14 DAY TRIAL // Bitstream Inc. announced today the launch of a new version of its popular mobile browser, namely BOLT 2.1. According to the company, the new solution is expected to prove one of the most fully featured browsers for mobile phones, while including a wide range of new features, such as support for HTML5 video, Facebook integration, and more. HTML5 is a new standard for streaming video over the web, and the latest release of the browser comes with support for it, in addition to delivering expanded support for Adobe's flash solution.
“In just a few years it is expected that more people will be using the Internet on mobile devices than from desktop computers,” Anna Magliocco-Chagnon, CEO of Bitstream, said. “Bitstream has engineered BOLT to maximize the utility of the Internet on mobile for end users, give handset manufacturers an important competitive differentiator for their mobile phone lines, and provide mobile network operators another way to compete for new users as well as to better manage the data usage on their networks. Bitstream has always believed there should be a singular entity called the Internet, as opposed to a desktop iteration alongside a lighter, less functional mobile version.”
BOLT 2.1 comes with a wide selection of Flash video support, with mtv.com, nick.com, bbc.co.uk (UK), maniatv.com, svtplay.se (Sweden), hungama.com (India) and bollywoodhungama.com (India) added to a list that already included youtube.com, cnn.com, espn.com, video.google.com, and others more. At the same time, the browser features support for YouTube web apps, as well as tabbed browsing, and the aforementioned support for HTML5 video.
One other important feature of BOLT 2.1 is its integration with the social-networking site Facebook. According to the company, the mobile browser enables users to “post messages, links or URLs from any page displayed in BOLT directly to their Facebook account,” without having them navigate away from the page they were viewing. Moreover, users will be able to benefit from Facebook’s instant messaging service to chat with their friends. In addition, BOLT 2.1 comes with a faster widget gallery with an updated user interface, and a server upgrade to WebKit 4.03.