Skyfire goes to U.K. and VGA

Just on December 9th yesterday, Skyfire has officially announced Skyfire 0.8.5 Beta for Windows Mobile and Symbian users in U.K.

The one of the best mobile web browsers in the market today, by the way Skyfire is free just in case you haven't ever heard about it till now, and specially for U.K. users can see the customized the Skyfire start pages which includes U.K. most popular websites like the BBC, Bebo, gumtree.com, and Skysports.com.

The newest version of Skyfire Beta 0.8.5 supports VGA and WM 6.1 for Windows Mobile. Skyfire runs on more phones, including VGA. This means that Skyfire now runs on popular new Windows Mobile phones such as the Palm Treo Pro, Palm 800W, HTC Touch Pro, HTC Touch Diamond, HTC/AT&T Fuze.

Not to be forgotten, Skyfire also supports Nokia N and E series handsets. Now Nokia Symbian S60 (3rd edition) users have the new Skyfire features and improvements such as the SuperBar, video sharing, faster connectivity and more, all which were previously available for Windows Mobile users in the Skyfire Beta 0.8 version.

Back in September, Skyifre has opened up its beta version. Consumers in the U.S., Canada and U.K. can just point their existing mobile browsers to "http://get.skyfire.com/", and Skyfire detects the device and provides the installer automatically on their phone. From a PC browser, you go to "get.skyfire.com" to send the download to your phone or sideload via your PC. Once installed, you can create an optional Skyfire account to keep your bookmarks and history when you change phones.

Skyfire for Symbian gets less attention?

When the news about Skyfire is now available for Symbian platform broke out about a week ago, I thought that somebody at PalmAddict will post the news up, but it went by silently. And even Skyfire posted up the news in their website nearly a week after a Symbian users website posted it.

What does this mean? Does the Symbian platform is not as interesting as other more popular platforms like Windows Mobile, Mac OS X Mobile (iPhone), Palm OS, etc.?

But that doesn't make any sense, with Nokia as the major adopter of Symbian platform, Symbian is practically one of the most used mobile platform in the whole world. With the enthusiasm from PalmAddict's readers that have been posted by Sammy ever since Skyfire first released, I thought when Skyfire made available of its private beta for Symbian S60, many will talk about it.

On the contrary, I found it the other way around. Yes of course, the Symbian users websites and forums are swarmed with the beta testers' opinion & reviews. But on other non-Symbian users sites or weblogs that I've visited, I don't see any mentioning of the new popular web browser that runs on Symbian phones.

At first, I thought maybe that's because the Skyfire web browser for Symbian is not that different from the one that's designated for other platforms. In fact, it's sharing the same v0.6 beta number with the one for Windows Mobile. So maybe that's why there isn't much to talk about anymore... But upon deeper examination, I see another factor that might be the reason for the silent exposure:

Skyfire is an alternate mobile web browser, a second choice from the already embedded mobile browser of your mobile phones. It's like Firefox in desktop, where you usually install and use it seperately. So for Symbian-based mobile phone owners, like Nokia, Skyfire is an alternative choice from the Opera web browsers (Opera Mobile & Mini). Which Opera is the most dominating mobile web browser in Europe & Asia, where Nokia's influence is more widespread there.

Can Skyfire manage a strong foot-hold in the Symbian platform land? With the free beta version, Skyfire is gaining fast popularity, but what if the final version is a pay per license web browser like Opera Mobile 8.65? Even Opera is seeing Skyfire's free beta tactic as a threat, and so far the Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta is also offered free.

No words yet from Skyfire about the future release after this beta version, all we know for sure is that Skyfire still has a long way to go until the final version (v1.0) reached. Like what Tracy Demiroz (Skyfire's Marketing - VSC Consulting) has mentioned in a quick interview with me, in my previous post here at PalmAddict.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]

Special delivery: Q&A on Skyfire

As y'all know, Skyfire has updated its Beta build v0.5 and v0.55 that have expired last May 7th; the new Beta build v0.6 is available now for elligible Beta participants. The news about the new Skyfire web browser was all over the net, at first I was going to write about it too. But I had to postpone it, since I've been waiting for the response from Skyfire. So after I received the answers today, I'm gonna deliver the whole package for you now.

After many input from the Beta users, Skyfire listens and has done its homework. Unlike the first Skyfire release that I mentioned here at PA, the new Beta build v0.6 has more updates such as:

• Multi-line text entry (2,000 character limit)
• Auto-complete text entry
• Paste into URL or search
• Ability to delete bookmarks
• Multiple zoom modes for touch screen phones
• Double tap to Zoom In and Zoom Out
• Support for custom virtual keyboards (SIP)
• Web search shortcut in softkey menu
• Access to the Windows Mobile Taskbar in softkey menu
• Persistent settings for SmartFit, Mute and Zoom size
• Support for 12-key and ½ QWERTY devices
• Password masking
• Backlight usage based on system settings
• OK button sends Skyfire to the background

For the rest of informations regarding the new v0.6, you can find them at Skyfire's FAQ web page. It's a pity I can't test Skyfire myself since I don't live at the US, but according to Jessica Dolcourt (Webware) there are two significant new features that distinguish this new version. First is the zooming features, "double-tapping and -clicking will now zoom the screen in and out (in addition to using the Back key.) Touch-screen users can also achieve variable levels of granularity by clicking and dragging to resize the zoom box." Second is about the text entry, "Newly added support for predictive text will make inputting text faster and less nerve-wracking, too."

And as always, Beta build has bugs and errors. Skyfire has mentioned in its FAQ web page, that the technical team is working hard to resolve the issue with Yahoo TV & Music. But that's not all, according to one of user's comment at MyTodayScreen; Skyfire also has trouble with Rhapsody. Hopefully Skyfire will address these issues in the next release, it still has a long way to be the best mobile web browser.

And now, I'm just going to lay down and bare them all for you the Q&A between me and Tracy Demiroz (Skyfire's Marketing - VSC Consulting):

• When will other subscribers outside the US be available for the Beta program? -- Right now, our private beta efforts are here in the US. We released Skyfire for Window Mobile in the US, and next we'll begin our Symbian S60 private beta in the US. Later this year, we will announce our plans to make Skyfire available outside the US.
• What are the official upgraded features in the new Beta 2 (version 0.6)? -- At the end of April, we released Skyfire 0.6 and you can see the features and bug fixes in this release detailed in our FAQ. Beta 1 and Beta 2 refers to when the beta user signed up. Right now, we are inviting Beta 1 to download Skyfire -- that is everyone that signed up on or before March 1.
• How long is this Beta 2 (v0.6) intended to be? -- As we go from beta to 1.0, we balance our product roadmap with listening to the beta community and getting their feedback into the product. With that said, there will be future releases of the beta before 1.0, however, we don't publically disclose when the next beta release is.
• I see Skyfire is more optimized for Pocket PC, is there any plan to make it for non-touchscreen Windows Mobile in the next roadmap? -- Skyfire Windows Mobile is available for both touch and non-touchscreen; we launched our private beta with both of these versions available. -- (uh, silly me ;-p my bad then)
• Do you embedded Flash Player into Skyfire directly? Or users need to install Flash Player mobile version seperately? -- Skyfire supports embedded Flash, QuickTime, Windows Media, Real Player, etc. without the need to download and install anything other than Skyfire.
• Aside from Windows Mobile as Skyfire main platform of choice, what are the next platforms you plan to support in the future Skyfire's roadmap? -- The next platform we will support is Symbian S60 for Nokia N-Series and E-Series phones in the US.
• I know it's a long shot, but I got to ask: As we all know it that Palm OS (Garnet) v5.xx is going to be replaced with new Palm OS Nova in 2009; how does Skyfire intend to deal with this? Do you still going to release Skyfire for Palm OS (Garnet)? – At this time, we have no plans to support Palm OS phones, however, Windows Mobile phones offered by Palm, like certain Treo models, are fully supported.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]