Zumobi, first announced in March, is touted as an alternative to using a traditional Web browser for discovering and consuming Web content and services on a mobile phone or handheld device. The interface displays up to 16 different "tiles" per screen, allowing users to "snack on content," according to the company.


A collection of Zumobi "tiles"
Zumobi says its back-end servers are constantly updating the websites on the phone, so sites load instantly when a user clicks the tile, and can also be used even when a phone is out of range of wireless service. Users determine what site appears in each tile, and they can send tiles to each other.


Zumobi's servers send website information to phones continuously
According to the company, the Zumobi UI is based on many years of human-computer interaction (HCI) research. The UI reportedly adjusts to different devices and modalities, such as portrait, landscape, numeric keypad, touchscreen, mini-QWERTY, or traditional up/down/left/right navigational controls.

The software and underlying service will be advertising-supported and remain free to the user, the vendor says. More than 75 tiles will reportedly be available, many from Zumobi launch partners such as Amazon.com, MTV Networks, The Associated Press, AccuWeather.com, Traffic.com, and FlightStats.com.

Free SDK

Pledging to offer "an open, device-neutral platform for building and deploying rich content for mobile phones," Zumobi also released a beta version of its SDK. This will allow developers to create their own tiles, which they will be able to upload to the "Zumobi Gallery" in the first quarter of 2008, according to the company.

The beta can be downloaded from the company's website, here. The SDK, also available now, can be downloaded from the company's developer site, here.

In the second quarter of 2008, Zumobi says, beta versions for BlackBerry and selected J2ME implementations will be available. Those who wish to participate in the beta test need to have a data plan, and unlimited data plans are strongly recommended.

---

Related stories:

• Microsoft spinoff preps smartphone UI beta
  
• Startup hopes to redefine smartphone Web content access
  
• Software adds sliding UI to Windows Mobile
  
• Microsoft refines Live Search client for Windows Mobile
  
• AOL offers Windows Mobile client software
  
• Yahoo! Go 2.0 goes Windows Mobile
  
• Web portals to battle for drivers' eyeballs?
  
• Offline web search service supports Windows Mobile devices
  
• Free web service delivers content to Windows Mobile phones
  
• Service delivers personalized info to Windows Mobile devices
  
• Software eases Internet access from Windows Mobile devices
  
• Mobile Web-based content platform adds Web services
  
• Mobile browsing comes on strong
  
• Smartphone photos to simplify Web searches