Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Nokia Not Backing Out Of Webkit Support

S60 Browser

We have just had word from the official S60 Browser Blog that no matter what you may have read on a few websites, Nokia is not backing out of webkit support for the S60 browser.

Peter from the S60 Browser Blog says,

"As I understand it, one of our developers did some housekeeping on the Tiger branch of the webkit project, and some people thought it looked like we were backing away from the whole open-source project. No, no, no — it's just that we're focusing on the newer Leopard branch, we have a lot on our plates right now (you might have heard about Nokia's acquisition of Trolltech, for example) and there's only so much we can do at once. It's not that we don't appreciate the attention, of course, but any talk about S60 Browser backing away from Webkit isn't true."

The rumours were possibly fulled by the fact that the Browser ever since FP1 came out has not seen any form of development. The browser is one of the things dearest to me as far as S60 goes and it is troubling to see the Browser not go from heights to heights. With most smartphones packing in enough RAM nowadays we desperately need a few upgrades, here a few we "really" need:

  • The ability to open new windows by simply clicking on links.
  • An option to open a new window right at the homepage.
  • The ability to copy text from the webpage.
  • A little more stability.

In my book those are the really pressing features we need and please, if at all you make this possible offer it to anyone with a FP1 hanset at least. Do not keep it for only newer devices like what happened last time. Anything else anyone of you feels we need in the Browser? Hopefully the team is listening!

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