It's been a few days since Opera unwrapped its latest beta browser for mobile phones, and we've had some more time to get acquainted. Opera Mobile 10 beta (download), which runs on certain Symbian Series 60 smartphones, adds some improvements to its password manager and has made a few tweaks under the hood. However, its most significant alterations are in its visual design. Bottom line: We like it, and we like how similar it is to Opera Mini 5 beta, a recent overhaul of the free Opera browser for Java phones.
There are some downsides with the version 10 beta browser that have cropped up--these go beyond the known issues and bugs. Opera's smartphone browser continues to struggle with accurately rendering complex pages. When zooming in on CNET Download.com on the Nokia N97, we saw text and graphics overlap. While Web sites often redirect to a URL optimized for mobile phones, we'd still like to see graphically rich pages rendered more faithfully in Opera Mobile on those that don't have specialized versions.
Its responsiveness was also an issue on the Nokia N97 test phone, but we suspect this has more to do with the device than with Opera. CNET reviewers dinged the Nokia N97 for its choice of an inconsistently responsive resistive touch screen instead of the capacitive touch screen that's found on the iPhone.
Even if you don't have a compatible Nokia, Samsung, or Sony Ericsson phone to test Opera Mobile 10 beta with yourself, you can watch our First Look video to see the new browser beta's features--its new tabs interface shines.
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For months, Mozilla's mobile version of its Firefox browser has been in first alpha, then beta modes on two Maemo-run Nokia Internet Tablets that few possessed. On Friday, Fennec (as it's been code-named) has arrived on a platform that many more testers will be able to sink their fingers into: Windows Mobile 6.
As with Fennec beta 1 for the Nokia N810 and N800, Fennec Alpha 1 for Windows Mobile 6 (download the CAB file) has been tailor-made for the HTC Touch Pro, with an intention to expand to more handsets in future releases. The flashiest feature to expect is support for add-ons. We got a glimpse of them at CTIA, and judging from Mozilla's video tour of Fennec on Windows Mobile, the module is now much more fleshed out. In addition to a list of recommended add-ons is a tab to start searching for more extensions.
The user interface looks identical to that on the Maemo devices, with the Awesome Bar search field front and center, which serves up suggested search terms in addition to showing off your search history. Flick the screen to the left to see bookmarking tools and the add-ons manager in a gutter on the right. Flick to the right to expose the icons that comprise your "tabbed" browsing experience. The rest of the screen is devoted to your Web page.
'Blair Witch'-like still of Fennec's add-ons screen.
(Credit: Mozilla)For the techies, Mozilla built its interface for Fennec Alpha 1 for Windows Mobile using CSS. This will help the app adjust to various screen sizes and resolutions, says Mozilla. The Mountain View, Calif., company also divulged that this Fennec build shares Firefox's memory management library, JeMalloc. This resource-sharing is another indication that Mozilla is striving to create a mobile product as identical to its desktop offering on its back end as is technologically possible.
Since it's in an early testing phase, we expect you'll encounter a long list of bugs and other known issues in Fennec Alpha 1. Delays in panning speeds are one problem Mozilla noted, and clean-ups in JavaScript processing and graphics are high on its list for open-source development. You'll find a few more details and some sound installation instructions here. If you get a chance to try out Fennec Alpha 1 on the HTC Touch Pro, let us know what you think. We'll certainly be keeping our eye out for developments.
While the world rightly awaits Firefox 3.0 with anticipation, it's actually the mobile Firefox browser Fennec that I am looking most forward to seeing. According to the head of Mozilla Europe, we should be seeing Fennec in September, with a beta release later in 2008.
The problem? It won't run on my iPhone:
For the iPhone, Apple's licence can not install software to have an interpreted language. But Firefox includes JavaScript, which makes it legally impossible to carry on the iPhone....For Android, Webkit is integrated into the OS, and only Java applications can run. And Firefox is not written in Java. So that's why [Fennec will not run on Android]. However, in both cases, things may change in future, but it does not depend on Mozilla.
It will be hugely disappointing if Apple forces the world into its Safari browser. I like Safari and used to prefer it (until CNET forced me to use Firefox, much to my belated delight), but I'd prefer to use Firefox on my mobile device, just as I do on my Mac. Long term, Firefox is going to be where the innovation is.
In sum, the news is bittersweet. Mobile Firefox is coming, but it's deployment will be hobbled (for me) by Apple.
Mozilla has shuffled around mobile for several years now, initially with Minimo. Mozilla has finally decided to get into the mobile market in earnest, however, with Fennec.
If Fennec proves to be even a shadow of Firefox's potential, the world will never be the same.
Access to data, sites and applications on the Internet shouldn't be limited by the type of device being used, and Fennec will make that possible, said Mitchell Baker during a keynote speech at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.
"The key to the Internet should be the same. The core is information: What can I get to and what can I do with it?" she said.
Mobile has been fraught with problems since its inception, largely due to corporations carving up their petty niches for profit. With a true, community-developed mobile web platform and entry point, however, we may yet see a rich convergence in mobile, one where a particular mobile device is not an inhibitor to the web, as it has been (giving rise to the need for mobile open-source providers like Volantis).
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