Bolt: the dark horse mobile browser
In the roughly six months since Bitstream's Bolt mobile browser debuted in beta at Mobile World Congress, it has been installed more than a million times, its developers said today. Like Skyfire, which also reached a million installs before RTM, this cross-platform mobile browser is designed to accelerate the browsing experience on resource-constrained devices.
Bolt is compatible with any mobile handset that supports the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) 2.0, the Java spec for embedded devices. Page rendering takes place outside of the phone on Bolt's servers, and content is heavily compressed for consumption, so even 2G freebie phones can handle full Web browsing. The app itself is only 140 Kb in size. Included in the huge list of supported devices are handsets from Research in Motion, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. There are versions specifically designed for BlackBerry and for entry-level phones.
One week ago, the browser's Beta 3 (version 1.04) was released, which welcomes the Webkit 4 rendering engine to the Bolt servers, and gives the user the ability to cut and paste, to upload files directly to sharing sites such as YouTube and Photobucket, and to enter text directly in online boxes without having to drop into a blank field (a problem that Skyfire similarly had in early releases.)
To become a Bolt tester, users must first register on Bitstream's site, where they are then given instructions on how to obtain the software.