[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] mike21pr:
From a Skyfire Employee at the Skyfire Forums

I am happy to announce that we have just released Skyfire 0.8 Beta.

We have been working hard on this release over the last few months, and we are happy that we were able to integrate many of your suggestions into this release.

This forum has been a amazing resource for us at Skyfire, and we are grateful for the effort that has been put into this forum by all members.

You can easily get the newest release by logging into your account at http://www.skyfire.com/users/login from your desktop. You will be able to download (SOON - making sure that the download link works first) the newest release via your PC or send yourself an SMS.

Thanks for all the support and the enthusiasm that you have brought to this product. We hope that you will enjoy this release.

Additionally I would like to introduce 'omahadave' (he is actually Dave from Omaha), who will be our new ears and eyes to help you in this forum. Feel free to say hello - you will see in the forum from today onwards.

Thanks, your Skyfire team.

(Robert Oberhofer, Product Management)

----- official release notes start here ----------

Skyfire 0.8 Beta Release Notes

Released: September 24, 2008

Skyfire is a new experience that brings the full internet to your mobile. Watch videos on YouTube or Hulu, connect with your friends on Myspace or Facebook, shop on Amazon or listen to music. Can you do it on your computer at home? Then you can do it on Skyfire on the go.

Skyfire is fast, easy to use and available for free on many smart phone models.

Skyfire 0.8 Beta is a new beta release of Skyfire for Windows Mobile (version 5 or 6). This release has been enhanced with both requests from our active community and new additions that we think will make Skyfire a better experience.

We greatly appreciate our beta community. Their support, active participation and feedback on the forums at http://support.skyfire.com/ helps us to constantly improve the product.

What’s new in Skyfire 0.8 Beta:

Skyfire 0.8 Beta has been under development for the past 4 months, integrating more than 1000 fixes and enhancements. The major focus of this release was to enhance usability, make the experience smoother, increase responsiveness, and improve audio and video quality.

* Contextual Zoom: Let’s you simply and quickly get to exactly where you want to be on the page. Skyfire’s zooming capability has been improved, and now the camera corners feature shows you a match with major screen elements within its view.

* Super Bar: Use our handy new SuperBar to perform a search or enter a URL from a single field – it’s a great time and space saver that is easily accessible.

* Content sharing: You can now share web content by SMS. We even make the URL short enough that it will fit easily into a SMS text message. Especially useful for the really long URL’s used by many sites. You can now also share Skyfire itself with friends by SMS or email.

* Faster application launch: Skyfire launches much more quickly so you to get your content quicker.

* Video and audio: We’ve improved the quality of both video and audio, so you can enjoy a smoother playback experience.

* Reconnect - Skyfire will automatically reconnect, so you don’t need to restart when your wireless connection is dropped.

* Default browser: Now you can set Skyfire as your default browser. Clicking Web links in SMS or Email messages will automatically start Skyfire.

* Enhanced text entry allows you to more easily complete web forms right within a page. First you can enter the text right on the page. Plus you automatically move to the next form element (text field, list, radio button, or checkbox) after you have made a form entry using the ‘OK’ or ‘Enter’ keys.

* Content download: Allows you to download images and other content from most web pages.

* Home screen integration: Allows you to add a Skyfire search and URL bar to your Windows Mobile Today screen, so you can enter what you are looking for right away without first starting Skyfire.

* Mobile site support: If a website also has a mobile version, Skyfire can optionally hint to you about the availability of a mobile alternative. With the new mobile site indicator, you’ll get a quick link to access the mobile version – then you can decide if you want the mobile or full website.

* Bookmarks have been significantly enhanced – giving you much better control.

* Additionally we enhanced the start page: have the top news items accessible immediately via a headline widget.

Downloading and Installing:

To be able to use Skyfire, you first need to sign up for a Skyfire account at http://www.skyfire.com/register. Additionally you need a supported phone, e.g. Windows Mobile 5 or 6 (for Skyfire Beta 0.8) or Symbian (S60 3’rd Edition, for Skyfire Beta 0.6). Please note: We currently only the US is supported.

If you are already registered then simply log into your existing account at http://www.skyfire.com/users/login and download the installation file, or request a SMS to be sent to your phone. Download the file and start the installer. There is no need to uninstall Skyfire first – simply overwrite the existing installation during the process. No worry: your cookies and bookmarks will be preserved.

If you are new to Skyfire and you need to register, provide at your Name, Email and Phone number on http://www.skyfire.com/register. You will be sent an Email and SMS with a URL to complete your registration. Follow this URL (on your phone or PC Browser), and complete the registration. Once registered, you can immediately download the correct installation file for your device. If you downloaded the installation file on your PC you must first transfer it to your phone. Start the installer on your phone and follow the instructions. Once you start Skyfire you will be prompted for your Email address and the password you provided during registration. This will be just once, and you will not have to enter it again (remember the password though to log into your account!)

Known Issues:

* Installation: When the client receives an upgrade notification after resuming from the background it might not successfully resume (Issue 2923). Please exit Skyfire and start again.

* Uninstall: Skyfire uninstall might not be successful or complete when Skyfire is active at the time of uninstall (Issue 1861). Please exit Skyfire first before uninstall.

* When leaving the phone idle for more than 5 minutes Skyfire will display the start page (Issue 2892)

* Downloading files with long filenames might truncate file extensions (Issue 2726)

* Myspace.com: Have to zoom in to 100% to be able to click the log-in button (Issue 2115)

* Mobile site hinting and support: some ‘mobile’ sites are rendering similar to a full web page (e.g. zoom and horizontal scroll). Often this is due to the web page not reporting itself as being mobile. We are looking for a solution.

* Playing video for a long time (> 5 min) might disconnect Skyfire (Issue 2827).

* Non standard SIP’s (Soft Input Panel, e.g. on-screen keyboard) might interfere with Skyfire operation and showing artifacts

* Very long web pages might get cut off at the bottom (Issue 2800)

* Back and Menu soft-key buttons might disappear from screen (Issue 2793). Please use the right soft-key, it usually will bring the on-screen keys back onto the screen.

* In some cases the page might scroll to a different location when entering text into a text entry field (Issue 2678, 2729)

* When Skyfire is in the background the toolbar may become visible on Windows Home screen when switching programs in windows, or locking the phone. (Issue 2732)

* Skyfire URL bar becomes unresponsive when device was in standby mode. (Issue 2892)

* Links to media files (MP3’s etc) currently only play back, and do not initiate download.

* Scrolling through very long list boxes has slow behavior (Issue 1202)

Not supported:

* VGA phones not supported yet (e.g. HTC Touch Diamond etc).

* DivX and XviD Video formats are not supported.

* Quicktime movies which require playback external of browser not supported (Quicktime clips embedded in page are supported).

* FTP browsing and access is not supported (e.g. URL’s with ftp:// )

* Anchors (In-page links) not supported

YOU MUST BE A BETA TESTER TO BE ABLE TO USE THIS SOFTWARE