RIM demos new WebKit-based BlackBerry browser

[Matthew DeCarlo]

The consumer smartphone market is booming largely due to the success of Apple's iPhone, but a name less uttered still holds a large slice of the pie: Research In Motion. Catering more to the business crowd, RIM has maintained strong sales, but is slipping behind in features -- especially when it comes to non-enterprise users.

Acknowledging this, the company has revealed an overhauled Web browser at Mobile World Congress today. The current BlackBerry browser has caught flack for being slow, having trouble with JavaScript-dense pages, and simply rendering pages unreadable. The company's revamped WebKit-based browser is said to remedy these issues.

RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis presented the browser during a keynote at MWC, showing its ability to chew through the JavaScript at Amazon's UK site. The new browser also handles AJAX more efficiently, supports HTML 5.0, CSS3, and even scores 100/100 on the Acid3 Web standards test. An exact release date is unclear, but the browser is expected to arrive later this year.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/37932-rim-demos-new-webkit-based-blackberry-browser.html

 

[Archean]

Why do one need to build something which caters for non-enterprise users as well as enterprise users at the same time?

More importantly, enterprise users offer better profit margins than the non-enterprise ones. Hence, iphone is a non-starter here, and that is why blackberry and others like it has major say in this segment. I don't see a 'fad' like iphone penetrating enterprise segment in big way any time soon either. Sometimes, less is more you know

 

[windmill007]

Flash? Java?

 

[Julio Franco]

Forget about Flash, if you've browsed the Web using a BlackBerry and then moved to an iPhone or more recently the Android phones, you know the inmense difference there is and the severe limitations found on the BB platform due to this.

 

[windmill007]

I was thinking the problem could be not enough horsepower to run flash or java on these phone but without either of these at this point a web browser on a phone is kinda useless since almost all the cool stuff is still java or flash based. Maybe if they move onto some less CPU intrusive format in the future we will have decent phone browsers. BTW I have the BB storm 2

 

[DJ83]

This sounds good, I've recently been forced to switch from my Nokia N82 to a BB Storm.
From my experience the BB has the better screen for web browsing but its time taken to load web pages is painful, both we connected through my wireless broadband router so can't blame the mobile network.

 

[Guest]

So...will this new browser be available on all current Blackberries, and is it something carriers will be able to block/disable? I use Verizon, and the only thing preventing me from getting a Storm2 is the horrendous web browsing, making the Motorola Droid much more appealing. If I knew this new browser would be something I could update to later on, I'd get the phone now. Verizon to this point hasn't been able to tell me anything about it.