Posts
latest posts
- YouTube Fun04 Aug 2010
- Print Catalogue28 Jul 2010
- World Wetland Network24 Jun 2010
- More World Cupness08 Jun 2010
- Somerset Leisure31 May 2010
- The World Cup21 May 2010
- Drive The A-Team Van19 May 2010
- A Life Model10 May 2010
- WWT Consulting07 Apr 2010
- Marque-It website Live19 Mar 2010
- YouTube and BBC down11 Mar 2010
- Django Developer Job01 Mar 2010
- FFF Announced20 Feb 2010
- Please Rob Me18 Feb 2010
- Future of Web Design16 Feb 2010
categories
- posted
- Jan. 15, 2009
- time
- midnight
- by
- John
We love our iPhones
New Web Browsers for iPhone
Brennon Slattery, PC World was had a hands-on look for the new Web browsers available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Edge Browser
The main feature of the free Edge Browser is that it removes the clutter from an ordinary Safari Web page to present sites in full-screen glory. Besides the reception, time, and battery bar at the top of your iPhone’s screen, you should see nothing but the page.
Problem is, all I saw was nothing. I loaded the browser, and as I was trying to figure out how you’re supposed to leave the Apple Store page, it crashed. When I rebooted the app, I got a blank white screen. So the edge of my browser was taken off … all the way off.
Incognito
Those of you who are fearful of getting busted for checking out less-than-appropriate sites on your iPhone will be interested in the $2 Incognito.
This browser leaves no traces behind from your wanderings on the Web. Once you close the app, so also disappears your entire browsing history, or even that you were online at all.
Incognito is useful for those with a company iPhone or the generally paranoid.
Shaking Web
Using the iPhone accelerometer, the $2 Shaking Web compensates for small hand and body movements by jiggling the browser’s screen. It functions by sensing movement and applying small but opposite movement to the viewable content.
I paced the office hallways looking somewhat like a moron, trying to read articles on the Web. It was still difficult and annoying. I had “turbo” turned on, which is not the default. Turbo applies forces in both vertical and horizontal movements, whereas the regular viewing mode only applies to vertical movements.
One of the bigger problems with Shaking Web is that it’s not completed. As of this writing, pop-up windows are not supported and sites requiring new windows to open links will not work. That’s a pretty big chunk of the Internet, so unless you’re hanging out on stolid sites, Shaking Web is not for you.
WebMate
Offering the closest thing to tabbed browsing for the iPhone, WebMate is a useful application for those who like to collect a series of Web sites for reading later. The idea behind the $1 WebMate is excellent, and I hope it spurs Apple to upgrade Safari. But WebMate on its own has one flaw: when you have two separate pages open, WebMate does not save the other tabs in their full form, so whenever you switch back and forth, the page has to load from the beginning all over again. This takes time that regular tabbed browsing does not.
It’s important to remember that these new browsers are all based on the Safari developer kit, and aren’t actual differentiations from Safari but instead, separate add-ons. I’d keep Incognito and WebMate handy and hope for continuous upgrades. With the right additions, both could prove to be better than the included Safari browser.
blog comments powered by Disqus