Looks like Skyfire beta for BlackBerry has been released to beta testers. This release contains number of enhancements and bug fixes. It’s still not ready for general release but it looks like they’re making great strides into what may one of the better browsers for the BlackBerry. Check out the changes:
New features:
- New Keyboard Shortcuts:
We mapped the keyboard shortcuts to be similar to the ones in the
native BlackBerry browser to offer a more familiar user experience. - Switch to Skyfire:
Once Skyfire is installed, you’ll see a “Switch to Skyfire” option show
up in the options menu of the original Blackberry browser. We added
this feature to help when users click on links in email and SMS and end
up launching the native browser instead of Skyfire or when you navigate
to a web site that is better viewed in Skyfire. - Text Entry in Thumbnail view:
You now don’t have to zoom-in to enter text. We resolved that issue and
now enter text directly in the thumbnail view of pages. - Contextual zoom with camera corners:
Similar to the other Skyfire platforms, we now support contextual zoom.
Thus we detect areas of interest (say articles or images) and allow you
to zoom-in to areas easily by fitting the area of interest to the
screen dimensions. - Faster zooming: You’ll see a great
improvement in your ability to zoom. Unlike Alpha 2, the page displays
text at all zoom levels, without any redrawing of the screen. Less
checkerboards.
Known bugs:
- You cannot connect to Skyfire: We still have limited capacity
for this Alpha. Thus if enough testers are already browsing at the
moment, you might not be able to connect. Simply try again in a few
minutes. This is a good reminder as well to NOT share this alpha with
anyone (as per NDA), since this would limit capacity even further. The
next release will address this. - General hiccups when entering and exiting streaming mode, including: “An error occurred while playing media” error message when flash object is detected and “streaming” mode activated.
- Slow performance on 2.5G networks: We are still optimizing. You will get the best experience on 3G or WiFi networks for now.
- Error Messages: “An error occurred while playing media” error message in streaming mode.
- Volume Control bug: Sometimes you cannot control volume while in stream mode. This is a known BlackBerry bug.
- Refresh And Rendering Options: Stale tiles from the previously visited pages show up when scrolling up or down. We’re working on fixes to reduce checkerboards.
