14 DAY TRIAL // Skyfire Labs, Inc. announced at the DEMO 08 conference the release of the Skyfire mobile browser, set to bring the real PC web experience on mobile phones. The new browser will allow smartphone users to interact with basically any Web page that integrates any Web technology, including advanced Ajax, dynamic Flash, Java, QuickTime and more. Mobile users will finally be able to watch YouTube videos, connect with friends on MySpace, Facebook or any other social networking site, listen songs from any Web-based music service (such as Last.fm or Rhapsody), all at the same high speed as on a desktop PC or laptop.
"For too long consumers have been promised the 'real Web' on their phone, only to be disappointed by slow rendering, error messages, no Flash support, watered down WAP pages or second-rate mobile versions of their favorite site," said Nitin Bhandari, Skyfire Chief Executive Officer. "Skyfire has remedied those ills at a speed not seen before on the mobile platform. By extending the PC Web experience to smartphones, we fully expect Skyfire to fundamentally change the way people use their phones."
With Skyfire, users will not be confronted with unrecognizable (or missing) content or unfamiliar page layouts, like they do now when using other mobile browsers. Skyfire is announced as the fastest loading mobile browser to date, as it's based on the fact that the displayed content is first rendered on a server and the sent to handsets. The new browser also has lots of features that simplify the mobile browsing experience, like bookmarking a specific location from a web page, full screen navigation, zooming and thumbnail views.
"Many sophisticated technologies are launched at DEMO, and in my many years of hosting the event, it's the simple and elegant products like Skyfire which seem to have the most staying power," said Chris Shipley, executive producer of the DEMO conferences. "Mobile browsing has not advanced at the same rate as other mobile technologies, so I am delighted to see Skyfire bring a new product to market which directly addresses one of the biggest pain points in the mobile experience today."
The Skyfire browser is currently available only for those who sign-up on the Skyfire site for beta testing and is compatible for now only with full QWERTY smartphones (both touchscreen and non-touchscreen) that run Window Mobile 5 or 6. Other version should follow soon, including a Symbian one, when Skyfire will be available as a free download. It will be interesting to see how the new Skyfire can affect Opera's success or the yet to come Mozilla for mobiles.