The UIQ Evangelist

With SE seemingly “forgeting” to announce new UIQ devices (well, Motorola too), and Opera saying Hang in there! since February, @digia´s web upcoming finger control optimized browser is really what is making UIQ3 fans tick.

Knowing this, we got in contact with the Digia guys, and managed to get an interview with Tuukka Turunen , Digia´s Special Projects Director, that made us a preview of what to expect from @web. Read on!

[uiqblog] Why did you choose Webkit? Why not gecko (firefox) or presto (opera)?

 [Tuukka] We believe that the Webkit is the best choice at the moment. It provides true web rendering with quite good speed and memory usage. Gecko is a bit unsuited for mobile now, but the activities with it look promising. But also Webkit is developing and we believe it continues to be in lead.

[uiqblog] How long does the development take?

 [Tuukka] Making a browser is not the easiest of tasks. Even though we used an existing engine it has taken us about two years to get here. Though initially we did not move with full speed in development, but were rather investigating the possibilities.

[uiqblog]  What’s the hardest challenge in developing such a product?

[Tuukka]  Well, it must be the “Wild Wild Web” overall, there is so much different ways of creating the sites that it is a real challenge to get a browser to work with all. Here the beta phase will hopefully be helping us a lot.

[uiqblog]  How about plugins? Will it support plugins?

 [Tuukka] Yes, @Web supports Netscape type plugins on engine level, but we have not yet finalized plugin support.  Our aim is to have a serious look into plugins (mainly to enable Flash) during the beta phase. If all goes well we should be able to offer a working plugin interface like in S60 Webkit.

[uiqblog]  Any possibility of providing support for directly launching links in the browser, through a program such as Gdesk would overcome the UI integration problem to a large extent?

  [Tuukka] We need to have a look into providing means to launch a page so that Gdesk and others could support it.

[uiqblog]  What are the main differences between digia @web and nokia s60 browser?

 [Tuukka] User interface is completely different as @Web is created for finger touch (and S60 devices do not have touch at all). We use same engine, but S60 has better plugin support that what is available to UIQ. Thus S60 has at the moment much more features like support to web feeds and Flash content.

 [uiqblog]  Your main competition in terms of UIQ should be opera 9.5…what are @web main advantages? Do you consider Opera´s widget platform to be an advantage for their product?

 [Tuukka] We believe that using open-source engine gives us huge advantage in the long run. Opera widgets are quite good and a definite plus. We see that the main advantage of Opera in UIQ is its close binding to the platform.

[uiqblog]  In terms of RAM usage, will it be less heavy than opera 8.65?

[Tuukka]  We are in most pages a bit better than Opera even though Webkit uses true web rendering and provides the pages in the way they are intented. One thing to note is that some devices are configured such way that Opera uses maximum of 8 MB RAM even though there is a lot free in the phone (like P1). @Web is allowed to use more resources, if needed. Thus it can provide a better experince (as there really is a lot of RAM free in most usage situations). Use of RAM is an interesting area. Our view is that it is actually better for the browser if it can use more RAM for handling multiple pages in cases where RAM is available as it means ability to re-visit previous pages without fetching them again. And another characteristic is then ability to load individual pages with as litlle resources as possible.

[uiqblog]  Will @web be able to act has the native browser (replace it when we click on links on other apps)?

 [Tuukka] Unfortunately not at the moment. There is no such thing as “default browser setting” in UIQ. So the only way to enable this would be close to hacking. It would be technically possible to try capture e.g. the event when user presses the browser kay in P1, but it is not the proper way.

[uiqblog]  Can you make comparison (speed, rendering, ajax compatibility etc) with opera 8.65 in uiq 3 smartphones?

[Tuukka]  We do not have this data available. In our internal testing for web conformance we are at the moment ahead Opera in some areas, on par with most, and behing in a few.

[uiqblog]  Flash Lite 3 is supposed to come to UIQ3 (check g900 whitepaper). Will @web suport flash ability (for youtube, etc)?

 Initially not, but we are very much hoping to enable this in the future.

[uiqblog]  Will scrolling be really smooth??? If so, how did you do it???

 [Tuukka] Quite smooth, but naturally still within the performance limitations of the ARM9 processor.

[uiqblog]  Will it be possible to copy and paste text inthe @web browser?

[Tuukka]  If we can tackle the user interaction in good way, implementing copy-paste should be easy. We will add this item to the requested features list.

[uiqblog]  We have been testing google reader special iphone formated site. Its pretty cool on the iphone, but on opera 8.65 it does not work perfectly. Will it work close to what it does on iphone on @web????.

 [Tuukka] In web page rendering @Web and iPhone are much closer than Opera and iPhone. Not everything works the same, but in many cases we are close.

[uiqblog]  After the beta, how much will you sell it for???

 [Tuukka] This is still undecided, but intention is to make it affordable and look for volume.

[uiqblog]  What do you think about UIQ3 scene in general?

 [Tuukka] UIQ is an interesting platform that offers many possibilities. At the moment the total number of devices sold is a bit low, but we think that it is viable.

 

That´s it guys…now we are even more hyped about this product, and we´d like to than Tuukka, Anke and all the Digia team for their colaboration.

One more little thing, acording to Tuukkaa “the beta will be available from www.digia.com/browser during next week. We are very much looking forward in hearing your feedback and ideas. The development team will continue to provide added functionality, fixes and optimizations throughout the beta phase.”

Categories: Apps, Coming Soon
Tags: Apps, browser