Review: Skyfire

Skyfire is an internet browser for Windows Mobile 6 devices. There are several browsers designed for WM6: There is the included Internet Explorer, which is a very basic, and limited browser. Then there are 3rd party browsers like Opera Mini and Iris which are a bit faster, and do a better job handling page layouts designed for computer monitors with a much higher resolution than any smartphone. Skyfire, however, is in a league of it's own.
Skyfire displays web pages exactly as they would be displayed on a PC. It also has full support for Flash, Java, and embedded video and audio. This would ordinarily send a smartphone into frustratingly unresponsive processing frenzy, however, Skyfire utilizes these features differently, more specifically, Skyfire does not actually utilize these features on your phone. Everything Skyfire displays on your screen is rendered on a server-side application hypervisor. The phone establishes a VNC-like connection to a Skyfire server, and displays everything, pre-processed. It even sends metadata to the website you are running telling it that you are running Firefox 2.0 on Windows XP. Simply put, the Skyfire server makes an interactive video of the website as it would appear on a PC, and you view it on your phone's screen.




























For a Beta, I am very impressed with the power and flexibility of the Skyfire web browser. The frontend (Browser) and backend (server) seem very well programmed, and I can only guess that the finished product will be incredible. So, let me take a moment to explain the practical capabilities of the browser:

Youtube:
It runs perfectly. The framerate is just about the same as on a PC. Fullscreen mode does not work, but there isn't much more of the screen to fill in.


Hulu:

Hulu runs near-perfect. It is very easy to browse, and search for videos. For the amount of movement in the menus on this nearly all-flash website, the framerate stays stable.

Channels are very easy to browse. When you bring up a drop-down menu, even in a flash application, it brings up a context menu of all available options.


Actual video playback is surprisingly good. The framerate stays relatively stable, but sometimes quality will fade in and out. I would still consider it completely watchable.


Everything else:

If you can do it on a PC web browser, you can do it on Skyfire. Pretty much all flash-based media sites such work. Even all-flash sites like Beatport work perfectly on Skyfire.

The problem with displaying a large webpage onto a small screen is that it becomes hard to navigate. Skyfire has a very well-designed interface that gets rid of most of the inconveniences of viewing large pages. The cursor will jump to most clickable items, even in Flash and Java applications. the "1" and the "3" keys can be use do zoom in and out, and the zoom level can be adjusted very exactly. If you get a phone call while viewing a Flash or Java application (ie. watching Youtube), Skyfire will minimize and it will pause the current application until you bring the browser back up, picking up where you left off.

I give Skyfire a 10/10. It is far more compatible with web-apps than any other mobile browser I have used (including the iPhone's Safari). You can get it at http://www.skyfire.com/, however it is currently a private Beta, so you will need to sign up for their waiting-list, or find someone who has invites. I have a few invites, so if anyone is interested, feel free to ask.