The Digital Void of SPZ

Here at work I've been working for quite some time now on the Opera browser for the UIQ3 platform;

Ronneby, Sweden - Oct. 04, 2004
Opera Software and UIQ Technology, a fully owned subsidiary of Symbian Ltd., today announced that they have selected Opera to be the default browser in UIQ's UIQ 3.0, the new release of the UIQ Platform that is expected to be commercially available in Q4 2004.

It is quite the challenge, with it being Symbian 9 as well as UIQ having a whole new architechture, and recently the Sony Ericsson M600 hit the shelves making it the first UIQ3 device out there (closely followed by the P990). Here is a review of the M600, and some quotes related to Opera on it:

The M600 web browser is powered by the most advanced mobile browser ever created Opera Browser, Opera web experience in small screen devices is unmatchable, and if you looking for any mobile device with the best web experience always look for Opera logo in the box.

[..]

With the high-speed 3G mobile internet access you are in for a desktop experience in the M600 screen. I remember a lot of Treo users specially users trading in the stocks market use to complain a lot that they can’t access the java web-portal to see their stocks status, well, with the M600 Opera browser (with HTML 4.01, xHTML 1.0, CSS and Java script (ECMA script), WAP 2.0 support, and SSL/TLS security protocols) you can do just that, and amazingly the Opera browser support tab browsing as well just like in your Opera desktop version of the popular browser, so you can keep your stock market update page open and start a new page to check your email or open a page for each of your main stocks, now how cool is that!?

So make sure to check out some UIQ3 action if you have the opportunity, and don't forget that the Sony Ericsson W950i will hopefully be out Q4!

All About Symbian reports:

9.3 has been announced, whose highlights include shorter start up times, better performance, native support for Wi-Fi, PushToTalk and USB 2.0 (previously these were added in by licensees) and FOTA (Firmware Over The Air) upgrades. Symbian OS 9.3 is likely to be used in S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1. The first OS 9.3 phones will be announced shortly. The full press release follows.

The most notable features in the new release are as follows:

• For developers there is better integration with the new Eclipse series of developer tools and backwards compatibility.
  
• Performance improvements have been made to start up time and key applications.
  
• Support for the new Freesacle Reference design, which is likely to be used by OEM and other manufacturers producing S60 phones for Vodafone.
  
• Support HSDPA connectivity, which is the next cellular connectivity standard. HSPDA is usually referred to as as 3.5G and brings increased data speeds and lower latencies. This means both faster downloads and quicker connections. The first HSDPA networks are being rolled out by major operators now.
  
• Native support for WiFi and Push to Talk (PoC) should bring performance and stability improvements.
  
• Support for USB 2.0 will bring faster desktop connectivity.
  
• Support for Firmware Over The Air (FOTA) allows the phone's software to be upgraded over the cellular network.
  
• Improved support for 3GPP R5 (R5 introduces support for IMS and HSDPA).
  
• JSR 248 supports adds a variety of required JSR components (extensions for JME) and 'glues' them together in the Mobile Service Architecture for CLDC.
  
• IPSec support allows secure IP communications (it encrupts / decrypts incoming and out going packets). This allow for secure UMA calls to be made.
  

Finally, the amazing Opera Mini is available all over the world! For those unaware, Opera Mini is a smaller version of Opera that works on all phones which have Java which means pretty much every phone out there now.

Opera Mini™ offers the same speed and usability as the renowned Opera mobile browser, and uses Opera's Small Screen Rendering™ technology to provide access to the Web. It has all the features expected of a browser, and more, such as bookmarks, browsing history, and ability to split large pages into smaller sections for faster browsing.

Another great feature is the serverside functionality of Opera Mini. Compression and manipulation makes sure that when downlaoding a site, the end user only needs pay for downloading a fraction of the page as most of the fluff will be stripped out even before it reaches your phone. Also makes sure the server does most of the work, making it run smoothly even on low end phones with little internal resources. Increased speed and decreased price, can't complain?

Instead of requiring the phone to process Web pages, it uses a remote server to pre-process the page before sending it to the phone. This makes Opera Mini™ perfect for phones with very low resources, or low bandwidth connections.

So wherever you are, if you have a mobile phone which runs Java apps give it a go. There are two ways of getting Opera Mini, you can either go to http://mini.opera.com and download it directly or go to this page to get the SMS numbers you can use in your contry to have it sent to your phone. It couldn't get any simpler, or better.

Abandon that crappy built in wap browser and grab the entire web by the, eh, cohones