Nokia's vision: access any web page from a mobile device

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 25 May 2006 11:53

Business IT - Technology

Nokia has released the source code for the S60 WebKit, the engine driving the Web Browser for its S60 handset platform saying it marks the start of a collaborative effort to enable smartphones to access any web page not just those designed to be 'mobile friendly'.
Nokia claims that its recently-launched S60 browser "replicates on handheld devices the true web-page rendering of complete desktop browsers" and says release of the source code "marks the start of a collaborative open source effort that will enable smartphone users industry-wide to push beyond the millions of mobile-friendly pages currently on the web and begin to experience full web browsing of the estimated 25 billion pages on the Internet today."

Nokia says the move will also enable reduced fragmentation in the next generation of mobile browsers, simplifying content development for the mobile web and accelerating adoption of mobile browsing by millions of smartphone users worldwide.

The S60 WebKit browser engine is based on the WebCore and JavaScriptCore components of Apple's Safari browser. Nokia has also added mobility enhancements to facilitate porting to different mobile platforms, and intends to participate in the open source community to develop further enhancements to the browser and to share changes to the core browser engine as they are made.

The source code will be made available to open source developers through the WebKit Open Source Project (www.webkit.org) under the terms of the open source BSD license. According to Nokia this is a highly permissive software license with few requirements and is one of the most popular licenses among free software developers worldwide.

The first Nokia devices to include the S60 Web browser will be ESeries (E60, E61 and E70) and NSeries devices (N71, N73, N80, N91, N92 and N93), an 3250 PHONE. Shipment of some models has already begun and others will come available throughout the remainder of the second quarter.