A bit of technology

Just downloaded the thing and put it in my Sony Ericsson k530i. Well, it works the same way as Opera Mini does - web page is refactored and compressed on a remote proxy, result is sent to small (200k) J2ME client on your phone. This behaviour saves user's traffic and speeds everything up. And this is what Bolt developers talk about when they market their browser as 20-25% being faster then competition. It is worth mentioning, that Bolt is NOT faster then Opera Mini in any way - they work just the same with slight statistical differencies.

What I did like:

• competiton - it is always good!
  
• video playback support;
  
• a lot of quality/traffic options;
  
• alternative fonts;
  
• rendering quality - well, the sites I tried to visit rendered pretty well.
  

But it also has some cons, which make Bolt quite unusable, at least for me in day-to-day scenario. The biggest Bolt problem is its user interface. I did not find "Forward" shortcut, most of actions are done from context menu, but it is a bit cluttered and GUI looks ugly. Also the browser is quite unstable, just like Opera Mini 1.0 was back in the days - it hangs sometimes, becomes unresponsive in other times and so on. Overall experience is choppy. Actually it looks more like a beta (:

So my opinion is that Bolt is a great toy for geeks, but it is too early for it to being installed on a broad user base. Bitstream, continue the work! You have some problematic areas, but if fixed you will have a great product in your portfolio and many users wil be happy!

IBM developerWorks has an introductionary article on Android development which I do recommend to everyone interested in development for Android mobile platform. Article gives overall platform introduction, brief history, then focuses on application architecture, SDK and tools and finishes with simple example application with source code available for download. I hope more Android development articles will come soon to IBM developerWorks.

Guys at Engadget has found a video which looks like Android 2.0 Donut. A new shiny user interface is coming our way! Actually this video is taken from HTC Hero, so maybe it is just a skinning by HTC - they are very good at it (:

Samsung finally decided to launch Android-based smart-phone and it will be called I7500. Name is not so fancy as in HTC devices, but at least it will be Android-based (:

Originally posted by Gizmodo:

Launching "in major European countries from June," the 11.9-mm slim quad-band GSM, tri-band 7.2Mbps HSDPA (900/1700/2100MHz) candybar packs a 3.2-inch, 320 x 480 pixel AMOLED touchscreen, WiFi, GPS, 5 megapixel camera with Power LED, 1,500mAh battery, 8GB of storage (plus MicroSD expansion for up to 32GB more), and a standard 3.5mm heasdset jack.

Sounds cool? Indeed! The only thing I miss from current Android devices is 800x480 screen resolution. Come on guys, who needs small iPhone-like screen nowadays?

And here's the link to Gizmodo.

Google moves on with their Android OS for mobile phones (and maybe for netbooks) and shows us a preview of their new SDK together with new Cupcake firmware. New SDK adds some new features including long-awaited on-screen keyboard support and also overall system stability is improved according to early testers. Want to know more? Check out these useful links:

• developers' blog;
  
• Android 1.5 Highlights;
  
• article on ArsTechnika.