• Save images


• Copy Text


• Forward A Link


• Import Bookmarks from PIE

While the first three may not be necessary for some, importing bookmarks from PIE should be a top priority for Skyfire.

With the new funding round, Skyfire should now be able to open up its beta a little more. Users that signed up before March 1st can look forward to an invite very soon. If you registered after March 1st you'll have to wait until later this summer. Future plans for the mobile browser also include launching on the Symbian S60 mobile platform. Blackberry and Palm support are not in their immediate future plans. As for the iPhone, they're waiting on a call from Steve. Welcome to the waiting list on that one.