BlackBerry buys Iris mobile browser maker
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion today acquired Torch Mobile, the Canadian maker of mobile phone browsers.
The Torch Mobile acquisition means that latest, upcoming BlackBerrys are expected to roll out with a brand-new browser. Currently, the browser used in the BlackBerrys are a sad excuse for a browser, are far inferior to the browsers that come with the iPhones and Nokias. BlackBerry has for some reason not bothered to upgrade it browser to competitor levels, and made itself a laughing stock over the inferior browser. But all that it set to change.
Torch Mobile makes a Webkit based open-based browser called Iris. The acquisition of Torch Mobile by BlackBerry means that the new BlackBerrys will have better browsing power. Currently, Torch Mobile builds the Iris browser only for the Windows Mobile Platform, but its acquisition by BlackBerry ensures that it will start building on exclusive browsers for BlackBerrys from now.
Torch Mobile announced on its website that the company is excited to be part of BlackBerry, which is a technology pioneer. The entire team of developers at Torch Mobile will join the Research In Motion team which is developing the BlackBerry browser.
The Iris Mobile browser, launched in January 2008, was initially received as flaky, according to a review by PCMag. However, the browser went through an upgrade later, and now boasts of several features which are on par with the mobile browsers packaged by Nokia, iPhone and Samsung. The Iris Mobile browser is built on the open-source Webkit rendering engine. The browser is touch-screen friendly, and comes with a ‘virtual mouse’. The Iris mobile browser also has tabbed browsing function, and can open multiple windows at the same time and switch between them. Currently, the Opera Mini browser which I’m using on my BlackBerry 8820 does not have either multiple tabs or multiple windows.
The Iris mobile browser is also expected to arrive in BlackBerry smartphones next year with support for Microsoft Silverlight and flash. Currently, very few of the mobile browsers support flash. Torch Mobile claims that its Iris mobile phone browser supports HTML and the upcoming HTML 5, along with CSS 2.x and 3.x. The user interface (UI) on the Iris mobile browser is customisable for individual tastes purposes. Features like auto-complete, on-screen keyboards, hand-writing recognition etc are standard on the Iris mobile browser. Security features, pop-up blockers and anti-fishing technologies are built into the Torch Mobile Iris browser. With its acquisition by RIM, we can soon expect the new BlackBerrys to sport a smart, feature-rich mobile browser.