TamsPalm - the Palm OS Blog

The folks at Opera’s have updated their Opera Mini browser once again. The latest update is said to bring the improvements shown below:

The Opera Mini 4 servers have been upgraded with quite a few improvements. To begin with the servers should now be nicer to phones that are low on available memory. but what we are are especially pleased with the new feed system and hope you will like it too:
* Improved feed (RSS/Atom) viewer to support for bidirectional text and layout. Oh, and it’s faster.
* Fixed bug with select items being wrongly positioned.
* Fixed problem with images in object tags not being rendered correctly.
* Made sure image maps gets rescaled to fit the screen width.
* Fixed problem with page being zoomed in when going to page which is in history.
* Fixed problem with some phones with little memory getting too many images.
* The server now prioritizes sending images at the top of the document if the phone’s too low on memory to display them all.

And for those of you using the 4.1 beta client:
* Downloading of files which require authentication now works (gmail etc).
* Redesigned the file download page.

Please let us know if you feel any changes on your Treo!

Opera has recently begun porting its desktop browser to various mobile devices(S60 review here, PocketPC reviews here and here) - the Palm OS was ignored so far(for various non-technical reasons not to be discussed here). However, Palm OS users that have the Palm Java VM installed on their device can use Opera Mini - can the latest beta release stack up?

As usual, a newly installed version of Opera Mini displays a page containing a quick “changelog” and the EULA - it must be accepted before the browser can be used:

Entering an URL now brings up an autocompletition tool - its recommendations are helpful even when visiting unknown URL’s:

Once an URL was visited, finding it again is really easy:

Another new feature is the integrated “download manager” - Opera Mini can now download files without forwarding them to the native browser. This has worked decently on my Treo, however, the Java VM’s permission dialogs became more and more garbled as time went by(forcing you to navigate them blindly with the 5way nav):

This “review” is based on beta 4.1.10781(downloadable here), and was performed on a Palm Treo 680 in T-Mobile Austria’s GPRS/EDGE network. The program was exceptionally stable while I tortured it a bit(not a single crash or hangup) - Blazer is significantly more troublesome to use.

In the end, Opera has clearly shown its commitment towards its mobile browser - each version gets significantly better. Opera’s excellent URL autocompleting was rated excellently in our review of the S60 version; and seeing this come to the Palm OS definitely is great! Blazer haters will be relieved to hear about Opoera now handling downloads itself - while downloading has never been much of an issue for me(I use the Nokia N71 for that as its on UMTS and thus faster than my Treo 680); I can imagine quite a few of you celebrating…

When I was viewing TealPoint’s beta page, I found an interesting new application: TealWeb. At the moment it’s an offline HTML viewer without any additional support for online activities or images (at least not here?). But it could turn into a powerful web browser if TealPoint continued the development. TealPoint writes that development has been stopped because of the lack of CSS and JavaScript ressources. Nevertheless, development could continue if there is enough interest.

Right now we can use TealWeb as an offline HTML document reader. It has “Back”, “Forward”, “Cancel” and “Reload” buttons. There is also a line with 10 buttons which could be taps. At the moment they have no function. There is also no menu yet. To open a file, you have to tap the line on the button in the left bottom line. In the right part of the bottom, you can choose the font size (small, medium and large).

Files can be stored in RAM or on a memory card. Rendering is a little bit slow, especially on big sites (1src, …), but also very clear. One of the main aims is a good table support (“It has better table layout capabilities than any browser we’ve seen under PalmOS.”). Links are not supported yet. Below there are some screenshots of famous pages rendered by TealWeb (in different font sizes):

1src

eBay

TealPoint homepage

If TealPoint will continue its development on TealWeb, it could become a good browsing solution for Palm OS. There is Blazer, preinstalled on all Palm devices, which has many problems. NetFront and PicselBrowser may not be seen as a legal alternative and also aren’t compatible with every handheld (same thing for Opera). Universe is one of the new projects to create a new Palm OS browser, developed by Donald C. Kirker, who also wants to port the KHTML engine for it. And now there is TealWeb, a very interesting idea of a browser which - according to TealWeb - does not try to change the layout of the page, but render it like your desktop browser. So let’s hope that TealWeb will continue development.

For me, MSN has always served as a communication vector between me and important contacts. Mundu IM has made an excellent job of keeping me connected so far…so my excitement for Gizmo was pretty low. Can it make me a Gizmo freak?

When starting up Gizmo for the first time, it requires a so-called “Gizmo account”. A Gizmo account is an account that acts as a ‘wrapper’ around your other accounts - creating one is easy via the web interface:

Once the account is set up, you need to link the account with other services. This happens via a command line client available as a contact:

After that, contacts start to trickle in with weird characters mixed in for a stranger taste:

Whenever you message an MSN contact that’s offline, Gizmo mirrors the message at you. Since this is bundled with an Attention Manager notification(one per message!!!)…chaos will soon take over on your Treo’s screen:

Once a contact is online, the situation becomes drastically better - communication is possible without message duplication. However, user names are not shown:

Another very cool feature is the suppression of ‘emoticon crap’. The image below shows a few emoticons sent by a German MSN crapware…instead of rendering the HTML, the program just shows the smiley. Well done!

Most messaging programs for Palm OS have problems with keepalive or background mode. I am glad to say that Gizmo has neither - background mode just works, and connection losses are ‘covered up’!

This review looked at Gizmo v1.0b4 on a Treo 680 running on T-Mobile Austria’s GPRS network. The program needs approx 250k od RAM and can be downloaded from here.

Overall, Gizmo Project for Treo definitely still lacks the optical polish of its competitors. However, the freeware already makes a decent MSN communication tool - if you don’t already have Mundu, give it a whirl!

P.s. Tune in soon for a look at Gizmo’s voice features!

Opera Mini was reviewed on TamsPalm a few times before(Opera Mini 4 Beta 1, Opera Mini 2). All these tests were done on HiRes+ - devices with a broadband connection…which isn’t exactly where Opera Mini is intended to be used. This review takes Opera Mini 4 beta 2 for a whirl on T-Mobile’s GPRS network with a Treo 680…can it still stack up?

At startup, Opera Mini shows a page combining information about the new release and the EULA - it needs to be accepted before the program can be used:

Opera Mini’s “start site” was overhauled a bit - you can now choose a variety of search engines. Adding your own search engines is said to be possible too - but it didn’t quite work on the Treo 680:

The number 1 feature added to this version of Opera Mini is a “reflow mode” that displays the web page in a single column that fits on screen exactly. This mode works very well - people who like reflow modes will be very happy:

The rendering engine and regular browsing mode didn’t change much from beta 1(tested here) - the zoom is now animated. However, accessing AdSense no longer works:

Also, the shoutbox is not rendered properly anymore:

Speed-wise, the program is more-less on par with Blazer. However, it looks like the program reconnects to the proxy every time a new page is requested…this process takes a lot of time on T-Mobile(but is more reliable than Blazer’s connection process). If the program would stay connected to the proxy all the time, it could probably be much faster:

Scrolling across pages with the 5way navigator and the mouse is very annoying - you either scroll too wide or too little. Using the 2,4,6 and 8 keys works better on a Treo. Scrolling itself is very smooth - the issues with the 5way nav truly are a pity..

Overall, accessing the internet via GPRS/EDGE is one of the very few areas where a proxy-based browser can truly excel over classic web browsers that do all the rendering on-device. And indeed, Opera Mini 4 does a great job displaying pages. However, in everyday use, the scrolling and connection issues make using the program less comfortable than it could be.

If Opera manages to get the last issues resolved(and the rendering engine fixed), this will be the best browser for Treos. As it is now, it is more-less on par with Blazer…

Opera’s web browser has been ported to both PocketPC and Series 60 platforms - and has received rave reviews by analysts. Palm OS users have to stick to Opera Mini so far; Opera’s current beta of Opera Mini 4 is said to be promising! But can it stack up in a TamsPalm review?

After installing the program, it starts a “network diagnosis” that identifies the available network connection methods(no idea whats that for). Network diagnosis takes approximately 20 seconds on a Palm TX and occurs only once:

Once network diagnosis is complete, Opera Mini shows you a page with details about the new features. The bottom of this page also contains the license agreement, which must be accepted by clicking on the Accept button:

Opera Mini has a start page that shows a few bookmarks and the last visited page. URL’s get entered into the top text field, entering a search term into the field below it allows you to access Yahoo search results directly:

By default, Opera Mini 4 opens web pages in a view mode similar to Web Pro’s “Mini View”. Mini view shows the whole width of the page in a down-scaled fashion:

Clicking on a part of the web site then opens it in “view mode”:

Both view and mini modes can be controlled via stylus or a “mini mouse” which is controlled via the 5way nav. For me, the mini mouse never really worked, as hitting a link was extremely difficult due to “overshoot”. Stylus control worked flawlessly though.

TamsPalm has reviewed Opera Mini v2 some time ago. Logging into Google AdSense still works, and all “weak points” have been eliminated.

Tamoggemon’s classic product pages now get displayed properly(aka with tabs) in view mode. However, the mini view of www.palmbinaryclock.com looked quite strange:

Tables finally get rendered properly, too:

Opera Mini 4 even supports the TamsPalm shoutbox “iframe” - many mobile web browsers don’t manage to accomplish this:

For me, Opera Mini 4 was pretty stable. The program crashed once and displayed a few errors like the one below(it continued working though). The following memory settings were used while reviewing on a Palm TX:

This review focuses on the “Palm” version of Opera Mini 4 Beta. It was downloaded to a Palm TX from Opera’s web site at 1:50am austrian time. It identifies itself as v4.0.846320070619; internet connection was provided via a WiFi router.

Overall, it’s difficult not to like this 260k Java freeware. It makes a pretty fast browser with really good page rendering and very good HTML support - and it also renders pages in a very usable fashion. While a smaller font would have been desirable; the program does and excellent job overall…for me, it is a must-have! Congratulations to Opera for finally giving the Palm OS a really usable web browser!

Before we start the reviewing process, I want to express my greatest respect to the developer. I would never have managed to create a Palm OS that can actually browse the web. Nevertheless, in my role as a reviewer, I need to review applications based on facts. So, please understand that this app - like other open source projects - will not get baby treatment at TamsPalm’s!

One of the biggest problems of the Palm OS economy is the lack of a decent web browser for OS5 devices. This probably sounds confusing(as Access, the company that now owns PalmSource, essentially lives off browsers) but is true - you can either use WebPro, Blazer or a hacked version of NetFront; and none of them is really good. When Donald Kirker announced his Universe3 browser, people expected Firefox for Palm - can the first release candidate live up to the high expectations on my Palm Tungsten E2?

Universe3 takes about 2 seconds to start up. The startup phase is accompanied by a very nice splash screen. Once Universe3 is loaded up, you get an interface similar to the one below. Opening extra tabs can be done in the menu, although the total number of open tabs is limited to three independent of how much RAM you have:

The Universe3 UI is nice looking, but still contains a few debugging artifacts:

The most outstanding feature of Universe3 is the “5way mouse”. The mouse pointer visible in some of the screenshots above can be moved around the screen with the 5way navigator like one does with IBM’s Trackpoint. If the mouse gets over a link, it transforms into a hand. A tap on the center button then “activates the link”:

So, Universe 3 has a nice UI - but can the current rendering engine live up to its expectations?

The first test page was the start page of Tamoggemon.com. This web site has a hand-created CSS stylesheet - and it didn’t render correctly in Universe3. The HTML part made it through, but the CSS part simply got omitted(the developer states this on his blog btw):

After that, I moved on to www.palmbinaryclock.com, which is an even more complex page with some dynamically generated content, a forwarding script from GoDaddy and GIF images. The CSS got omitted, and the GIF’s were rendered as black boxen:

Accessing TamsPalm(rather GIF-free) worked well, although all the sidebar content was rendered above the main content. The JPG images made it through, but the shoutbox didn’t:

Flickr automatically forwarded me to its mobile web page which worked decently well:

I also tried to access the Google AdSense control panel, but failed miserably with the error shown below:

My Palm Tungsten E2 locked up once while creating this Universe3 review. The internet access was provided by a Belkin F8T030 router connected to a Chello broadband link. The page loading speed was rather slow…

Overall, Universe3 looks like a very promising web browser for Palm OS, reviewing it was fun. The user interface ix extremely well done, the tabs also come in handy. However, the sub-par rendering engine really needs to be replaced by a better one before this web browser is ready for prime-time. The current engine is too slow for everyday usage, and also can’t do CSS and other advanced page elements.

When Resco first released Neeews, many in the Palm OS world did not understand the motivation behind giving away such an excellent program completely free. After the Resco site-visit, I knew that a commercial version was coming…and here it is. The product hasn’t been released yet, but the TamsPalm review is right here!

Resco Neeews starts up by showing a few introductory pages. These contain basic information for novices - well done.

Resco Neeews’s user interface is similar to the Palm OS launcher:

Adding a new feed(Resco term: newspaper) works via a wizard that is easy to understand, but confusing. I outlined all the steps for you below, as you might see, one passes the same form twice(once to choose, once to edit and save). However, the Wizard appears well thought-out and did its job perfectly.

Static feeds like our TamsPalm feed work very well. You can choose if images should be downloaded or not, how many articles you want to have, the font size can be selected and links can be passed to your handheld’s web browser or sent to the clipboard. To cut a long story short - Neeews’s rendering is excellent!

Resco’s so-called dynamic feed feature allows you to get a feed from sites like Google or Flickr that is parametrized by the search terms you enter into the wizard. This page shows the settings for a Flickr feed that downloads the latest lava lamp photographs from Flickr:

Resco Neeews did a great job with the dynamic feed - the pictures look great on my Palm Tungsten E2(the ripple is due to the GIF compression in Wordpress - the gradients are soft on the TE2):

Neeews’s dynamic rendering allows you to look at a feed while it’s data is still being downloaded. This is especially handy for feeds with many images… . Here is a video that shows the creation of a dynamic feed, its downloading and rendering on a Palm Tungsten E2.

This review looked at Resco Neeews 2.01 on a Palm Tungsten E2 with a HP SD card. Neeews didn’t crash in my tests, neither did it show any excessively weird behavior.

Overall, the Palm OS world just got richer by one excellent program. If you enjoy looking at RSS feeds, you will love Resco Neeews! Excellent HTML rendering makes looking at feeds comfortable, dynamic rendering makes the whole experience fast. I can’t really find out anything negative about Neeews! - congratulations!

Smaato News is a RSS/newsreader program (not only) for PalmOS. It offers several preconfigured channels, but one can also add individual feeds. The program supports all kinds of RSS and Atom feeds.

I tested it with the feed of my own news site and there was no problem. But be careful: some feeds deliver the whole text of the article, some other only show the headlines. In this case, the corresponding article can be opened in the web browser by tapping on the “read more” link.

The feeds are updated “over the air” or via Hotsync-Conduit (there have been problems with the speed of the sync via conduit in older versions, but this problem is going to be fixed. A version with improved conduit is coming soon according to a company insider).

One can limit the traffic in order to avoid high costs (if you don’t have a unlimited data plan). Another service is also included: a weather forecast which is also updated during the sync. Smaato says that further services will be integrated.

Smaato News officially is only for Treo devices (both PalmOS and WindowsMobile). But I tested it on my Tungsten T3 with Wifi card and it worked perfectly. Only HiRes+ is not supported. On my Treo 680 I had no problems, too.

Overall, Smaato News is a nice program for everyone who wants to stay up-to-date with the latest news easily. And the best thing about it: it’s free!

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.

Many TamsPalm readers enjoy Opera Mini. I recently found a thread over at 1src’s announcing that Opera Mini 2 works in HiRes+ on Palm handhelds - I tried, it works, and here is my “Opera Mini 2 review”:

Opera Mini is not a regular kind of browser that downloads full HTML files to the handheld - instead, a co-called proxy is connected inbetween the web site and the handheld. This proxy “reduces” the size of the pages so that less data needs to be transferred onto the handheld. However, most of the formatting gets lost. Here are a few commented screenshots:

Pages designed for mobile use(I used Eugenia’s Mobile digg here) look very similar in Opera Mini 2 and Web Pro 3.5:

Binary Clock 3.0’s web site contains tabs - neither Opera Mini 2 nor Web Pro 3.5 can manage that:

Tables get “eliminated”, sort of like Plucker does:

Google AdSense works well - Web Pro does not manage it:

Opera Mini 2 was not excessively stable on my Palm Tungsten T3. I had to set Memory to 8MB and the Thread Cache to 32kb to make it show web sites as whole, and nevertheless experienced a few “freezeups”, some UI quirks and an outright “Java crash”:

The web browser can be downloaded for free here; you need to have Java installed to get it running.

Overall, Opera Mini 2 worked ok on my Palm Tungsten T3. The browser obviously is different from Web Pro and Blazer, as it doesnt even attempt to recreate the original page layout - this reduces data transfer volume and makes browsing hell fast(almost as fast as on my desktop). 5way control works really well too - no need to use the stylus when surfing! If you are on a GPRS contract, look at this free browser - it could save you money!
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Some months ago the Opera Petition was started because Palm users wanted Opera on their Palm. Many sites wrote about that, but Opera didn’t react. Then they published Opera Mini for mobile phones, and with IBM WebSphere Java VM it worked fine on Palm OS.

Now 2000 signed the petiton. Opera hasn’t reacted yet.

So what do you think? Is Opera Mini enough? Will Opera release a version for Palm OS?

The 1src member npbeers wrote a very interesting article about the main Palm OS web browsers. You will probably notice a lot of new things you didn’t know before. For example, many people think that Palm Web Browser and Palm Web Pro would be the same, and then almost every browser uses a differnt engine/core… Interesting for “new” and “old” Palm users.

So click here to read the article.

What do you think?

You had to wait very long for this. First my device didn’t work for weeks and when I noticed that NetFront had to be the best Palm OS browser I wanted to test it a little bit longer than other browsers.

NetFront - developed by Access - is pre-installed on some Sony Clié devices, but you never could buy or download it. When you installed it onto your Palm it confused to start because it didn’t detect a Sony Clie. Last year people noticed that they can run NetFront if they hack into the hex code. Then Tam Hanna developed MakeMeClie, a tool that changes the device id of your Palm. So (almost) every Palm OS 5 device can run NetFront.

Getting started
See http://tamspalm.tamoggemon.com/2006/01/02/netfront-on-the-txt5/ how to install NetFront. If you don’t own a TX/T5 you don’t need MaxX.

Browsing the web
I could visit the most sites very well. There are four page rendering modes, for example full desktop layout or handheld optimized layout (small screen rendering). Very good is the handheld optimized rendering mode which keeps tables. Other browsers display one column after the other while NetFront tries to keep the layout.

Four rendering modes

On my device there was a problem with the connection: on the German site “T-Online” for examlpe, NetFront asked about 25 times “Connect now?” while loading although there was a (good) connection. This is similar on other pages. You should enable “Auto connecting” in the settings.

You can use the stylus for both marking text and scrolling the page, but you can only use one mode at the same time. I think you don’t need marking text so often, but when NetFront is in scrolling mode you can’t tap on hyperlinks. And as I prefer scrolling with the stylus on the whole screen instead of using scrollbars, I call this a problem. Unfortunetly - because it “belongs” to Sony Clies - there is no support for the 5-way-navigator.

The dialogue you open an URL with has many features: a history, bookmarks, and it can open saved files. Pages you save are stored in the MTH format (HTML with images) on the card. The bookmark manager has also a “auto-crusing” capability.

Opening an URL

Downloads and settings
A good web browser should be able to download files. NetFront is. Using a Tungsten C near to an Wireless AP with a 2 Mbps connection I downloaded a ~ 712 KB ZIP file in ~ 12 seconds. Of course the wireless module of the T|C doesn’t support 2 Mbits/sec. I repeated the download and confirmed a download speed of 60 KB/s. Not bad. Unfortuanely all files are downloaded into /Palm/Programs/MSFiles and you can’t change this path in NetFront. And you can also upload files (and choose every file, everywhere on your card)

NetFront seems to support secure pages. When I logged into my GoogleMail I got a message “This page is not secured. Data will be sent without encrypting.”. Nevertheless my GoogleMail account worked, but I don’t know anything about the security of this connection…

In the settings you can disable images, animations, tables, JavaScript, … you can set cookie and cache preferences, a proxy, the user agent and the homepage.

My results
NetFront IS the best browser that is out nowadays. No other browser combines so much features: many rendering modes, downloads, uploads, bookmarks, saving a page, small fonts… Like other browsers it has its problems on several sites, but on the most sites it has no problems. My only tip for you is: GET IT