Skyfire is a mobile web browser that allows users to experience the web as they would on a PC. Recently the company has secured $13 Million in Series B Funding. Currently you can sign on their beta list, but the last round is already closed. Today, as one of 50 lucky guys, I was invited to attend the new user experience lunch at their headquarter located in Mountain View, and got hold of Skyfire. The following is my first hand user experience of using Skyfire.
A Hands-on Look at Skyfire
Skyfire offers users a web experience akin to a PC with fast speeds and support for web technologies that most mobile handsets lacks. With Skyfire you can visit sites such as CNN, Youtube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more just like you would on your PC. Skyfire loaded every website I threw at it without a hitch. I was even able to read my blog ITNewWire.info with right format.
Usability
Navigating Skyfire is easy and intuitive. The homepage features three tabs that puts everything you need at your fingertips such as featured sites and sections, bookmarks, search, and your browsing history. The integrated search bar provides results from Yahoo and Google with links to view images, videos, and maps of your search results. Best of all, switching between each search engine was quick. All of these features were easy to use.
The zoom feature was a breath of fresh air from Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE). When you first head to a site, you’ll see a full view of the with the option to zoom in with your keypad. A small cursor box will appear as you move the keypad around. Once you’ve selected a spot to zoom in on, Skyfire immediately renders a better view of your selection. From this view, you can interact with the page by selecting links, playing videos and more. You can also change the Zoom-in field by drag the right-bottom corner of the zoom box. When moving the mouse to scroll around the page, Skyfire automatically optimizes the other portions of the site for maximum viewing experience. Zooming out to fullview was as simple as pressing my keypad down again, or just double tap your screen on Pocket PC phone.
Filing form feature was also very user friendly. You just click the field, Skyfire will show an input box at the bottom of the screen. You fill in, and click “Go” to finish.
Audio and Video
Audio and video streams worked flawlessly on the browser. Video playback was a little choppy which was expected. It is not as good as those native video streaming players running on Window Mobile, like tcpmp (for how to install tcpmp and watch YouTube on PocketPC phone, check my post on my other blog PocketPC Bible – The best streaming video player for YouTuble, Google … .
Skyfire Supported Technologies
Skyfire is a free downloadable browser that aims to be the Safari of Windows Mobile among other mobile platforms. Right now, the application only supports Windows Mobile 5 and 6 handsets, both touchscreen and non-touchscreen. Skyfire supports web technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, Ajax, QuickTime, Java, Windows Media, and plans to expand with each new release of the application.
xt-align: left; line-height: 1.2em; font-weight: bold; font-size: 1.3em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.2em; margin-left: 0px; ">One ConcernOne concern that many users may be concerned with is how Skyfire renders web pages to effectively deliver them to your handset for the best browsing experience. Its proprietary technology is server assisted and moves the heavy work to a server to keep the client’s performance high. Essentially, this amounts to your data being stored in the hands of Skyfire. While I’ve had nothing short of a great experience with Skyfire, I recommend you choose carefully what sites and data you enter into the browser.
The Features not Supported
Within the short time on Skyfire, I haven’t found any sites or services that are not working. One small thing is that the Google chat is not supported – although you can launch the chat box from GMail, you cannot type text in the chat box.
In general, I am very happy with Skyfire, it’s far more powerful and faster than all of the web browsers that I have tried on my PockPC phone, including Pocket IE, Opera, and Microsoft’s new beta software DeepFish.
How to get Skyfire
If you want to get a hold of Skyfire, you need to sign on their website as beta tester. They do not tell you when you can download Skyfire. Well, if you are lucky enough (like me), you can get a hold of it soon. After having Skyfire, my only problem is battery. Within the hour of testing Skyfire, my battery runs from full to 20%.
