back to article CrackBerry mimics Jesus Phone with WebKit browser

Research in Motion has uncloaked a WebKit-based browser for the BlackBerry, tapping the same open-source rendering engine that underpins browsers on the Apple iPhone, Google Android mobile operating system, Palm webOS, and the Symbian OS. RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis demoed the browser this week at the Mobile World Congress in …

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  1. James 47
    FAIL

    F**king dope

    Carriers want more data. They don't give a shit what you're downloading, the bigger the better.

    Back to tech... have they just copied Opera and put some shitty server in between?

    1. Argh
      Jobs Horns

      Is more always better?

      Tell that to AT&T as they fall over thanks to the Jesus Phone.

      1. Stu Wilson
        FAIL

        ... but

        AT&T were rubbing their collective hands together with glee right up until their system couldn't handle it. they were as the saying goes, coining it in.

        seriously, no one expected the iPhone to be as big a hit as it was, and you could give AT&T some measure of relief that they were caught short with their pants round their ankles when it turned out otherwise.

        Any back to the original article, BB using WebKit (yawn), honestly, how many BB's are going to be able to run it, and you really dont get the best out of WebKit without a larger screen (ie iPhone, Nexus 1, Pre, etc) and I can't see the proverbial road warriors giving up their chicklets for a larger screen

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        RE: Is more always better?

        Well, the Telecos here in the UK manage just fine with the iPhone, so maybe AT&T are just a terrible company to be with...

      3. Sean Timarco Baggaley

        Let me fix that for you:

        "Tell that to AT&T as they fall over thanks to their lousy infrastructure and chronic underinvestment."

        AT&T's problems are entirely their own damned fault.

        In fairness, carriers are so obsessed with trying to become the alpha and the omega of all things mobile, they've tended to neglect their infrastructure while trying to build their own music stores, app stores and "communities".

    2. magnetik
      FAIL

      Er, no

      "Carriers want more data. They don't give a shit what you're downloading, the bigger the better."

      Unless you're on an unlimited data contract, then your argument goes straight out the window.

  2. Patrick O'Reilly
    FAIL

    Questionable numbers.

    3 Blackberry browser sessions for every other user. Eh about about gramps and his Siemens S35 pulling down 3k a page.

    Also from their chart Opera uses the most data, which I find highly suspect. The totally ignored Opera Turbo for Mobile and Opera Mini for J2ME.

    1. Dino Saur
      Stop

      Questionable reading

      "three BlackBerry browsing sessions for every other smartphone browsing session"

      Don't see how you can interpret this as "every other user" or compare it to a Siemens S35.

      If he's telling the truth then I'm all for it. Most 'smart'-phones have no understanding of radio resource and tend to grab all of the bandwidth just to send an occasional packet. BB've probably introduced some packet buffering and active transitions to idle/ 0 Mbps RAB so that the radio resources can be released and used by gramps to make a call on his S35. I suspect they've had some severe arm twisting from a major Operator or two, and some advice from the same (like "Stop crashing our London network or else!").

      It's not difficult for these guys to design a real smartPHONE, but instead they give us an iPod or email reader with some generic phone bits attached. Might look cool to folks, but it's just bad engineering.

  3. Lance 3

    Centralized

    The browser won't work unless it can contact their servers and with their centralized approach, there will be plenty of outages. Outage = no data.

  4. CrashMurdock
    Thumb Up

    @ James 47. Why the negativity?

    Many, if not most, mobile carriers today are already struggling with providing advertised data plan speeds and bandwidth thanks to the exponential growth of smartphone use worldwide. U.S. based AT&T is a prime example. The Jesus phone initially completely overwhelmed their substandard lame network infrastructure and continues to do so. Hell, their regular cell service and Swiss cheese coverage areas have sucked for years as well. And trust me, as a former AT&T customer, I know the truth. Just think about how much worse it will be in the future with gazillions more smartphones with increased data capabilities. After all 4G speeds are already being implemented. Obviously, the telecoms are going to have to expand their network infrastructures, but as Mike Lazaridis points out, there is only so much capacity in the radio band available.

    The bottom line is that if Blackberry is somehow pioneering greater data transmission efficiency, or at least bandwidth utilization, instead of trying to dazzle us with smoke and mirrors, then more power to them. Hopefully, other manufacturers will follow suit. Blackberry has always been about efficiency so I have no reason to doubt them now. Obviously, the telecom carriers want to hawk as much data as they can for the fat revenue stream, but most, unfortunately, just don't have the capability. Any improvement at all will hopefully enhance our mobile based browsing experience. It certainly couldn't hurt.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Dying breed?

    Blackberry needs to revamp their phones first. They were shitty pieces of hardware before but now with iPhone and iPhone wannabes I wouldn't accept to use it if I were offered one.

  6. Geoff Johnson

    E-Mail

    Does this mean we'll finally be able to read e-mail with HTML in it?

  7. Greg J Preece

    Still miffed about Iris

    That was shaping up to be a great little browser for WM until RIM bought it.

    Mumble grumble...

  8. David Cuthbert

    Well, of course...

    Of course they can support 3x the number of Blackberries; the phones are that much slower.

    (Typing this on a BB 8820 and Opera Mini because the BB browser is a turd.)

  9. Gil Grissum

    When will it be available

    Given the choice, I chose the Blackberry. Physical keyboard, replaceable battery, Java, SD Card and I'm not hemmed into getting apps from only one store. Got more/cost less, no brainer. New browser? Fine, especially it supports flash. No, it's not the latest BB, but it doesn't have to be. It does what I need, what I want, and cost me less. Enjoy your Jesus Phone. I'm enjoying my BB.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Good

    Anything that could improve on opera mini on my 8520 is a winner in my opinion

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