S60 Browser & Opera Mini In Harmony
The eternal debate between using the built-in browser in S60 3rd Edition or Opera Mini to surf the web has always intrigued me. For a long time, I was an unconditional fan of the S60 browser, for the reason that it’s built-in, fast enough, offers true rendering of pages, and most of all isn’t a Java application. That’s until a few days ago, when I tried using the Epocrates Online site.
To those of you who aren’t in the medical field, Epocrates is one amazing database of drug information, and the best thing is that it’s free. Epocrates has a native client for Windows Mobile devices as well as Palm, but there is no S60 client. Recently, Epocrates ported their Online site, which offers a good part of the client functionality, to the iPhone. Being that both the iPhone and the S60 browser are built on the same Webkit base, I decided to give it a go on my N95.
I pointed my S60 browser to m.epocrates.com/iphone and waited as the site opened. I was able to check the first page, write down the name of the drug I was looking for, and even click through the suggestions. Everything worked fine until the actual drug page opened. There was a window on top of the page on which I had to click “Continue”, problem is that I couldn’t scroll to that “Continue” no matter what I did. I would press up and down, and the scrolling cursors would move but the page remained still. I even tried zooming out to 50% and rotating to landscape thinking the “Continue” would be come reachable, but it didn’t. Here are some screenshots with the last one showing the window on top of the page:
That’s when I thought about using Opera Mini. I visited m.epocrates.com/iphone . The page opened fine, I was able to cue in my search item but there is no way I could get it to actually perform the search. On the S60 browser, the moment I move the cursor out of the text box, the search is triggered, on Opera Mini, I can’t move out of the text box without clicking on something else. Bad. I went back to the drug page on S60 browser, checked the page address and back to Opera Mini where I input the full address. The page opened and I was able to scroll and close that window to view the full drug information. And here are the screenshots from Opera Mini:
This is an example of how both browsers work in harmony, where the limits of one are overcome by the second and vice versa. I am now using them in tandem (get S60 to search for the drug, then grab the link and go to opera mini) in order to check Epocrates and haven’t hit any other bump along the road. If you have ever faced such a problem with a page you couldn’t view on one of these browsers, try checking it with the other. Who knows, it might work, just like it did to me!
Did you try Teashark to see if it would do it all by itself? Not that I am promoting it over the other two lol, just asking and wondering
Good stuff… this is a good fix for people who are inclined to deal with what is essentially the short-comings of both browsers. However I think most would agree a one stop solution is needed for the average user.
One thing Opera Mini has over the Browser is a branding strategy that people can identify with. I wrote about this recently here:
http://www.robtoole.com/blog/?p=192
Rob,
I do agree that one browser is the ideal solution for the average user, and before I started using Epocrates, I only used the s60 browser and never looked at any other solution. But this post was just intended to show that the shortcomings of on browser can be solved by using the other, and to tell people to look elsewhere if they have hit a bump on their browsing road.
Icyhot,
I haven’t tried Teashark, but i’ll have to look into it and see how it performs.
For a long time, companies would simply advertise their mobile sites, and now they’re advertising iphone compatible, which is a mistake.
What irritates me about the “iphone-compatible” sites is that it’s the whole “best viewed in IE/Netscape/Firefox” nonsense all over again. They should be “webkit-compatible” sites, so they work on as wide a variety of devices as possible.
Please tell me developers have learned something over the past decade of web development.
Terrible… You really shouldn’t need to have to use two separate applications to achive one goal that could be obtained if the s60 browser was built better.
Mr Gunn I totally agree with you
I agree too. I recently downloaded Skyscape drug and other clinical applications which are native applications for the Symbian S60. Much more usable than the ePocrates browser version and was able to access it when connectivity was not available. In general, browser applications are convenient as a quick fix and not fully functional with all the intrinsic features. In the long run native applications are a way to go.
-iKash
good tip ricky.
this is one of my never ending quest. so far i have to say the s60 browser is by far the best amog any other mobile web browser. (takes advantage of the real state on my nokia e90) y recently tried teashark and opera mobile, but none seems to render the pages exactly as any pc based browser would, except of course the native s60 browser; wich displays the page in all its glory.
regards!
Luis S.
P.D. congrats on your new crib!
I prefer the S60 browser (webkit) any day. For starters, it’s a real browser that connects directly to each web server. In contrast, Opera Mini only works through an Opera proxy, so ALL your unencrypted traffic goes through Opera and they can (and probably will) monitor your Internet usage for advertising purposes (or worse).
The only thing that I notice the S60 browser is missing is annoyingly obvious: a simple page-up and page-down keypad shortcut!!!
Ariel, that’s right, a quick pageup/pagedown scrolling would’ve made the experience a lot better.
S60 browser always reload a page when we go back to previous page. Since my carrier charge the data traffic by volume based, this makes the cost doubles.
Looking forward to what Mozilla have to come with regards their planned S60 web browser..
Apr 16th, 2008 at 10:54 am
[...] over at Symbian Guru has been having a little ‘browser off’ between Opera Mini and the built-in S60 option. Her conclusion may surprise [...]