I like a lot of things about the iPhone, but the one thing it does I'm totally jealous of is how it handles mobile web browsing. Practically porting a desktop web browser wasn't only smart, it was brilliant. As of this moment, nothing holds a candle to iPhone's web support... unless what I've seen of Skyfire comes true.
I've talked about my AT&T 8525 before, and overall I really like it. Since my upgrade to Windows Mobile 6, I've liked it even more. However, Microsoft just hasn't been able to deliver a decent mobile web browser. That's right I'll say it, Mobile Internet Explorer bites the big one. I used Mobile IE the day I brought my phone home, and started the hunt for a better mobile browser on day 2.
Where did that leave me? First I tried MiniMo .2, which is a early development mobile browser based on Firefox. It one day may be worth something, but it's got a long, long way to go (if they don't abandon the idea first).
Next I tried out Opera's latest version of Opera Mobile. I do like the free Opera desktop browser and the mouse gesture system from browsing, particularly when using a PC that's missing navigation buttons on the mouse. I even used the stellar Opera Mini on my old Sony Ericsson phone, which was also free and worked well. Opera Mobile is definitely the best Windows Mobile web browser currently available. It's not perfect, but is definitely a huge step up from IE. The problem: I can't justify forking over $24 for a decent, but not great mobile browsing experience.
Where does that leave me? Practically nowhere... at least until I heard about Skyfire. The demo video that was recently released from this new company is quite impressive, and the fact it handles flash, video, ajax, and everything else an advanced desktop browser does could put this ahead of the iPhone's browser. To be fair, it looks like Skyfire uses an intermediary server to pull web pages and translate them for mobile use (while still keeping everything intact and functional), but without affecting the speed. If it really works as well as the demo shows (and is reasonably affordable), then Skyfire will be a hero to everyone that owns a Pocket PC or Windows Smartphone.
Check out the video demo of Skyfire below:
To get on the list to beta test Skyfire when the beta version is available, you can sign up here [link].
I agree, this looks like an awesome browser program. I'd like to find out for sure if it uses a proxy for downloading content. I typically don't like those types of services, since they usually cost you monthly. The browser itself looks incredible and duplicates a lot of the browsing capability of the iPhone. That combined with 3G speeds would be very, very nice... right now the only "major" gripe I have with my iPhone is the lack of 3G.
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