PalmSource Ships New Browser to Licensees

Posted By: Ed Tuesday, September 17, 2002 11:52:05 AM

Earlier this year, PalmSource announced that it would be including a Web browser with Palm OS 5. Though the rest of the operating system was finalized and given to the licensees in June, the PalmSource Web Browser was just released today. It supports a collection of Web standards that a desktop browser might envy.

PalmSource's browser will work with almost any type of connection to the Internet, including traditional dial-up connections and wireless networking. Web pages are rendered in their entirety on the handheld just as they would be on a desktop browser. For slower connections, users can disable images to speed up downloads. The browser has been optimized to run on ARM-based processors for maximum rendering speed.

This browser does not need a proxy-server. Instead, connections are made directly between the handheld and each Web server, which increases security. The browser supports SSL (Secure Socket Layer) for even more security.

In addition, it supports HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0, Dynamic HTML, cHTML (Compact HTML), DOM Level 1 and Level 2, CSS, and ECMA Script (JavaScript 1.5).

This browser was developed in cooperation between PalmSource and ACCESS Co. Ltd. of Tokyo and is based on ACCESS' Netfront 3.0 browser.

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Page rendering

Midknyte @ 9/17/2002 12:16:39 PM #
Ok, while this browser renders the page as-is, so that you can [have to] scroll left/right, up/down, is nice (sometimes) - I really hope that it has the ability to also reformat the page internally and display it as we have become accustomed to with proxy based services.

Admit it, having to left and right and up and down is going to get old REAL QUICK...

RE: Page rendering
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 4:05:14 PM #
Hey at least there is a directional pad on the New Palms!
RE: Page rendering
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 9:54:56 PM #
This Browser needs larger scrollbars!!!
RE: Page rendering
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 10:36:09 PM #
I agree with the first poster completely. No matter what features this thing supports, it would be made functionally useless without the kind of re-formatting that we see in Blazer. I am hopeful that they have done the sensible thing with this - its so obvious that they wouldn't dream of releasing a palm browser without reformatting... i hope:)

What about Hi-Res+

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 12:22:13 PM #
It would be REALLY nice if you could display the pages under Hi-Res+ landscape mode and skip the left/right scrolling.

Just my 2 cents worth...

RE: What about Hi-Res+
Midknyte @ 9/17/2002 12:24:24 PM #
well, yeah, if you have a Sony/Handera

RE: What about VGA
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 12:29:50 PM #
Why not just go VGA as per some windows based pdas - notably from Samsung, and OQO. The technology is available, so why not use it to push the envelope further. The pixel density could be pushed further too to allow a smaller size physically. The only problem is the need for good eyesight to see small fonts or to point with the stylus accurately. Still I would love to see much more information at once in the palm of my hand.

David

RE: What about Hi-Res+
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 12:56:45 PM #
Web designers for the most part don't understand that HTML is supposed to be a markup language, not a formatting/layout language---a travesty of Tim Berners-Lee's original vision.

As wireless handheld devices become more popular, websites will become less resolution-and-color-dependent, because people will demand navgiation models and content formatting that meets their browsers. As XHTML slowly takes over the web this will start to become a reality.

RE: What about Hi-Res+
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 1:26:53 PM #
"Why not just go VGA as per some windows based pdas"

An idea yes. The problem is that 160x160 and 320x320 don't scale well to VGA. You'd have some of the dithering that can be seen in some situations on a Handera 330 scales a 160x160 app to it's QVGA 240x320 screen. Having said that, HandEra's screen scales quite well to 640x480. For that reason, you're more likely to see vga screens on PocketPC's (which share the same 240x320 screen resolution) and future HandEra and Symbol PDA's (if both of the latter stick with their QVGA roots).

On a Sony/Palm devices the screen would be 640x640 or 640x800 with virtual silk screen collapsed.

RE: What about Hi-Res+
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 1:33:48 PM #
Ya.. the cool part is that CSS has media type descriptors. So as more pages come to fully rely on CSS, they should be able to just add a media descriptor for PDA's that allow them to format everything in a more PDA friendly way.
RE: What about Hi-Res+
Scott R @ 9/17/2002 4:56:50 PM #
"Ya.. the cool part is that CSS has media type descriptors. So as more pages come to fully rely on CSS, they should be able to just add a media descriptor for PDA's that allow them to format everything in a more PDA friendly way."

Designing a good web site is a lot harder than that. Take this site, for example. A PDA version of the home page should leave out the side bar (replaced with links to just the most important parts of the site - reviews, discussion, etc.). The "Special Deals" section should be left out altogether. The ads should be left out altogether. The logo should either be left out (and replaced with the name of the site in text or a smaller version of the logo). You can't do it all with CSS. You have to think about it and design each version on their own. There's no magic solution to this that will automagically reformat a site for two different platforms.

Scott

RE: What about Hi-Res+
iebnn @ 9/17/2002 5:34:33 PM #
It's not very hard to do what you explain. Just use some simple PHP/Perl/Whatever code.

RE: What about Hi-Res+ what about QVGA
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 6:39:41 PM #
I wonder if that means that the Handera 330's QVGA screen will be supported? Anyone know if the browser will work under OS 3.5.3.
RE: What about Hi-Res+
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 6:53:50 PM #
> On a Sony/Palm devices the screen would be 640x640 or 640x800 with virtual silk screen collapsed.

Here's a nickel, go buy yourself a calculator. Sony devices with virtual graffiti minimized would scale from 320x480 to 640x960, not 640x800.

And for all the HandEra bigots out there, it makes absolutely NO difference if you force people to scale "now" (e.g. apps designed for palm's 160x160 screen forced into HandEra's 320x240 QVGA) or scale "later" (e.g. apps designed for palm's 160x160 screen easily pixel doubled to Sony's original 320x320, but then forced to scale to 640x480). The scaling factor is the same in either case.

RE: What about Hi-Res+
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/18/2002 3:34:10 PM #
Hander would have to first release an OS upgrade and those guys can't even afford to pay for an OS 4.0 upgrade let alone OS5.0. All you handera guys need to sell that brick and move on to a real PDA that has real world support from its manufacturer. Anyway how many Handera 330s can there actually be out there 5? 6? Get over it only geeks bought those things anyway.
RE: What about Hi-Res+
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/18/2002 4:49:44 PM #
> All you handera guys need to sell that brick and move on to a real PDA

Yawn. Where do these children come from. The 330 is noticably smaller and lighter than any PDA I am aware of with equivalent features, so brick is wrong. There are still zero other Palm OS PDAs with anywhere near the number of features on the 330, so moving to another current Palm OS device would be a step backwards for most 330 users.

Oh well, I shouldn't have even wasted my time responding to these trolls.

I would assume the browser is coded to support any resolution, if the people doing it had any smarts whatsoever. There's nothing in OS 5 keeping them from doing it. Won't work on OS 3 or 4 devices anyhow, so this whole discussion is moot.

OS5 devices coming!

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 12:24:19 PM #
Perhaps this is what delayed the release of OS5 devices. Now it's out, I don't see any reason why OS 5 devices not be release by October.

one has to wonder

cyn @ 9/17/2002 12:33:03 PM #
if it supports all these things...

how does it implement mouseovers? :)

seriously though, depending on browser detection, some sites may see that you support > javascript 1.2 and not give the normal non-fancy navigation. Maybe they thought of that and made 1 tap mouseover, double tap == single click, and triple tap == double click (very rarely used in the web).

Just one example, there are undoubtedly other concerns when displaying the real web on such a small and different device.

RE: one has to wonder
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 12:55:35 PM #
Frames?
Flash movies? Flash player?

RE: one has to wonder
macfixer @ 9/17/2002 1:18:52 PM #
What I want to know is what black and white scroll bars are doing in OS 5 -- all this time to re-write the OS essentially from scratch and this basic cosmetic flaw (in my opinion) hasn't been looked at?

A rewrite of the OS that requires new hardware whose results will look the same as the old OS will NOT SELL HANDHELDS!

Palm is doomed!

K

RE: one has to wonder
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 1:45:12 PM #
No current PalmOS flash player yet so that's not going to happen. However reportedly Macromedia is happy to do it when the hardware is up to it (aka OS5 hardware).
RE: one has to wonder
Token User @ 9/17/2002 1:56:35 PM #
Flash for Palm ... from PIC March, 2002
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=3113

Its there ... lurking ... waiting.

RE: one has to wonder
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 3:49:54 PM #
HTML 4.01, which this browser supports, includes both tables and frames:
www.w3.org/TR/html401/
RE: Overclocking
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 5:26:16 PM #
Who cares about flash. Just give me the content.

no proxy

huggy @ 9/17/2002 12:32:25 PM #
Using a proxy server may decrease security, but on current palms I found proxy-based browsers (blazer) are significantly faster than direct connection browsers like avantgo. Also, if using a GPRS connection on which you pay per Kb not per minutes, pages tend to be smaller when have been parsed by the blazer proxy.

Also, pages that have long javascripts (that can mean up to 10 Kb of data) have them removed by the proxy. True, you couldn't do any good with the javascript in blazer anyways... but I'm really concerned about this. It could become much more expensive to use GPRS connections...

-------------- huggy ---------------

RE: no proxy
Ed @ 9/17/2002 1:01:37 PM #
The PalmSource browser also allows you to block the download of JavaScripts to speed up downloads, in the same way you can have it not download images.

---
News Editor
RE: no proxy
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 1:03:22 PM #
Everyone who attacked Web Clipping as not being "real" web browsing hadn't tried doing real web browsing on a PDA. Downloading full web pages is going to be a slow even with 2.5G networks and people who "pay by the K" are going to be shocked when they get their first bill.

Real web browsing won't catch on until an unlimited wireless connection is $20 a month and reliably faster than 56Kbps, not just sometimes faster.

RE: no proxy
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 1:34:52 PM #
"Using a proxy server may decrease security, but on current palms I found proxy-based browsers (blazer) are significantly faster than direct connection browsers like avantgo. "

You're problem there is that avantgo isn't a direct browser. It's proxy based. Other Palm browsers that are proxy-less are hampered by the amount of work they have to do on the slowish processor. BUT compare Blazer to Eudora Web, and there's no contest. Eudora is the fastest non-proxy browser bar none. It's imageless and doesn't try to do all the processing of the others. It's a just the facts browser, and over a 14.4k cellphone link, or 802.11b link, faster even than web clipping (which is hampered by a slow connection speed).

Eudora will also save you on your GPRS connection as it won't download the images. Perhaps images might also be turn offable in the new Palm Browser. Regardless this browser running on OS5 hardware will have the power it needs to do the processing that slows current proxy-less browsers.

RE: no proxy
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 1:42:15 PM #
"Everyone who attacked Web Clipping as not being "real" web browsing hadn't tried doing real web browsing on a PDA."

Making some grand assumptions in that post. I use Eudora Web nearly daily over 14.4k QNC CDMA connection. It's fast, and *very* usable. Oh, and pricing? Currently $5/mo unlimited.

RE: no proxy
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 2:14:48 PM #
well, "real" web browsing is either extremely slow and cheap (CSD + your minutes), or decent speed but really expensive (GPRS + packets). I'm debating going with the T-mobile sidekick myself. $200 + $39.99 for unlimited GPRS and 200 voice minutes. Sure, the voice minutes is low, but I will record a message telling me to email me instead, since the plan gives you 1000 emails too!!! And full html browser. Should be out in two weeks.
RE: no proxy
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 5:36:00 PM #
Actually AvantGo can both operate in proxy mode and direct connection mode, just fyi.
RE: no proxy
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 8:40:35 PM #
>> Actually AvantGo can both operate in proxy mode and direct connection mode, just fyi.

Are you sure about this? I'm pretty sure you can only point the AvantGo client to a local proxy server in order to reach their proxy server. Trying to browse pages on a LAN webserver won't work under AvantGo.

NetFront browser review (Pocket PC version)

bcombee @ 9/17/2002 1:03:09 PM #
InfoSync recently had a review of NetFront running on the Pocket PC:

http://infosync.no/news/2002/n/2252.html

My understanding is that PalmSource has required a lot of tweaking of this product for their device, so not all of the comments on the browser UI and features would apply, although I'd guess the actualy browser window would be very similar.

--
Ben Combee, CodeWarrior for Palm OS technical lead
Programming help at www.palmoswerks.com

Tables

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 3:32:44 PM #
Any sesnes that this browser will format tables (as AvantGo does)?
RE: Tables
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 3:39:01 PM #
As the article says, "Web pages are rendered in their entirety on the handheld just as they would be on a desktop browser." It is just a guess, but I'd take that to mean that web pages will be rendered just as would be on a desktop browser.

Hotmail?

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 3:41:09 PM #
Any ideas if this will be able to handle Hotmail/Yahoo other web-based e-mail services?

One minor, but still annoying problem that I've had in the 2+ years I've been getting online with a Palm, is that the inability to check my (spam-filled) Hotmail account. Blazer, Avantgo, Eudora, etc all are unable to access hotmail's inbox. I know most WAP cell phone browsers can do it, so I think it's more of a "MS wants to exclude everyone" thing than a particular technical hurdle.

P.S. mail2wap.com works amazingly well on the Palm for reading your pops e-mail accounts--I've recommended it to tons of people and the only one it couldn't handle was, surprise surprise, MSN POP e-mail !

Finally, how will this thing be sold? Downloadable for $20 ala Blazer? Bundled with the new OS5 units? Or just with the wireless ones?

RE: Hotmail?
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 4:07:18 PM #
Most likely!
RE: Hotmail?
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/17/2002 10:49:49 PM #
>>I know most WAP cell phone browsers can do it

thats because MS has a WAP portal for hotmail. WAp of course, is actually the least cabable 'WEB' method as it cannot read WEB pages at all - just WML/HDML stuff.

RE: Hotmail?
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/18/2002 4:18:40 AM #
And can please somebody tell me whats the hotmail's wap address?

OS5

UZI4U182 @ 9/17/2002 4:14:15 PM #
Oh I get it now. Everything that is compatible with OS5 will come out before any of the actual handhelds that run it will! How nice. I am going to stick with OS4/4.1.

--Devan--

www.tavern.2ya.com
Palm OS apps, news, reviews and such

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