MobileSafari -- Engadget Mobile

MobileSafari posts

Google's new Gmail mobile web app sports offline message caching, lots of floaty goodness

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Apr 7th 2009 @ 3:12PM

If you've been losing sleep in eager anticipation of the new Gmail for mobile, rest assured that you'll sleep soundly tonight. With support for both Android phones and iPhone / iPod Touch OS 2.2.1, the gang over at the Google mobile blog are justifiably proud of the new app. Expect nothing less than a more robust cache that utilizes Gears (for Android) and SQLite databases (for iPhones / touches) to allow you to compose messages and access recently read messages without a network connection, an improved look and feel, and the all new "floaty bar" (their name, not ours) that keeps popular menu commands from scrolling off screen, as this bad boy rolls out progressively over the course of the day. Most interestingly, using the new Gmail on your devices doesn't require any tweaks or installs -- it's utilizing HTML5 (and its offline storage APIs) already present in the browser. Google is just turning on the juice behind the scenes. And for those of you who are resistant to change, fear not -- the previous version is still available. Check it out for yourself over at gmail.com, but not before peeping that super-sweet video after the break.

Continue reading Google's new Gmail mobile web app sports offline message caching, lots of floaty goodness

Mobile web traffic reports show Symbian, OS X on top

by Darren Murph posted Mar 28th 2009 @ 10:34AM

Ready for the latest dose of facts and figures to chat over at the nerd water cooler? Here goes! The latest AdMob report, which tracks mobile web traffic from a variety of handset models and operating systems, has found some rather interesting -- if not completely unsurprising -- results. For starters, we're told that the biggest web surfing phone on each US carrier is a touchscreen model, and breaking that down, we find that the iPhone, Nokia N70 and BlackBerry 8300 take the top three spots (in order of mention) globally. As for OS, Symbian is still leading the pack from a worldwide perspective with 43 percent of requests, though the iPhone ain't far behind at 33 percent; oh, and in case you were wondering, Apple's darling generated 50 percent of all US mobile web traffic in February. More numbers in the links below, should you be inclined to visit.

[Via mocoNews]

Google demos offline Gmail for iPhone, Android at MWC

by Jacob Schulman posted Feb 18th 2009 @ 6:47PM

If you were thinking offline Gmail on your desktop was the greatest thing since sliced bread, prepare yourselves people. If an MWC keynote from Google's VP of engineering, Vic Gundotra, is any indication, the same functionality might be coming soon to an iPhone / Android phone near you. Amongst other things, the souped up web app boasts an overhauled interface, supports labels, and of course, offline access. Despite our own hunch that Google's just using black magic and voodoo to make this happen, Gundotra claims that it's all made possible through HTML5 standards -- AppCache being the biggie. This development certainly opens the doors to more offline-enabled web apps in the future -- Docs, anyone?. Of course, we know Apple has a thing about people messing with its own apps, so it's probably going to take some time / knee-breaking to get them to come around, but for some reason, we don't think it'll take as long with Android. There's a demo video available after the break, and please, try to contain yourselves.

Continue reading Google demos offline Gmail for iPhone, Android at MWC

Samsung L870 S60 slider features Webkit-based browser

by Thomas Ricker posted May 28th 2008 @ 5:29AM

Yup, you read that right. We're not talking about just any Webkit-based browser, Samsung's long-rumored L870 slider features a full "Safari" browser (which we'll take to mean Webkit). The 13.5-mm thin phone pumps Symbian v9.3 and S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 at its core with a 3 megapixel camera, 2.4-inch QVGA display, FM radio, Stereo Bluetooth, and microSD expansion. Unfortunately, this pup is tri-band GSM with single-band UMTS/HSDPA 3.6Mbps support so it'll be heading to Europe around the August time frame.

Update: As per the full press release (posted after the break), Samsung claimed that they'd brought mobile Safari to this device. Technically feasible, we suppose, but far more unlikely than some clueless PR flack screwing up the release. We'll let you know if Samsung HQ has anything differently to say about the matter, but until then we're calling this Webkit, not Safari.

Update 2: Yup, it's Webkit all right.

Continue reading Samsung L870 S60 slider features Webkit-based browser

Mobile Safari getting support for psychedelic effects

by Chris Ziegler posted Apr 7th 2008 @ 4:40PM

A close examination of the descriptions of Apple's 2008 WWDC sessions revealed at least one iPhone gem, buried in the appropriately-named "Enhancing Your iPhone Web Application with CSS Transforms and Animations" overview: Safari's getting a little bit of an update. With firmware 2.0 baking to a delightfully golden brown right now in preparation for a June release, of course, it only stands to reason that the iPhone's Safari implementation would get retooled a bit to pull in a more recent Webkit build and stay somewhat in sync with the headway Apple's browser has made on the desktop, and we now know that CSS transforms and animations will be supported as a part of that. What does that mean, exactly? In short, the feature allows web page elements to be twirled, zoomed, and skewed, making for some pretty eye-popping (or watering) effects. It's all going to be accelerated by the iPhone's hardware, too, meaning that the next ultra-annoying ad for some sketchy product that you view on your iPhone should really fly.