WAPUniverse is now Universe – that means it isn’t only a WAP browser anymore. The most recent version 3.0 is in beta stage yet and supports standard HTML pages. We had a a look at the new browser.
The first line contains the tabs and an RSS indicator, in the second line there are the navigation buttons (back, forward, stop, reload, favorites) and the URL input field. The rest of the screen is availible for pages – that means much space for web pages which is often blocked by big items in other browsers, especially on HiRes devices like my Tungsten C.
Although there are two rendering modes (small and wide), all results are very optimized for the small screen. Tables aren’t rendered and frames seem not to be supported, too. The rendering speed of the browser is rather slow. On the other hand, it already has some nice ideas. For example you can tap and hold the stylus on a picture to download it. The most HTML elements, including forms are supported very good. I even could post a message into a forum.
Of course there are the well-known tools a good browser needs: the history shows a list of the recent sites you’ve visited, bookmarks is a list of your favorites sites, the source viewer shows the plain text of the .htm page (including tags etc.). The connection manager allows you to create multiple connections.
Below some screenshots:
I think this is a good start for a browser. The developer wants to port a JavaScript engine, and, after that, the famous HTML engine KHTML which would make this app to perhaps the most powerful browser for Palm OS platform. But now you can already work well with this. I’ll send some bug reports to the developer now. Additionaly, I’ll work with it the next days (instead of NetFront) to discover further problems.
Related posts:
What’s the URL?
Thinks it is a closed beta, so no open URL…
A closed beta for a opensourced project….sounds funny to me…
It is easier for me to do a closed beta. Handling 85 testers is still a lot.
Plus, open source just governs the source code, not the binary.
But yeah, open source is one of those funny lines. Basically anything you do you are going to get scrutinized. It is good in a way because it forces you to understand what you are doing so that you can maintain absolute balance.
Thanks for the review Alex!
Just to mention, the slowness is due to the fact that the GIF decoder is emulated 68k code. I am working on making it faster.
Hum…..thanks for the quick reply, I didn’t mean anything, just feeling funny on the words “opensourced close beta”.
Back to Universe…
Progess looking great, keep it up man! can’t wait for all those sweet feature!
Oh yes, I also wrote a post about Universe on my weblog at http://theopoon.rinnovative.com/cgi-bin/viewpost.cgi?p=20061024094613
Without leading you into the trap CorePlayer fell into, do you have a launch date in mind for Universe?
One feature I really liked in WebPro was the ability to ‘open from card’ – to open up previously saved pages (from PC to card)/offline viewing.
I use RescoExplorer to do the same with Blazer.
Hope this feature can be incorporated here.
Good luck and can’t wait
What about that new Minuet browser for palm? Can we expect a review ? (i thought it was ok, better than opera at least but not free
(couldnt stand the splitting of web sites into “chunks”: made watching newspages impossible) ) =)
Minuet? The new J2ME browser? Well, I could have a look at it, but native Palm apps are always the better choice…
Donald, could you please do the following test with your browser:
Use it together with a Stowaway bluetooth keyboard and tell us if the Palm crashes. I am asking because the driver Stowaway provides for Palm when used with Blazer causes the Palm to reset. This doesn’t happen with another browser, eg. Xino, and that is why I am asking you to do this test.
Thanks
I’ll test with a keyboard. It just so happens that I have one available
By the way. Did Think Outside ever release the beta version of the latest driver? I know I had the beta, but never heard about it more.
As for dates, so that I do not fall into a hole I have been in before, and so i do not make the community mad: The release will be as soon as a stable product is available.
Also, I think that is because of the way Blazer handles text input.
Great, since you have a keyboard I expect the final version to work with it
Well the did release the ‘new’ driver but it seems that the only thing changed is the new logo of the company that bought them! At least I haven’t noticed any other change and so do other people in the forums.
Im just looking for a brower that just plain orks and is comfortable. blazer is sub par in stability, opera doesnt render pages comfortaby, and xiino caused weird dns errors on my tx, so im excited about ANY new browsers coming out, java or not.
Have you looked at orca’s applications yet? We have experimented for about a year taking applications to a whole new level. We are running a beta version of a desktop with new features emerging every day. I invite you to try it. At the moment we got about 2000 users, but we need more to hear some feed back of how we can improve to become even better.
To visit our site go to http://www.orcadesktop.com and explore the future of web os.