For all of their strengths, if there’s one thing BlackBerrys justifiably get criticized for, it’s poor web browsing. So when good friend Craig Johnston from the Mobile Computing Authority tipped us off to some web browsing improvements offered in OS 4.2, we were surprised that RIM didn’t make more noise about it.
Here’s what Craig had to tell us:
If you have a Pearl or 8800, which has 4.2 already loaded (note: we’ve discovered that this feature requires 4.2.1, ed.), when viewing a web page, if you click menu and choose Desktop view, it renders the page like a PC and you get a mouse cursor on the screen. You can use the trackball to move freely up/down/left/right around the page and click links still.
The second new menu item is Overview. If you click that, it does the Deepfish like trick. If you are viewing the Mobile View, the right side of the screen shows the entire page and as you move a block around, the left side is zoomed to that block’s view. If you are viewing the Desktop view and you do Overview, the entire screen zooms out and you move a block around, clicking zooms in.
Apparently, Overview works with non-trackball 4.2 OS BlackBerrys (e.g. 8700), but we’re unsure if/how Desktop view works on the older BB’s. Still, very cool stuff. Spread the word! Browsing on your BlackBerry isn’t so bad after all!
