Bla1ze from CB has been using Skyfire for BlackBerry and it looks to be a huge improvement for the BlackBerry internet browsing experience. While the browser is still in Alpha testing, it’s looking really slick.
According to the company, some of the new features added include:
New Keyboard Shortcuts: We mapped the keyboard shortcuts to be similar to the ones in the native BlackBerry browser to offer a more familiar user experience.
Switch to Skyfire: Once Skyfire is installed, you’ll see a “Switch to Skyfire” option show up in the options menu of the original Blackberry browser. We added this feature to help when users click on links in email and SMS and end up launching the native browser instead of Skyfire or when you navigate to a web site that is better viewed in Skyfire.
Text Entry in Thumbnail view: You now don’t have to zoom-in to enter text. We resolved that issue and now enter text directly in the thumbnail view of pages.
Contextual zoom with camera corners: Similar to the other Skyfire platforms, we now support contextual zoom. Thus we detect areas of interest (say articles or images) and allow you to zoom-in to areas easily by fitting the area of interest to the screen dimensions.
Faster zooming: You’ll see a great improvement in your ability to zoom. Unlike Alpha 2, the page displays text at all zoom levels, without any redrawing of the screen. Less checkerboards.
Skyfire has released their 1.0 version for Windows Mobile and Symbian, and they’re one step closer to a BlackBerry beta. The BlackBerry alpha is officially acknowledged in their press release, and the only official word from Skyfire is that they “will have an announcement this summer.”
If you have a WinMo or Symbian phone, you can get an idea of what the BlackBerry client will be like by downloading it from get.skyfire.com.
Over one million consumers have installed and used the Skyfire browser in just under five months, making it the fastest growing downloadable mobile browser in North America.
So far, the official line from Skyfire is vague but promising:
Skyfire has plans to bring their browser to more smartphones and recently launched a Private Closed Alpha program for the BlackBerry platform. The company will announce plans for a Public BlackBerry Beta at a later date.
This step will offer an approximate twenty-one million BlackBerry users the opportunity to finally be able to access the PC web on their phone.
