After 473 days of beta testing and many, many preliminary releases, the rich multimedia mobile browser Skyfire has just hit version 1.0. Though Skyfire’s biggest features (namely, its ability to handle formats like Flash and Silverlight) have been in since its early days, there’s enough polish and primp in this release to justify branding it with a whole number.
Before we dive too deep, check out a few numbers that Skyfire disclosed to us this morning: during the beta period, Skyfire saw over 1 million users. Of these users, 1 out of 3 uses Skyfire at least 3 times a day. People seem to turn to Skyfire primarily for browsing full-featured websites, with Facebook, Hulu, Gmail, Myspace, and Youtube all amongst the most popular.
We’ve been playing with Skyfire since the days when obtaining a beta key required you to climb a mountain, recite a secret incantation (backwards), and create a swine flu vaccine using nothing but a turkey baster and some orange peels. That said, this is the first release we’ve seen that really feels finished.
What’s new this time around:
- Improved Zoom: Rather than jumping directly from zoomed out to zoomed in when a user double taps, it now smoothly transitions from one to the other. It’s purely visual, but it really improves the process.
- Improved start times: In previous builds, you had to wait until your start page was loaded before Skyfire would respond. Now you can change URLs or search via the “Superbar” as soon as they appear.
- Last state reconnection: If you minimize Skyfire, it will now load back to the page you were on, rather than your start page. If you fully exit the application, it will go to your start page upon relaunch.
- AJAX performance enhancements
- When returning to a previous page, Skyfire will place you at the exact position and zoom level you left at.
- Thumbnail Interaction: In previous builds, clicking on links required you to zoom in first. In version 1.0, you can click any links that are visible at any zoom level.
- iFrame handling improvements
This release is quite near perfect, though not without its flaws. On at least three occasions during our testing (on a Sprint HTC Touch Pro), the loading bar would reach roughly 95%, only to grind to a halt. Once this happened, we were unable to get any page to load without fully quitting and reopening the application. Additionally, one feature we’d hoped to see make it in by 1.0 is still no where to be seen: local file storage for Flash and Silverlight. A few of the heavier streaming sites (such as Netflix) rely on this to function properly, so its absence is unfortunate. Even so, Skyfire is still quite a bit ahead of the curve in terms of sites it can load.
Additionally, Skyfire also confirmed that they are working on a BlackBerry port, as leaked last month. No ETA is given, though they do say that a public beta will be made available. Finally, a BlackBerry browser worth using.
Now that Skyfire is at 1.0, we’ll be pitting it against a handful of other mobile browsers in a head-to-head battle, publishing the results sometime in the next few days. If we don’t get too distracted watching stuff on Hulu on our phones, that is.
Check out Skyfire on Windows Mobile or Symbian S60 here.
hmmmm-really?
I appreciate your well thought out comment.
when is this one coming out for iPhone? Probably Apple would never let anyone use a browser other than Safari on iPhone!
Seriously. I’d kill for this on the iPhone.
Yes! it makes no sense even after almost 2 yrs of iPhone in market it doesn’t supports flash!
Thats why we definitely need a iPhone killer phone! A phone which can give apple run for its money… probably a wishful thinking!
How long have Opera and Pocket IE been on the market? They still don’t support Flash either.
you guys might also want to check out Bolt for the BlackBerry…its amazing and its also out of private beta. just do a quick google search.
skyfire is taking too long I remember hearing about it way too long ago
Yeah would love to see it on the iPhone….Silverlight and Flash on the iPhone would be real nice :)
Silverlight…keep dreaming….
Flash is coming soon I seen some interview with the Adobe CEO who confirmed its coming but he didn’t say when (didn’t even hint)
I wonder if it would be a drain on battery life?
I might be but if iPhone has youtube in-built then whats the problem with flash?
The iPhone’s YouTube app runs h264 versions of the YouTube streams, not FLVs.
I highlyyy doubt it would do that
When is this coming to Helio?
Just kidding Greg,
Funny when I first read the title I could’ve sworn it said “SkyFire burns through funding. Coming soon into the deadpool”.
I love Skyfire, but wonder what’s their business model? All that bandwidth and server capacity to render pages can’t be free…
the last thing I’d want is more ads….
Best mobile browser I have ever seen by a country mile.
Downloaded, installed, and was streaming a tv show from Hulu “zoomed in” with amazing quality in two minutes.
Makes IE mobile look like it hasn’t been updated in a decade. Oh, wait, it hasn’t been…
will this work in australia?
lookin at getting a free N71 on a free recontract…
if this is available and is med-long term ill get it tomorrow..
charge a coupla dollars for the original install, or option to have free with ads. ..
or sell it to the phone companys with the right software engines.. ppl will then buy theirs over iphone… its in their best interests to see this succeed.