Access has announced a new version of its NetFront web browser for Windows Mobile devices. NetFront version 3.5 adds widgets, better XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) compatibility, faster performance, and the capability to scroll up and down pages under the guidance of a device's camera.
Hot on the heels of Opera Mobile 9.5 -- which, like NetFront version 3.5, has been released to carriers but not yet to the public -- NetFront becomes the second Windows Mobile browser to support widgets. These are small applications that use a browser's rendering engine to run, but not its standard border, menus, and other "chrome." As such, widgets can appear on part of a device's screen or take it over temporarily.
For the end user, widgets have the advantage of providing easy access to content such as updated weather information, news headlines, local maps, and photo feeds. For carriers and software developers, however, their significance is even greater. Widgets can easily be used to create branded user interfaces on a device, without the complicated process of modifying its ROM or compiled software applications.
Like Google's similar "gadget" technology, widgets are designed using web standards such as Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript, Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), and Document Object Model (DOM). However, minor changes are apparently required in order to "port" widgets between their NetFront, Opera, and Google implementations.
Performance and User Interface enhancements
Access touts a bevy of performance and UI enhancements for NetFront version 3.5. For example, pages load faster initially, while the time taken to zoom in or zoom out has been "dramatically improved." The browser also switches more quickly into and out of "Smart Fit" mode, which adjusts a web page so it can fit on a device's display.
NetFront version 3.5 (click to play; video has no sound) Source: Access
Version 3.5 also includes Bytemobile's embedded browser optimization (EBO) technology, in which NetFront communicates with Bytemobile's carrier-based "Optimization Services Nodes" (OSNs). When these are available, compression and other techniques allow page downloads to happen up to four times faster, NetFront says.
Other performance enhancements are said to include smoother scrolling, panning, and zooming, plus the ability to zoom in and out on animated content. As for new UI features, "Smart Swing Navi" continuously looks at the image being captured by a device's camera, then uses relative motion to scroll or zoom automatically as the device is moved.
NetFront's Visual Bookmarks
NetFront also includes "Visual Bookmarks" (shown at right), capable of graphically displaying thumbnail previews, page titles, and URLs for bookmarked sites. Finally, "Smart Slider Menu" is a new shortcut bar that "enables users to select functions easily and quickly.
For developers ...
Access notes that in addition to the widgets technology mentioned earlier, version 3.5 of its browser is now more compliant with web standards. This includes support for: XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) MP (Mobile Profile) 1.2; CSS (Cascading Style Sheets 2.1 and 3 (partial); and the CANVAS HTML tag, which can be used to draw vector-based graphics using scripting.
As in previous versions, NetFront has a "highly modular and scalable software architecture [that] enables developers to pick and choose only needed components for their target devices," the company says. The two components that allow this portability are the SLIM interface (seen in the third row below), which encapsulates all dependencies on the target platform, and the Plate Windows System (PWS), a windowing API that generalizes and settles the differences in window manipulations from the underlying operating system.
The NetFront architecture (Click to enlarge)
Access says its browser can also incorporate low-level libraries including Wave, the company's own windowing system. This means that NetFront Browser "can run on the barest of operating systems." On operating systems that do provide window systems, such as those found on mobile handhelds, these libraries are simply stripped out so no unnecessary code is deployed.
In addition to Windows Mobile, NetFront runs on Linux, QT Embedded, Symbian, Garnet OS, and other operating systems. It has shipped in over 1,349 PDAs, smartphones, and other devices, representing some 500 million deployments. Access says. Most recently, Access supplied a Linux version of NetFront to Amazon for its Linux-based Kindle eBook reader.
Access plans to make a "concept version" of NetFront version 3.5 for Windows Mobile available on Monday, Feb. 11, from the company's website, here. Listed system requirements are an ARM-compatible or PXA2xx CPU, Windows Mobile 5.0, about 5.8MB for data storage, and about 6MB for program execution.
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Access has announced a new version of its NetFront web browser for Windows Mobile devices. NetFront version 3.5 adds widgets, better XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) compatibility, faster performance, and the capability to scroll up and down pages under the guidance of a device's camera.
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