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Browsers and Other Unsavory Items

Below are the major players in the mobile browser or content display marketplace that I used or considered using, and the limitation of each. Note that I included Macromedia Flash because its technology is used to build end-to-end solutions that can be browser independent. Each product supports a limited number of platforms, few of which overlap!:

  1. Pocket Internet Explorer. Microsoft's Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) 2003 has decent support for XHTML, CSS1 & CSS2 and the Flash 5 Mobile player plug-in. DOWNSIDE: Doesn't work on devices with the Palm O/S. Moreover, earlier versions of PIE have no CSS support and support HTML 3.2 only.

    • UPDATE: 9-20-04. Microsoft has released an enhanced version of PIE in the new WinMobile 2003 SE (Second Edition) O/S, the most desirable feature being the addition of landscape viewing mode.

  2. NetFront 3.1 mobile browser from Access in Japan, is now the default browser bundled with the Palm O/S, a considerable share of the handheld marketplace. The freestanding browser is also available for WinCE handhelds, including the Pocket PC 2003. There's a nominal license fee of $24.95, or $29.75 with Java support. Comes loaded with features too numerous to list. Find a complete review and feature list at Pocketgear.com.

    DOWNSIDE: After going through the effort of building a pure css mobile site for cross-platform scalability, I based my entire purchase of NetFront 3.1 on its stated support for CSS1 and CSS2. WHAT CSS2 support? Not even any handheld media stylesheet support! Consequently, NetFront mangles any site that imports a "handheld" stylesheet! So much for 'Write-once.Use everywhere'!

  3. Opera Mobile Internet Browser. Opera developed its own mobile device browser technology, which appears to be similar to NetFront's 'Smart-Fit' rendering mode of display. That is, content blocks are stacked nicely on top of one another to avoid that annoying horizontal scrolling, the scourage of non pda-friendly sites. DOWNSIDE: Opera Mobile browser doesn't support either the Palm O/S or Pocket PC handheld operating systems at all!

    • UPDATE 9-20-04. Opera has announced a Pocket PC version will be released very soon! Let's hear it for the forward-thinking Opera folks!!

  4. Bitstream Thunderhawk. is a subscription based mobile browser from Bitstream, defined by its landscape display technology. Browsing in landscape mode is very enticing. From the screenshot on their web site, non pda-friendly web sites are much easier to navigate, with a lot less horizontal scrolling. DOWNSIDE: As with NetFront, CSS2 is barely supported. There is also a $49.95 annual subscription fee.

    • NOTE: As a web content developer, given the limited distribution and non-support for the most current versions of html 4.0, css 2 and other emerging technologies, the ANNUAL fee was a real dealbreaker for me. However, I've heard nothing but raves from Thunderhawk users about features and services abound. Appears to have great consumer value.

  5. Macromedia Flash Mobile Player 6.0. Altho not a developer of browser products per se, Macromedia has lead the way in adaptability of cross-platform Flash technology to mobile devices with some pretty amazing results. DOWNSIDE: ...Except for the Sony CLIE, they forgot about the Palm Pilot O/S, or about half the handheld-reliant public. C'mon Macromedia and Palm! We developers are counting on you!

  6. The RealOne Mobile Player for Pocket PC. DOWNSIDE: Does not function on most iPAQ handhelds. Only streams individual video or audio clips. All the feature-rich, cool things you can do on the desktop version are not supported for mobile. That means: no captioning with RealText, no multiple video sequencing with SMIL, no transition effects using RealPix, no slideshows, no newstickers...Only the dev support site doesn't tell you that. You have to waste a whole mess o' time figuring that out for yourself. Heck, there aren't any specs on screen area dimensions or even a screenshot of what the mobile player looks like!

    • BTW: the RealOne Mobile Player is a clunky, space-hogging lump of brown that takes up half the screen area, leaving precious little space for your video clip!

  7. Microsoft Mobile Media Player.. DOWNSIDE: Same as Real. Limited information about streaming video or audio clips, formats to use, etc. No reference to timing, captioning, transition effects, etc...I suppose Microsoft and Real are again letting spunky little third-party software companies create the "cool factor" for their stripped down, feature-starved products so all that has to be done is just swoop down, throw gobs of money at a bunch of them and, PRESTO! Instant full-featured media players!

  8. Mozilla Minimo Mobile Browser. Odd that Mozilla/Netscape is silent in the mobile browser market. Here is a peek at the Minimo Mobile project, their early stage mobile browser project. Stay tuned...

In conclusion, the mobile content development share of convergence media is still in its gunslingin', wild wild West, free-for-all stage, like the retro days of the early internet. Content development is currently labor-intensive and plays to limited audiences, making them too costly to be mass-distributed. Dev products appear and disappear at the blink of an eye. But, fear not! As the convergence media technologies mature, the major players will finally awaken and begin gobbling up the scrappy little technologies that survive. Trust me. Change is coming!


The Future. Soon playing at an interactive venue near you!
Does that mean this whole experiment is a bust? Not in the least! Even though cross-platform delivery is still the proverbial 'crap shoot', the markup languages and coding standards developed to deliver them are in place or nearly there, thanks to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

This much we know for sure. HTML is going away. It will be replaced by sets of hybrid markup languages with names like CSS, XHTML, WML, SMIL, capable of delivering the magic of scalability, the main ingredient necessary for media convergence to happen.

To drive video products over the internet, broadband speeds need to triple or quadruple from the norm today. When that happens, the bandwidth-hogging pixel-driven web will be replaced by the fluidity of vector-driven technology Our jpegs and gifs will go the way of Elvis memorabilia and hula hoops. The SVG vector format will reign supreme over the internet.

It's never too soon to begin weaning away from that html comfort zone because no one can accurately predict the day that the future will be playing at an interactive venue near you!

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