Bitstream has just launched into private beta with their free WebKit-based mobile browser, BOLT, which they’re claiming is the fastest J2ME browser of the lot. They’re only letting a few hundred people into the beta at a time, and we just got the first lot of 500 invites. Looking to put it through the paces with the likes of Opera Mini? Read on to find out how to get beta access.
We’ve only just cracked open our own download of the browser, so our impressions thus far are fairly limited. Really getting to know a browser takes a few days – rather than making you wait to get your own mitts on it, we figured we’d share the invites as soon as possible and let you play along at home.
The Features:
- It’s Java ME (J2ME), so it should work on most featurephones. Don’t expect it to work on your iPhone, though.
- WebKit based rendering engine
- Relatively lightweight – 150kb storage, 500kb of RAM required
- Fast! In BOLT’s words: “Bitstream measured download speeds of 13 popular websites including Amazon.com, CNN.com, ESPN.com and nytimes.com. The second fastest browser averaged download speeds in excess of 18 seconds across all pages. On the same phones, using the same networks, BOLT’s average download speed was under 13 seconds, a full 5.5 seconds faster. “
- Like Opera Mini (the main J2ME competition), data is passed through a proxy for rendering and compression before being passed to the handset, speeding things up and saving battery life. It’s generally a good thing, though such practices tend to spook most security-minded folk. Pages are compressed at a rate of 23:1.
- RSS reader built in, with automatic feed detection
- “Split screen browsing” – 2/3 of the screen shows the full page, serving as a mini-map with a highlighting box, while the other 1/3 shows the magnified area.
- URL auto completion
- Phone numbers automatically parsed for Click-to-call
- User interface is currently English only, but the browser can render pages written in any Western-European language.
- AJAX support, and Flash video support (Sort of – it’ll take FLV files and convert them to the more mobile-friendly 3GP format, streaming that to you.) Note that that’s Flash video, not Flash in its entirety.
If you’re interested in being one of the first in the world to tinker with the browser, head on over to the download page and use the following referral code: Crunch. Remember, the BOLT browser is currently J2ME only – it’ll work on a ton of featurephones, but it’s a no go on most (non-RIM) smartphones for the time being. (Note: the signup process isn’t automated, so you may have to wait a few minutes before your download link comes through)
[PSGallery=1uw6cn7pox]
How can I get an invitation? Greez from Switzerland.
Yeah number one :) http://kisalt.net/d2
2 minutes and all 500 invites were already gone? Anywho, you said “but it’s a no go on most (non-RIM) smartphones for the time being”. According to their site it works just fine on Windows Mobile devices.. you know, the smartphones with the largest market share?
It doesn’t work on all WinMo devices yet.
If it gave you a “We’ll let you know when..” notice, you’re probably good to go. As I mentioned in the tail end of the post, they didn’t automate the process – the download link varies by handset, so they’re sending them out manually.
I’ll update the post as soon as I’m told the invites are gone.
Given the extremely large number of users that wanted to try BOLT, we experienced some delays in processing key requests. We have worked through the weekend and emails are on their way to you. You can also ensure a key by filing our the form again at http://www.boltbrowser.com/download.html. Bitstream support is giving their utmost attention to all requests.
Thanks,
BOLT Beta Support Team at Bitstream
support@boltbrowser.com
Using a proxy for rendering and compression is a complete deal breaker in 2009.
@coldbrew
Using a proxy for compression and rendering is far from a deal breaker. It makes stuff faster and cheaper, and can offer browsing on slower phones.
And if you have a beefy phone capable of handling a full browser, you may still be paying for data, or you may not have a perfect network signal all the time.
Oh God..Java.
So it doesn’t work on RIM OS, or the iPhone – what about Symbian? Does it work on even half of the smart phone install base?
It works in the rest of the world :)
Most phones in the rest of the world support Java. Maybe with the exception of Japan.
Looks pretty heavy on Apple and RIM to me:
http://www.canalys.com/pr/2008/r2008112.htm
@J
Smartphones, eh?
Most phones in the world are *NOT* smartphones. The market for a Java based browser is much bigger — HUGE — compared to the tiny smartphone market (in comparison).
Hi,
This is to let you know that BOLT is for any device which supports MIDP 2.0/CLDC 1.0 and above. This means it works on a large number of mobile devices, not just Blackberries.
Thanks,
BOLT Beta Support Team at Bitstream
support@boltbrowser.com
Wow.. it must be nice to have a choice in browsers.
I’ve read that I will get that choice too, as it seems fascistic Apple has just approved 3rd party browsers for the iPhone.
Nothing in my App Store yet though.
But waiting with bated breath… Safari sucks.
Melissa Burns here from the Bitstream (BOLT) PR team. A huge thank you to all of you MobileCrunch readers for your enthusiastic response to the BOLT browser beta.
I wanted to let you know a bit more about the status of the private beta program that is now underway. We completely underestimated the response we’d get to the beta. Initially we had a manual process in place to distribute download links to those with codes. However, we were quickly overwhelmed by requests so we switched to an automated process at about 9am Eastern today. Sometime after noon EST today, the server handling the downloads “blew up” – - literally! I kid you not. We are now in the process of switching over to a dedicated server that we are confident can handle the demand. We appreciate everyone’s patience. We expect the new server to be online by 4pm EST today.
Also, to those who have already downloaded BOLT, a HUGE thank you. Based on the feedback we’ve received just since yesterday we’ve already made improvements to BOLT, and our beta is only about 24 hours old.
So, thanks, and stand by for more good stuff to come!
Hey Melissa,
Any relation to Montgomery Burns?
Seriously though… any plans for iPhone, now that they seem to have lifted their embargo?
Apple have NOT lifted anything. Alternative browsers are still forbidden.
The “browsers” you heard about are just skins for Safari. It’s the same browser with a new look, basically.
Congratulations to the BOLT team – the ultimate winner of the browser wars is always the end-users. These are the guys establishing the Web as the true application platform.
My only concern, same as with SkyFire, is the business model: http://igorfaletski.com/2009/01/10/thinking-about-skyfire/
I’m sorry, but I’m not excited by this browser. There are not enough features and options compared to Opera mini, for example. The web-pages are shown very fragmentary. I see only small part of the web-page on the screen of mobile phone and I must use navigation buttons for navigation across the page.
We wanted to take a moment to extend our personal thanks for all of the blog users on mbilecrunch.com that have tested our BOLT browser. BOLT is our latest entry into the mobile browsing space and this is the first time that we have launched a private beta through the use of blogs. The response has been outstanding! As you may have seen, we have received so many responses in a few short days that it overloaded our registration process. On Friday, we were able to build an automated process that continued to be stressed by the sheer volume of requests happening every minute. The great news is that we were able to expand the number of invites so many more of you could participate.
We have received countless emails providing extremely valuable feedback, feature requests, and favorable comments on the experience. The private beta build was created to allow people with J2ME phones to browse and for us to get real world feedback. Given the monumental response from Blackberry users, we are already working on Blackberry-specific improvements recommended by bloggers to greatly improve the experience on Blackberry devices given the demand. An example of this is improving the use of specific hardware keys found on Blackberries. As many of us are Blackberry users, we completely understand the benefit such improvements will provide.
Although many reported that BOLT is very fast, we also heard that some users were having speed issues. Earlier today, we made some improvements to our backend servers to improve the speed of delivery of pages to you so pages should load even faster than before. If you were having difficulty earlier, we would encourage you to test again and see what happens. Then let us know if this has improved the speed on your device.
We encourage you to continue to provide your feedback to us either by posting or by sending an email to support@boltbrowser.com for support issues. You can also email contact@boltbrowser.com for any other matters. Our team is making every effort to respond to all of your inquiries as soon as possible. As you can imagine, this is keeping us quite busy given the volume of email we are getting. Over the coming days, you may also see posts from our team on certain technical issues. Although it will be difficult to respond to everyone who has posted, we will post information for everyone to see on common issues.
We hope that none of you were unable to participate due to our launch issues, as that was not our intention. If you have not received your software, please sign up again at http://www.boltbrowser.com and you should receive the download very shortly.
Thank you for being a part of our private beta launch! We look forward to hearing your feedback! You are the most valuable part of our beta process!
With your help, we hope to make BOLT the best mobile browser on the market today.
Anna and the BOLT team
Anna Chagnon
President and CEO
Bitstream Inc.
any help with blackberry 8700. can not get bolt to download on my device.
Pls. Keep me linked.