Mobile Browser
A Mobile
Browser is an web browser which runs on a mobile
phone. Mobile Browsers are optimised so as to
display internet content most effectively for
small screens on portable devices. They
accomodate any combination of wcss, xhtml, wap
and mhtml. A microbrowser is a web browser
designed for use on a handheld device such as a
PDA or mobile phone. Microbrowsers have small
file sizes to accommodate the low memory
capacity and low-bandwidth of wireless handheld
devices. Essentially it is a stripped-down web
browser. Sometimes it is referred to as mobile
browser, micro-browser, mini-browser or
minibrowser.
Underlying
Technology
The microbrowser
usually sets up the cellular networks themselves
and gets content written in XHTML Mobile Profile
(WAP 2.0), or WML (WAP 1.3 which was based on
HDML). WML and HDML are stripped-down formats
suitable for transmission across limited
bandwidth, and wireless data connection called
WAP. In Japan, DoCoMo defined the i-mode service
based on i-mode HTML, which is an extension of
Compact HTML (C-HTML), a simple subset of HTML.
WAP 2.0 specifies XHTML Mobile Profile plus WAP
CSS, subsets of the W3C's standard XHTML and CSS
with minor mobile extensions.
Newer microbrowsers are full-featured Web
browsers capable of HTML, WML, i-mode HTML,
cHTML, plus CSS, ECMAScript, and plug-ins such
as Macromedia Flash.
Pioneers
The so-called
microbrowser technologies such as WAP,
NTTDocomo's i-mode platform and Openwave's HDML
platform have fuelled the first wave of interest
in wireless data services.
Small-Screen
Rendering Limitations
As mentioned, not only do microbrowsers need
to be small in file size, the display screen is
also much smaller. Extreme care and meticulous
detail must be considered in displaying HTML
information onto such a small screen. Bandwidth
is also extremely limited and so is the
stability. Connections get cut off as with
ordinary cell phones and PDAs that are
wirelessly connected.
Popular Microbrowsers
The following are
some of the more popular microbrowsers. Some
microbrowsers are really miniaturized Web
browsers, so some microbrowser companies also
provide browsers for the PC.
Default browsers used by major mobile phone
vendors
NetFront by Access Co. Ltd. (Japan).
Nokia Series 40 Browser by Nokia.
Nokia Series 60 Browser by Nokia.
Obigo by Obigo AB (Sweden), owned by Teleca
Systems AB (formerly AU Systems)
Openwave (Redwood, CA) (formerly Phone.com,
formerly Unwired Planet).
Opera by Opera Software ASA (Norway).
Pocket Internet Explorer by Microsoft Inc.
User-installable microbrowsers
Andromeda
Bluelark Bluelark bought by Handspring Inc.
Doris by Anygraaf Oy (Vantaa, Finland)
NicheView by Interniche Technologies Inc.
Minimo by Mozilla Foundation.
Palm™ Web Browser Pro by PalmOne, Inc.
(Milpitas, CA)
Picsel by Picsel Technologies Ltd. (Glasgow,
Scotland)
Pixo by Sun Microsystems (Pixo acquired by Sun
July 2003)
RocketBrowser Rocket Mobile, Inc. (Silicon
Valley, CA).
SAS
Skweezer by Greenlight Wireless Corporation
Thunderhawk by Bitstream Inc. (Cambridge, MA)
Wapaka
WebViewer by Reqwireless
Novarra
Available Mobile Browsers
There are several browsers for mobile devices
available today, ranging from WAP browsers with
limited HTML support, for example the Nokia
browser, to full-fledged browsers with full
support for web standards, for example the
Opera.
The following list is a non-comprehensive
list of some of the most known mobile browsers.
Links
http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/
Compact HTML for Small Information Appliances —
W3C NOTE 09-Feb-1998 (http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-compactHTML-19980209/)
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