Blazer will kill Palm

zelgo · 02/27/2008, 05:46 PM

Blazer, or any of the other existing Palm-compatible browsers, will kill Palm.

Whenever I need an internet site in an emergency, it never seems to get me to the right information. Pages take a long time to load. I always get that "please wait until full page loaded" page whenever I click on a link. I have to figure out where the information I want is on the mobile pages. Before all that I have to figure out what the mobile website name is.

Last weekend, when I was having mega-problems getting my plane schedule changed around, Blazer was taking forever! My friend just pulled out his iPhone, with its closest-to-the-real-thing web, and fixed everything in minutes.

I realized that the most important thing I use my phone for is internet. Unless Palm can come out with something comparable to Safari, the iPhone (or its successor) will probably be my (and alot of other Palm fans') next phone.

cardfan · 02/27/2008, 06:14 PM

Well i think its safe to say palm knows this and isn't spending time developing a new OS for nothing

CountBuggula · 02/27/2008, 06:37 PM

I recently discovered the best mobile browser ever: PalmVNC!

Of course I've been using VNC for ages, but I never had thought to use it for normal web browsing. By offloading the whole page-rendering onto my home PC instead of trying to get Blazer to render it, web pages render (surprise) exactly as fast as they do on my home PC! I can even zoom in and out to see the whole page a-la iPhone! With an EVDO connection on my phone and Cable at home the VNC screen updates as fast as I can scroll around to see with no noticable lag whatsoever.

Why screw with using Blazer or OperaMini or PIE when you can have blazing fast page rendering and tabbed browsing all in the palm of your hand?

The only thing it can't do is download files to the Treo (the last version of PalmVNC is still several years old and doesn't support file transfer).

Malatesta · 02/27/2008, 07:23 PM

I find really no difference between Blazer and PIE, FWIW. Blazer works very well on mobile sites--never had an issue and it's quite speedy over EV.

Sure, it's not a "great" browser but honestly I find the whole "Mobile Web" thing a bit stupid. The notion of squeezing a 1024x768 web site down to a 2 or 3 inch screen is just asinine. Plus, lets face facts: a good 40% of what you see on a site is just fluff graphics, not information focused (& them ads). Having to download that just to gain some info on-the-go is extremely wasteful and inefficient.

Even the iPhone, despites it's "real web" promises, has resulted in a a cottage industry of "specially formatted sites" for that device, because people realized it was a PITA to swish and zoom all over a site just to read it.

There's just no way around this without making compromises. Best bet: use mobile web sites (mobile portals help) and RSS feeds. I will concede what Garnet could really benefit from are more options for browsers, since everyone has their preference.

neurocutie · 02/27/2008, 11:53 PM

Yup, the lack of a decent browser is probably the most significant issue that made me choose the Touch over the Centro -- none of the current browsers for WM are great, but as you say, there's at least a good number of credible choices, with more on the way... Opera Mobile/WM is my current "daily" browser...

whatever7 · 02/28/2008, 08:07 AM

I really don't think the iPhone browser is that good compare to a real mobile browser such as the two varients on the Nokia n800/810. The lack of force fix width really hurt the usability on the iPhone. For daily stuff, such as visiting forums and posting in them, blazer is almost just as good. Of course you need to know to use skweezer.

I am posting this on an iPhone btw.

zelgo · 02/28/2008, 11:51 AM

Certainly, the mobile browsers are good at cutting out the fluff on a webpage--the main problem is that every website is designed originally to fit on a desktop screen. We are all used to that configuration so we know exactly where to get the information we need.

When first confronted with a mobile website, the order of everything has changed. It takes times to figure out where things are. I have even found that, quite often, the mobile versions don't have the exact parts of the normal website I am looking for at the time.

How do I know I'm not the only one frustrated by this? Mobile browsers are ALL moving towards rendering the whole page (a la Safari).

skfny · 02/28/2008, 12:13 PM

I have consumed the kool-aid on RSSs and it tastes great. That's another reason why Opera Mini is such a great app. Not only is it the best speedy browser on WM, but it also finds RSS feeds on pages you visit, and manages your subrciptions with a built-in RSS reader.

Opera Mini is one of many reasons I will not go back to Palm OS. On WM, I leave it running in the background and pick up where I left off. That means instant access to RSS feeds, links, search engines, and my Gmail account. On Palm, I'd have to wait for the damn thing to load and restart from the home page everytime I run the app.

~Q~ · 02/28/2008, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zelgo

Blazer, or any of the other existing Palm-compatible browsers, will kill Palm.

Blazer isn't the problem. The problem is the form factor. The web is a very VISUAL medium; with lots of graphics, Flash, etc, etc. Most smartphones have less than a 2"x2" display. Viewing the net on this small of a display is about like trying to drive your car by looking only through a paper towel tube.

Blazer is actually better than most of its competitors at the moment. Go surf the net on a blackberry or a WM device. The experience is frustrating at best. The best smartphone out there at browsing the is the iphone, yet it is only marginally better than Blazer IMO.

gapost · 02/28/2008, 03:58 PM

Oh, yeah. After you try the Internet on a Blackberry, you will really appreciate Blazer. I don't really think it's that bad. Sure if you are pulling down full-size websites, it will have trouble. But if you mainly use the mobile sites, or it is one of the sites that Blazer will convert to mobile, it works great. Especially on EVDO.

BTW, zelgo. Was your friend using the cell service or a wireless connection?Ha-Ha.

whatever7 · 02/28/2008, 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skfny

I have consumed the kool-aid on RSSs and it tastes great. That's another reason why Opera Mini is such a great app. Not only is it the best speedy browser on WM, but it also finds RSS feeds on pages you visit, and manages your subrciptions with a built-in RSS reader.

Opera Mini is one of many reasons I will not go back to Palm OS. On WM, I leave it running in the background and pick up where I left off. That means instant access to RSS feeds, links, search engines, and my Gmail account. On Palm, I'd have to wait for the damn thing to load and restart from the home page everytime I run the app.

Skfny, have you tried bloglines mobile? (You need to register an account on bloglines.com and start accessing from bloglines.com/mobile) Basically its a semi server side service that CUT ALL THE CRAP out of RSS feeds and give your the simplest content. IMO its better than any RSS client on any mobile device and frankly better than any desktop RSS client. That's why I use it on desktop. And it gives you consistantcy across all the devices you use to read the news.

If you want to get fancy, just it in conjuction of Yahoo pipes, which is a RSS manipulating tool. For example, I use Yahoo pipes to combine all my favorite podcasts into a single feed. The reason is I want to be able go away from the internet for a week and come back at an unfamiliar computer in a net cafe, and still just a few clicks away from all my missing podcasts.

Credit surur to point me to bloglines mobile.

Merovingian · 02/28/2008, 09:08 PM

After moving to PPC and PIE (700Wx, almost 2yrs now) since dumping a Treo700p, i will never stomach Blazer again..not even under the threat of death.
All the days (years) i had a 650 and then a 700p, i knew no better. Sure PIE is not perfect, but it's darned better than Blazer in my personal opinion, so much more better and faster for me.

skfny · 02/29/2008, 10:40 AM

whatever7,

I'll look into Bloglines mobile. Last time I checked, it was too simple to be useful. I'll also look into Yahoo pipes. Sounds useful.

However, I REALLY like the simplicity of going to any site and clicking a link to subscribe.

Opera Mini also saves your feedlist on their server. I think it's only a matter of time before they sync that list with Opera Desktop for the ultimate experience on both ends.
(they currently sync bookmarks between Mini and the desktop version of Opera).

TimmyB · 02/29/2008, 01:55 PM

OK, I just got my Centro last week and now I don't feel like I must be nuts because I don't love the web on my 2X2 screen! It looks like I'm not alone.

Malatesta had mentioned to search for mobile portals help, which I did. There are plenty of threads there related to finding sites that have mobile-optimized versions. What I wonder is if anyone has seen a comprehensive list of these sites, rather than people sending in their own two or three sites that they love. Has anyone seen a page like that, which lists mobile sites and gives a brief description of the content?

DL.Cummings · 02/29/2008, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zelgo

I realized that the most important thing I use my phone for is internet. Unless Palm can come out with something comparable to Safari, the iPhone (or its successor) will probably be my (and alot of other Palm fans') next phone.

Realistically, how many Palm users can actually say that internet use is where they get the most out of their phone?

I know I can't, I am betting the use or otherwise access of information via the web on my phone accounts for less than 15-20% of its usage. Most of that is merely accessed through apps other than a browser (RescoNews for example).

I'll go out on a limb and predict something here:

As smartphone usage gets more and more widespread, it will simply be easier for companies to develop software to accomodate users on phones rather than pointing to websites.

IsLNdbOi · 02/29/2008, 02:31 PM

Blazer never worked well for me. I was always getting low memory or out of memory or page too large errors (even after a soft reset).

Haven't had that problem with PIE or Skyfire or the iPhone's browser.

shopharim · 02/29/2008, 03:13 PM

I was just thinking today, that I would like a bigger screen. But besides that, blazer does everything I need.

Now, if I can just get these web developers to stop detecting my browser and re-routing to the mobile site with no way to choose the full site

hkklife · 02/29/2008, 04:02 PM

No, it's the combination of arrogance, FrankenGarnet, their notoriously poor quality control, and the notorious penny-pinching in Palm's R&D dept. that is going to kill them.

Even a mildly revamped Blazer (flash support, improved caching) and a 320x480 screen would do wonders for the mobile web on Palm OS devices.

zelgo · 02/29/2008, 04:14 PM

When I'm not in a hurry, blazer does what I need it to do. In an emergency (which has happened a few times), Blazer completely fails.

danigoldman · 02/29/2008, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skfny

Opera Mini also saves your feedlist on their server. I think it's only a matter of time before they sync that list with Opera Desktop for the ultimate experience on both ends.
(they currently sync bookmarks between Mini and the desktop version of Opera).

We started off with just synchronizing the bookmarks and Speed Dial. Eventually we'll sync addition things between the Opera browsers.

But I agree, synchronizing feeds would definitely be useful (especially if it would remember the ones you've already read).

Daniel
Opera Software