Torch Mobile Blog

1.1: Under The Hood (Part 1)

Torch Mobile — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:28:34 +0000

As promised, this is the first in a short series of blog entries detailing some of the changes we have in Iris Browser 1.1.x for Windows Mobile. 1.1.0 was a very drastic change from the browser that was in beta test. We merged more than a year of WebKit development effort into our tree and completely re-audited all of our work. We also put major work into performance of our browser application and some of our Windows CE porting code to make the browser capable of viewing many of the most intense sites online today. The engine update brought us many improvements that you just can’t see at first glance. We have a much more powerful JavaScript engine thanks to Squirrelfish Extreme. We’re not using the JIT and yet the performance boost is enormous. We have many crash fixes and performance improvements. We have the foundation for many of the technologies in HTML5 as they become mature enough to put into the browser. The list goes on…

More visible to you, we have started to add SVG support and we added a plugin that converts the Flash Lite ActiveX control into an Iris Browser NPAPI style of plugin, thereby enabling some Flash support. The first thing we noticed is that Flash Lite made our devices very unstable if too many instances loaded, as is common on many pages. We decided to make Flash and other plugins “click-to-play” as a result. When you load a page with plugins you will now see a black image with a play button. Simply click the image and it will load the plugin if it’s available.

We also lost some things along the way, and we hope to bring them back soon. If you have been following WebKit development you will notice that we have been contributing WML, WCSS, XHTML Mobile Profile, EcmaScript Mobile Profile, and other mobile browsing standards code to the tree. We have already been using them in our Qt and Windows CE/Mobile browsers but we are now taking some time to refine and improve those features and send them directly to WebKit.org. Most of WML is done, but the others are still work-in-progress and we’ll merge them back into our Windows Mobile browser in the near future.

Finally, we’ve done a lot of work to make sure we’re really one of the most compliant, precise, and high-quality rendering mobile browsers. We now score 100/100 on Acid3 with only a couple of minor rendering glitches. Those happen to be related to fonts, where we deliberately cut some corners for better performance. It’s not likely we will eliminate those glitches anytime soon. Iris Browser is also highly compatible with the popular iPhone websites, making it a great alternative for those who prefer other devices. We think the approach we’ve taken strikes a great balance between performance and functionality, and we’re just getting started!

Iris Browser 1.1.0 Now Available!

Torch Mobile — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:32:12 +0000

It has been one year since our first public preview was released, and today we made Iris Browser 1.1.0 available for download! There are many surprises waiting inside, including support for the Flash Lite ActiveX control, big performance gains, reduced memory usage, preliminary RSS and SVG support, the highest Acid3 score of any shipping mobile browser, and HTC accelerometer support. Download a copy now, and we’ll update you with more of the new features and plans in the near future!

Why so quiet?

Torch Mobile — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:53:23 +0000

You might be wondering why we’ve been so quiet lately. No new beta, no blogging, nothing. Well, we’ve been busy! Everyone at Torch has been working very hard to bring our Qt, Windows Mobile, and Windows CE browsers to the next level. For a sneak preview at what we’ve been up to, have a look at our latest YouTube video.

Iris Browser for Windows Mobile - Beta 3

Torch Mobile — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 14:56:33 +0000

As promised last week, we decided to release an additional beta version of Iris Browser for Windows Mobile to solve the freezes experienced by those of you with HTC Diamond, Touch Pro, and some other devices. This beta features a whole lot more too! We’ve done some work to improve download times and UI responsiveness, but it’s only the beginning. We have done some reorganization of the menus in preparation for our UI work, which is now a primary focus leading up to 1.1.0. We have even added the most requested features: context menu and copy & paste! There is certainly more to do to improve our user interface and it will come over time, but at least the functionality we’ve added will make it a more pleasant browsing experience during our beta period. So go download the beta and give it a try!

Development Moved, Latest HTC Devices Supported

Torch Mobile — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 07:10:09 +0000

A couple of quick news items. First, we’ve finally moved all of our WebKit development into the public git server. We created a new repository, separating it from QtWebKit. You can access it here: git://code.staikos.net/WebKit-CE/

Also, for those of you with HTC Diamond or Touch Pro and have been experiencing freezes, we’ve diagnosed the error as relating to a system call hard freezing the phone. We have a workaround and will release an unplanned beta 3 in the next few days to solve that problem.

Torch Mobile Wins Category At Under The Radar!

Torch Mobile — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:57:07 +0000

Yesterday Torch Mobile had the opportunity to participate in the Under The Radar event at the Microsoft Research Center in Mountain View, California. Over 25 companies presented at the event, narrowed down from over 400 initially. Certainly it was an honor to be selected to present, and even more so to be selected as the category winner by the judges of the “League Of Their Own” category! It was well worth attending and very well organized. We highly recommend the event for anyone thinking of attending or participating next year.

Iris Browser For Windows Mobile - Beta 2!

Torch Mobile — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:13:04 +0000

We’re happy to announce the second beta release of Iris Browser for Windows Mobile! This browser, available for download right now on our download page, represents our best browser to date. It contains over 100 fixes and improvements since the last beta release, and is incredibly fast and stable. The focus of this release was entirely on:

Performance
Smaller footprint - we’re 10% smaller than beta 1!
User interaction improvement
Stability
Page rendering improvement

From first launch, beta 2 may look very much like beta 1, but that’s really the end of the similarity. Surfing your favorite pages will feel much more responsive, and the dreaded “memory pressure” warnings are very hard to find on devices with 128MB of memory. Even devices with less memory are capable of browsing much larger pages now, and our use of memory on these pages is reduced in almost every case.Give it a try and let us know how you like it. We’re happy with it, and we’re sure you will be to!

Iris Browser for Windows Mobile 1.0.14 - Beta 1

Torch Mobile — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:48:41 +0000

After the longest break since we release our first preview, Iris Browser Beta 1 is finally available for download! There’s a good reason for the long break before this latest release: We have made over 80 improvements since preview version 1.0.13, including some very big new features and fixes such as:

Full WML support with WCSS
XHTML Mobile Profile
Many column mode improvements
Many site and stability fixes
Internationalized UI with an initial simplified Chinese version

Beta 1 represents the first round of stabilization and brings additional polish to the Iris Browser. We have many more surprises in the works, so stayed tuned and, in the meantime, enjoy the release!

Iris Browser Windows Mobile: Final preview now available!

Torch Mobile — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 03:02:22 +0000

Torch Mobile is happy to announce our final preview, version 1.0.13, is now available for Windows Mobile. We’ve made big leaps in stability, performance and features over the past six months and it’s now time to finish stabilization and release something that we’re comfortable to call stable. This release features primarily stability fixes and improvements on memory usage, network stability, and rendering quality, including fixes for Asian language sites. It also includes two major new features: page overview, and single-column (MDR) mode. Give it a try, let us know what you think, and stay tuned for our upcoming beta release!

Iris Browser for Windows Mobile: Working With Plugins

Torch Mobile — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:32:14 +0000

As of our 1.0.12 preview release, Iris Browser for Windows Mobile now supports Netscape API style plugins. The browser searches for plugin DLLs in any of the following directories:

\plugins
\Windows\System\macromed\Flash
Registry value of “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Apple Computer, Inc.\QuickTime\InstallDir” with “\plugins” appended
Any of the plugin directories in registry key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader”
Any of the plugin directories in registry key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Mozilla”
Registry value of “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\InstallDir”

Plugin DLLs must be named np*.dll. For example, npmyplugin.dll. Plugins will not be loaded unless they export NP_Initialize, NP_GetEntryPoints, and NP_Shutdown, and the module version info must define FileExtents and MIMEType. Plugins must provide a WndProc to handle UI messages such as WM_PAINT. Other than that, plugin support follows the Windows standard NPAPI plugin model.

Plugin developers should be aware of the very tight memory limitations on Windows Mobile and either run memory intensive plugins out-of-process or limit memory usage to very small amounts at a time. It is also important to consider all of the different input mechanisms for devices using Iris Browser. Supported devices include touchscreen only, phone key only, smartphone (qwerty), and combinations of those three.

We look forward to using your plugins in Iris Browser!