[General Topics] Menneisyys:
Let’s go on with the Pocket PC operating system and its built-in browser, Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE). This was, incidentally, renamed to Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM) in 2005 with WM5.

In late 2001, the first version of the PPC OS (also called Pocket PC 2000) was updated to PPC2k2 (2002). While it did have certain advantages over the old operating system, Web browsing-wise it was more of a step back in speed / memory handling because it was incapable of rendering larger (about 150+ kbytes) pages – unlike its predecessors and successors.

In Spring 2003, Windows Mobile 2003 (WM2003 for short; notice the operating system name change!) followed with a much-much better built-in browser with, among other things, CSS support added. (Previous browsers didn’t at all support CS sheets.) Then, in Summer 2004, WM2003 Second Edition (WM2003SE) followed suit, with the native One Column mode being the most important enhancement (on which I’ll elaborate later), Web browsing-wise.

In Autumn 2005, WM5 arrived, also renaming PIE to IEM. It contained a heavily bugfixed IEM engine – some CSS contructs no longer result in the prompt termination of the PIE session, unlike in WM2003(SE). It was also the first PIE (IEM) version to support file uploading – a painful omission from previous PIE versions.

WM5 (and subsequent operating system releases) was also unique in that internal updates during the lifespan of the operating system were well-documented and referred to, easily checkable by an end user, via “AKU” versions. Just some major enhancements: while the initial WM5 IEM browser was pretty very slow to load Web pages, AKU 2 has fixed this almost completely. AKU3.5 introduced a High-Resolution switch for high-resolution VGA devices – another long-demanded feature.

In Spring 2007, WM6 followed suit, with no real improvements except the support for IFrames. Finally, this (2008) Spring, WM6.1 was announced with no real improvements either; a fully revised and enhanced version (a full port of the desktop IE6 engine) is promised later this (2008) year.

Speaking of the built-in browser, it still is pretty much incapable when compared to alternative browsers like Opera Mobile or even Mini. This is why there exist several so-called “plug-ins” or, with some less popular solutions, “shells” to enhance its functionality by adding, for example, multi-document (multitab) support. The most important plug-ins are as of today: Spb Pocket Plus, PIEPlus and MultiIE.

In the rest of my presentation, I’ll return to the compatibility issues of IEM several times; for the time being, let’s check out the other, alternative browsers.

In addition to PIE / IEM, there are several third-party browsers on Windows Mobile. Let’s start with standalone, native Windows Mobile ones (native means you don’t need to run them in a specific environment like a MIDlet manager). The first group is non-streaming too, meaning no excess data fees over a non-flatrate connection / inability to use over non-3+G connections.

* Opera Mobile: probably the most important Web browser. It’s, more or less, based on a direct kernel port of the desktop engine, meaning excellent compliance with core Web standards. Note that the currently, officially available version, 8.65, is still based on the 8.x core; it’s only the latest, 9.x-series Opera Mobile that have, finally, switched to the 9.x core and delivers full compliance with all current standards. While it’s a fairly new browser (the first beta was released in early 2006), it’s taken the Windows Mobile Web browsing scene by storm and is the preferred Web browser of many.

* NetFront is a long-established browser. Unfortunately, while it does have its merits, the development seem to have slowed down and several major bugs haven’t been fixed for years. (For example, you still need to rely on the definitely inferior built-in Flash interpreter instead of having the ability to use external, official and much better-quality Flash plug-ins.) I really hope Access, the developer of NetFront, finally starts to make some serious enhancements to this browser.

* Thuderhawk: this is another long-established browser. The classic (native Windows Mobile) client has received no real improvements in the last about two or three years (except for adding Java applet support back in 2006) and it seems it’s completely abandoned as the company is switching to a MIDlet-based and, therefore, truly multiplatform (not only WinMo) solution.

* Minimo, which is an unofficial and, now, abandoned Mozilla Firefox-port. Unfortunately, I can’t really recommend this browser – its speed, performance and memory consumption is pretty bad when compared to most of the alternatives. Note that it has nothing to do with the real, official Windows Mobile Firefox port announced some months ago.

* Picsel’s browser is an OEM-only one and, therefore, can’t be acquired (legally) if it isn’t included in your factory ROM. It’s pretty slow and is incompatible with even basic Web standards. Nevertheless, some people still like it.

* Maximus: it’s a really poor and in no way recommended browser.

Streaming-based but still native browsers follow. The most important of them is SkyFire which, currently, only works in the 3G networks of the U.S. As I’m in Europe, I can’t really give it a thorough ride at the moment. Another, similar (but, based on the raving user reports on SkyFire, speed- and usability-wise, really inferior) solution was Microsoft’s DeepFish, which has been discontinued in the meantime. Also note that there are other, streaming-based, dedicated mobile solutions like DataWind’s PocketSurfer 2.

Finally, let’s elaborate a bit on MIDlet-based browsers. Their biggest advantage is the compatibility with all other mobile platforms, including even “dumb” feature phones (but excluding BREW-only dumbphones used in some American networks). This will even include the iPhone as soon as Sun (and Apple) gets their MIDlet manager, the environment you can run MIDlets in, ready. Their biggest disadvantages are

1.	the somewhat reduced speed. In practice, however, you won’t really notice this; the only real difference is the download speed when you use the in-process download manager, as opposed to using the system-level Web browser to download files. As you will want to prefer the latter, this isn’t an issue.

2.	the lesser integration with the operating system. For example, you can’t copy arbitrary text from Web pages. This can be done in a very awkward way with Opera Mini 4.1: save the page to a file and inspect the saved file (containing the Web page in a textual, albeit non-HTML form) with a copy-capable file viewer.

Another major issue is the inability to make the browser the default one for the entire system – at least for non-Windows Mobile operating systems. On the latter, thanks to me and two other developers, this is already possible, making your life much easier: you can now just click links in a, say, e-mail and Opera Mini (or, alternatively, any other Java MIDlet-based Web browser) opens the given page.

Of the MIDlet-based (non-native) browsers, it’s Opera Mini that is the most important. Now, as of version 4.1 and all its new goodies (like file upload and page saving), along with our direct invocation tools, it’s a serious alternative to fully-fledged, non-Java-based browsers.

Some other MIDlet-based browsers include TeaShark and UCWEB. The brand new version of Thunderhawk (TH for short) is also Java-based but is strictly OEM only and isn’t available for the general public.

BlackBerry from RIM, as has already been pointed out, is mostly a business “push mail” platform, only recently opening its gates for the consumer wanting more multimedia and camera. Officially, it’s still at OS version 4.2 / 4.3; the new version, 4.5 / 4.6, is slated to be released in a few months. In the meantime, you will really want to check out the (largely unofficial) betas as they offer a lot of goodies seriously enhancing the usability, user- and, through the new fontsets, eye-friendliness of the platform.

In the two screenshots at the bottom of the slide, you can see how the old, 4.2 OS (on the left) rendered the first few entries in my Opera Mini favorites list and how the same is done under 4.5 (on the right). As can clearly be seen, under 4.5, much more contents can be displayed on the screen and the fonts are much better-looking and readable.

As far as Symbian is concerned, there used to be several subversions of Nokia’s Symbian. (Here, I don’t elaborate on Sony-Ericsson’s handsets.) Of them, S60 is the surviving one and the once-common S80 and S90 versions are both dead. A major breakthorugh, touchscreen, will be added this or next year and Nokia is promising an iPhone killer, Nokia Cube.