Dayo and I were hosted to lunch yesterday at Nokia West Africa, where we got a chance to play with a pre-production model of the Nokia E6 running the much-anticipated Symbian Anna firmware.

We came off from the playtime with very good impressions of the OS and theUI. Symbian Anna feels fresh, breezier, faster and more user-friendly compared to the current firmware running on say the N8 and E7.

I am a mobile web enthusiast and so was particular about the browser. Simply put, we are able to say that the new browser is faster and easier to use.

L-R: Old browser; New browser

Nokia Conversations published an article on this very subject, and I can verify that the article describes the new Symbian browser accurately. A few points:

• Streamlined UI – removal of the double layer of icons at the bottom of the browsing window (see image above), and has instead replaced them with a small back arrow that is always on show and an options icon that can call up various different tasks such as bookmarks, history or the exit button. That makes for some extra room up top to include a convenient address bar for easy URL typing and web searching.
• Most operations take one less click than previously, with ‘back’ only requiring a single tap.
• Version 7.3 of the browser has been created using a newer version of WebKit , a new JavaScript engine and has been optimised further for Symbian, meaning that JavaScript on v7.3 is 30% faster than the previous version.
• Greater compatibility with HTML 5 with a score of 111 out of 400 in an industry HTML5 test. (The old 7.2 version scored 29 in this test).
• Implementation of split-screen typing view mode and with a portrait Qwerty keyboard makes typing in URLs and keywords in the address bar a lot easier for touchscreen devices
• Multiple window support – You can open a new empty window from the Window menu or open a link in a new window with a long press.
• URL auto completion.
• Improved fonts
• Ability to copy a link from the site onto your clipboard for using somewhere else – Long pressing on a link will open up a new menu that allows you to copy that link or to open it in a new window
• Double tap on the screen to re-render page to fit the screen.

Read Nokia Conversations’ New Nokia Browser faster and easier to use.

Webkit has become popular as a rendering engine for mobile web browsers. At last count, available Webkit-based browsers include:

1. Nokia’s S60 Web
2. Apple’s Safari
3. Android
4. Samsung’s Dolfin
5. WebOS
6. Bolt
7. Iris (no longer in development; developers were purchased by RIM)

***Since the acquisition of TorchMobile, developers of Iris, RIM has been working on a Webkit-based browser for BlackBerry devices.

While it looks like Webkit is taking over the mobile space, someone has taken time to run some tests to compare the capabilities of the different Webkit-based browsers in circulation. The results are amazing.

In brief, almost no two Webkit-based browsers are the same in terms of capabilities and performance. According to the test results:

• Nokia’s S60v3 browser is the worst
• Apple’s Safari 4 is the best

Some of the other popular browsers available in circulation include:

1. Opera Mobile
2. Java-based e.g. Opera mini,
3. Mozilla-based browsers e.g. Firefox for mobile, MicroB
4. Internet Explorer Mobile

If you are interested in all the technicalities, be sure to read There is no WebKit on Mobile.

Last year, RIM acquired TorchMobile, developers of Iris, a WebKit based browser that was available for Windows Mobile devices till that time. That move seems to be paying off already, as RIM has announced a new WebKit-based browser for its blackberry range of smartphones.

The browser supports:

• HTML 5
• Javascript
• Blackberry & JIL widgets
• Fast panning and zooming
• Proxy technology

And according to Gizmodo, it also scored a perfect 100 in the Acid3 rendering test.

Check out the demo video below:

Source

This effectively takes care of one of the major limitations of the BlackBerry platform – a modern, capable web browser. BlackBerrys just got more attractive to the average smartphone user.

From the developer’s website:

Ozone is a world-class mobile browser that offers great performance and outstanding mobile browsing experience for S60 and UIQ based phones.

Ozone’s features make it one of the best in its class. From the open-source WebKit engine, Ozone not only delivers advanced features such as client-side database support, application cache, zooming and multiple windows, but also provides the best web-standards compliant experience that’s available.

* Intuitive UI and page navigation
* Multiple windows
* Zooming and panning
* Pop-up blocking
* Auto-complete URL editing
* Desktop/mobile mode switch
* Netscape scriptable plugin
* Low memory footprint, works in devices with only 64MB RAM
* Offline Web Applications support including the latest mobile Gmail for iPhone and Android

And more: high performance disk caching, fast image decoding, favorite icons, bookmark management and advanced HTML, CSS and JavaScript (SquirrelFish) support.

The browser, which is still an Alpha release, is available for Symbian s60 and UIQ devices.

Ozzone startpage

First Impressions
I did a quick run on the E90, and the interface is smooth and pleasant. I couldn’t login to the Facebook full website when I tried that, but the site was well rendered. heading for Yahoo, I was redirected to the yahoo mobile site. But the mobile re-direction did not work for Alireta.com and MobilityNigeria.com (another mobile browser for mobile web designers to worry about), but fortunately both sites have links that allow the user to force the mobile versions.

The application suddenly terminated itself while I was attempting to navigate a page on the MTN Nigeria website. But then, this sort of thing is to be expected from an Alpha release.

I’ll have a more detailed review as soon as I can squeeze the time.

Download from the [mobile] Ozone website.

Thanks to Yomi for introducing me to Bolt. No; not Usain Bolt, the 100m & 200m World record holder. Neither is it Bolt the dog from the animated movie of the same title. It’s Bolt the mobile browser. I was quite impressed by its features and quickly decided to download, give it a test run and see how it compares to Opera Mini.

The Startpage is quite eye-catching. It is much better looking than the Opera Mini with its 3 tabs (History, Favourites & Feeds) allowing quick access. The arrow pointer feature, which is missing in Opera mini, is quite useful when clicking away. I however found out that you cannot edit the Favourites but can only add to them.

The Full PC style browsing is unique and one can appreciate web pages in all their glory when browsing on a mobile phone. I found the text quite small when reading but there is an option in Settings where you can adjust the font size to suit your viewing. One thing I found disappointing was the absence o the ability to prevent the browser from loading images. Images are loaded as a default. I guess this may be due to the Full PC style browsing.

As regards speed, I cannot quantitatively assess the speed but I must say its comparable to Opera Mini, though I think the Mini is faster. I won’t contest the data compression technology that Bolt claims to use to deliver web pages but another missing feature is the ability to determine how many kb each page you loaded was. On Opera Mini, one was able to see that detail at the bottom of the screen and there is also a Page Information feature under Tools in Opera Mini.

Lastly, there is a bar at the top of the screen in the Bolt Browser that displays progress by percentage when loading web pages. However, I noticed occasionally that it got stuck at 20% before then rapidly completing. I don’t know if it’s due to the network connection or related to the browser itself.

All in all, for a browser in Beta phase it has shown it can provide competition. I give it a thumbs-up!

A few days ago, we published a news item on the release of the latest version of the Iris browser, developed for WinMo devices. The statement from TorchMobile about the new release reads:

The Iris Browser is an advanced, high-performance and versatile Web browser application for mobile and embedded devices. Based on the WebKit rendering engine, it is specifically designed to function in resource-constrained environments. It brings the full Web experience to mobile phones, set-top boxes, mobile Internet devices, portable media players, Ultra-Mobile PCs and other embedded devices – in a fast and user-friendly manner.

I have taken the browser for a spin over the last couple of days, and hereby present my review:

The Iris pre-configured homepage

The default homepage is a custom page by TouchMobile that includes a search box. Tap the “Navigate” softkey on the right, and choose “Show address” to pop up the address bar at the top of the screen. Other options include “Home”, “Back”, “Forward”, “Stop”, and “reload”.

The left softkey is labelled “Page”, and under that menu are options to access bookmarks, history, zoom, tabs, set screen view, tools, and options (settings).

The browser allows the opening and running of up to 4 tabs.

Under “View”, the options to choose include: Mobile Mode, Desktop Mode, and Column Mode. Then there’s a full screen option applicable to whatever mode you choose.

Left: Mobile Mode; Right: Column Mode

Personally, I am comfortable the most with Column Mode. In this mode, the entire page is fitted into the screen and you only scroll up and down. This is by far the most user-friendly way to browse on a mobile device. The other modes will leave you having to scroll horizontally to read page contents.

When a page is loaded, by default you get an overview of the whole page, really zoomed out so you can see the entire page. You then zoom into the section you want to read.

Zooming in can be done by simply double-tapping on the section you want. It works well. Alternatively, you can use the left softkey to access a Zoom menu.

But in all modes apart from Column Mode, zooming in messes up usability, because the content you have zoomed into is not fitted to the width of the screen. To read text, you have to scroll horizontally. This is a no-no. My advice: stay in Column Mode. Don’t touch the dial.

Iris offers a nice page transition effect, with the pages sliding in and out and dropping in and out.

History function

The History function is neat. You get three images of the pages in history on the screen at any time, and you can simply move through your history with finger swipes. Tap the central image and that page loads.

Unfortunately, Youtube videos are not supported

Still, there are limitations on this browser. One of them is flash support. A visit to Youtube and attempting to watch videos resulted in a “Get the latest Flash player” error message.

Besides that, it loads images well, gives you the option to save them, save pages, search through text on pages, and also track your internet usage.

Iris handles secure sites well, and I was able to login to my bank’s internet platform.

The Iris browser is a good job. It leaves Mobile Pocket Explorer in the dust (which is not saying much), but it also gives Opera Mobile a run for its money. I’m not sure which of the two I prefer yet; just a few days is too little time to choose between these highly capable browsers.

Thumbs-up to TorchMobile. But while the browser proves itself capable, I am not too sure that what it offers redefines the mobile web as the developers claim.