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r-sparks

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 1, 2006
255
0
England
Simple question! Is it a genuinely useful browser, that I could use for long periods, or is it really for quick blasts to impress fellow coffee drinkers at Starbucks?
 
Simple question! Is it a genuinely useful browser, that I could use for long periods, or is it really for quick blasts to impress fellow coffee drinkers at Starbucks?

Depends on your expectations, I'd think. Works fine for me in the absence of a full-sized computer. It's fun to use. Has a few quirks, but otherwise works fine. Longest I've spent using it so far is probably an hour and a half.
 
Obviously it cant play flash or the other thing (I forgot its name)

BUT

it is by far the best browser I have ever used on a portable device.

It is streets ahead of phone browsers including the Nokia N95 browser...

Pages come out as they are meant to 99% of the time and web email works perfectly - you can't download or stream anything but if you want to check websites and do e-mail then it is amazingly good.

I would go so far as to say that if you didnt download anything ever or watch/listen to streaming media then you would NOT even need a laptop PC for internet usage!

Its perhaps the BEST feature on the new iPod!
 
I find it to be incredibly handy.
Works great for sports scores, drudgereport, and other conservative news sites.
I even keep it next to my bed and if I wake up in the night wondering who won a game I can now check easily.
 
Obviously it cant play flash or the other thing (I forgot its name)

BUT

it is by far the best browser I have ever used on a portable device.

It is streets ahead of phone browsers including the Nokia N95 browser...

Pages come out as they are meant to 99% of the time and web email works perfectly - you can't download or stream anything but if you want to check websites and do e-mail then it is amazingly good.

I would go so far as to say that if you didnt download anything ever or watch/listen to streaming media then you would NOT even need a laptop PC for internet usage!

Its perhaps the BEST feature on the new iPod!

Agreed. Albeit the keyboard isn't good for doing a lot of typing.
 
It's a love - hate relationship. Some sites are suited for it on a mobile device. Some sites (Outlook Web Access for work is one) are horrible. You need a real computer for many sites I visit though.

I much prefer the apps/widgets. Using those for weather, stocks, and mail, are awesome.

More apps/widgets please for iPhone/iPod Touch...
 
It supports Java Script, but not Java VM. It also doesn't support Flash.

It's also the best mobile browser I've ever used on a PDA type device (and I've used a ton).

About the only thing I've seen that outperforms it is a full on palmtap/laptop device which costs 5X as much.
 
I find it to be incredibly handy.
Works great for sports scores, drudgereport, and other conservative news sites.

Strangely enough, it has a built in filter for liberal new sites (I guess Al Gore being on the Apple Board wasn't enough)!:)
 
It supports Java Script, but not Java VM. It also doesn't support Flash.

It's also the best mobile browser I've ever used on a PDA type device (and I've used a ton).

About the only thing I've seen that outperforms it is a full on palmtap/laptop device which costs 5X as much.

Thanks for the info, I can live with that. Flash and Java VM aren't particularly important (although they'd be nice in a future update), but a *lot* of sites break without Javascript. Good news :D

I too have used other PDA devices, certainly wouldn't use Windows Mobile IE for much... oddly enough the best one I've used so far is on the PSP (Playstation Portable), though it's a bitch to type on obviously.

Still missing the Psion days, it was absolutely tragic when they stopped making PDAs. If they were still around nowadays with the increase in portable internet browsing they would rock hardcore.
 
I didn't think i'd ever use it but I usually do rather than take out my laptop.
 
Thanks for the info, I can live with that. Flash and Java VM aren't particularly important (although they'd be nice in a future update), but a *lot* of sites break without Javascript. Good news :D

I too have used other PDA devices, certainly wouldn't use Windows Mobile IE for much... oddly enough the best one I've used so far is on the PSP (Playstation Portable), though it's a bitch to type on obviously.

Still missing the Psion days, it was absolutely tragic when they stopped making PDAs. If they were still around nowadays with the increase in portable internet browsing they would rock hardcore.
The psp is a problem if you have to sign into a network like on a college campus or at a hotel though.
 
Thanks for the info, I can live with that. Flash and Java VM aren't particularly important (although they'd be nice in a future update), but a *lot* of sites break without Javascript. Good news :D

I too have used other PDA devices, certainly wouldn't use Windows Mobile IE for much... oddly enough the best one I've used so far is on the PSP (Playstation Portable), though it's a bitch to type on obviously.

Still missing the Psion days, it was absolutely tragic when they stopped making PDAs. If they were still around nowadays with the increase in portable internet browsing they would rock hardcore.

Word on the street is that Apple's working on Flash support.

And I just read an old Douglas Adams article recently that he wrote on a Psion Palmtop. He thought it was rather nifty. =)
 
Depends on your expectations, I'd think. Works fine for me in the absence of a full-sized computer. It's fun to use. Has a few quirks, but otherwise works fine. Longest I've spent using it so far is probably an hour and a half.

Agreed, it's a very functional browser. Like they say in their ads, by using it, you get the real internet, unlike with most phones, plus the keyboard is pretty easy to type with, and autocorrect works very well. Like gloss, I have spent quite a while using it at a time, as it's a great, quick, and easy substitute for a computer's browser, in the absence of a computer.
 
Still missing the Psion days, it was absolutely tragic when they stopped making PDAs. If they were still around nowadays with the increase in portable internet browsing they would rock hardcore.

I second that. Now those were REAL PDAs, with keyboards you could really type on. Shame Palm came along and dumbed everything down.
 
Word on the street is that Apple's working on Flash support.

And I just read an old Douglas Adams article recently that he wrote on a Psion Palmtop. He thought it was rather nifty. =)

It's strange there's no RealPlayer support, bearing in mind RealPlayer finds its way onto most other portable devices. It's on my crappy Nokia 6680 phone, for example.

I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a team of engineers are Real HQ working on a player right now. Bearing in mind Real and Apple had a run-in over unofficial iPod syncing, it makes me wonder if they'll just release it as an AppTap application.
 
And I just read an old Douglas Adams article recently that he wrote on a Psion Palmtop. He thought it was rather nifty. =)

Did you know that Douglas Adams was one of the first people in Britain to own an original Macintosh? (Actually, to be pedantic, this is also a claim made by Stephen Fry.)
 
put it this way. The last few nights I have sat in my lazyboy watching SportsCenter nd surfing on my touch. I prefer it to surfing from my MacbookPro for everything except porn...
 
Did you know that Douglas Adams was one of the first people in Britain to own an original Macintosh? (Actually, to be pedantic, this is also a claim made by Stephen Fry.)

I think Adams was the first, and Fry claimed to be the second. Something like that.

We lost our greatest apologist when Adams died. Sigh.
 
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