SkyFire Beta For Symbian Crashes And Burns
SkyFire has finally launched the beta of its new web browser for Symbian-based S60 smartphones. The application is currently free, but only available to registered beta testers. The new browser was announced in January, and has been available for beta testers on Windows Mobile for quite a while. The Symbian beta was launched over the weekend, and oddly those who were accepted into the Windows 
Mobile beta are automatically added to the Symbian client (there’s not typically alot of overlap in those groups, save for press).
I’ve got the application downloaded to my N95-3, and gave it a spin around some common websites. I can’t share the .sisx installer, due to a security feature that requires you to sign in with your beta account info. The SkyFire web browser uses a server to send images of each webpage to your phone, to optimize traffic and speeds, though it’s a native Symbian application, rather than a java app like Opera Mini.
Full support for AJAX and Flash 9 is already on board, and I was able to watch YouTube videos easily. As with Opera Mini, SkyFire has a start page that offers a search box and several sets of bookmarks, offering access to the most popular sites on the Internet with only a few clicks.
Personally, I found the new SkyFire to run slower than the built-in S60 browser, and I was disappointed to see that it was unable to read the bookmarks that I have synced from my desktop. Being someone who switches phones frequently, the ability to have the same bookmarks on any phone after a quick desktop sync is crucial to me. I can’t be bothered to manually type in or remember the addresses for the various sites I frequent on my mobile.
I was also disappointed to see that both the YouTube homepage and Symbian-Guru front page required me to sidescroll to see all parts of the page - the page overview doesn’t accurately squeeze the site into my phone’s display. Also, attempting to view an embedded video (the one from this past Friday Fun) was nearly impossible. Either the video was insanely small, or I was only able to see roughly half of it at one time. Very annoying.
When typing a URL, there’s no option to see sites that you’ve recently visited/typed in, without reloading the homepage and clicking on the ‘History’ tab. Also, I found that on multiple occasions already, typing in a URL resulted in nothing - the application would be ‘thinking’, but then simply do nothing. The below screen became quickly familiar as I tried to reload the Symbian-Guru.com homepage, SkyFire start page, and a few others.
I realize this is a Beta, and only v0.6 at that, but the SkyFire browser has a long way to go before I’m impressed. I need to see bookmark syncing, be it OTA or pulling from the ones synced though Ovi Suite. Also, Flash videos should autoatically resize to fit my phone’s display, or else they might as well not even be supported. I didn’t see any noticable speed enhancements when browsing various sites, either.
The built-in S60 browser, though obviously with its own limitations, is stable, quick, and offers form data saving and bookmark syncing with Firefox. SkyFire is going to need to beef things up dramatically before they’ll be able to take on the incumbent, or even Opera Mini, for that matter. SkyFire Beta v0.6 gets a massive FAIL from Symbian-Guru.com, though I’m happy to take another look at subsequent versions.
(I apologize for only having a few screenshots. I was eventually completely unable to do anything other than click links from the Start Page, despite numerous application and device reboots. This app has officially been removed from my phone until a new version promises better features/stability.)
Intresting.. Were you using it with an Edge Or 3g/wi-fi connection? Ive used it for several months on a winmo device and getting ready to download it to my E62.. Really hope the space on this big screen shows it off… Lemme knp Ricky
Mike - using both HSDPA, and then switching my N95-3 to GSM-only (for EDGE), it was noticably slower than the S60 browser. I didn’t try WiFi.
I think SkyFire will do really well on WinMo devices, as I’ve used Pocket IE recently (and am, in testing for the Treo 800w for MobileBurn.com), but I just don’t think it stands a chance against the S60 browser. I wasn’t even able to do speed tests or get more than the few screens, cause it was crashing and too unstable.
Got the news of this one yesterday and tried to sign up.
I then got the reality smacked into my face. It’s only available for the US for now.
Guess I didn’t miss very much though from your review.
Hi Ricky…
We are glad that you were interested about Skyfire and even managed to test the Symbian release before its first beta launch :-). As you noted, the beta you tested is only .6. I am pleased to let you know that the concerns you raised are noted and known, and will be addressed in future releases.
The .6 beta of Skyfire supports Flash and Ajax, which many users consider fundamental capability which to date has been missing from mobile browsers. We are hard at work at adding additional features and functionality, and improving the performance of Skyfire.
Our goal at Skyfire is to bring full PC browsing to multiple mobile phone platforms. We have a high bar, and we appreciate that you do as well. Everybody’s input is important for us to build the best product, and we greatly appreciate and actively monitor as well the feedback provided in our beta program forums.
We look forward to providing you and your readers a full-featured and stable 1.0 product, and we appreciate your patience.
Very Best,
Robert Oberhofer
(Skyfire Product Manager)
Guys,
Am not sure if Skyfire already has this capability, but
launching more than one one page would certainly be a
desirable trait in Skyfire.
Ricky- Is this feature there?
Can more than one webpage be opened simultaneously & then the
user can switch between pages?
-VJ
Weird - I signed up to the beta, got the invite months ago. But I’ve no Windows device to test on, so I stated s60 … but when I go to the SkyFire pages, I only see Windows Mobile versions for download, and no mention of s60 in the forums …
It’s painfully slow on my N82. Not just opening pages, that’s probably because I’m using EDGE, but scrolling and the menus as well
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