BlackBerry Phones to Get Webkit-Based Browser

Smartphone sales have skyrocketed in the past years and continue to grow, spurred in no small part by the popularity of the iPhone. The largest traditional smartphone maker, catering more to business oriented users, RIM (Research in Motion, maker of the popular BlackBerry phones) has been keeping up in terms of sales but is falling behind when it comes to features and capabilities, at least the most hyped ones. One area where it acknowledges is lacking is the web browser, a crucial component now that phones are becoming more and more dependent on the internet. Fortunately, the company is now looking to overhaul the browser across all of its devices and will introduce a Webkit-based one later this year.

The Webkit HTML rendering engine is quickly becoming a favorite for browser makers especially on the mobile front where it is quickly becoming ubiquitous. Originally adapted by Apple from the KHTML library, the project has been evolving into one of the most powerful engines out there. Thanks to its open-source nature, it has been adopted by a number of companies and device makers.

Both Apple and Google use it in their Safari and Chrome desktop web browsers, but it's on the mobile front where it really took off. Apple obviously uses it on the iPhone to power the mobile Safari and Google uses it in the Android web browser, but Nokia and other phone makers use the Symbian S60 web browser, also based on Webkit. Now, with RIM's announcement, it's clear that Webkit clearly dominates the mobile web.

With Webkit, BlackBerry devices will get a powerful modern web browser one that, importantly, is also 100 percent standards compliant. Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO and creator of the BlackBerry, showed off the new browser's capabilities which scored 100 points in the popular Acid 3 web standards test.

This, of course, is true for all Webkit-based browsers and RIM doesn't really have that much to do with it, but the company also touted some of the improvements it has implemented which go along with the company's new focus on bandwidth efficiency. RIM believes that the current rate in mobile internet use isn't sustainable and the networks are already feeling the strain so it designed its browser with that in mind. The company says that BlackBerry devices are three times more network efficient when browsing the web than any other similar devices. The Webkit-based browser should be landing in BlackBerry devices later this year.