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Can a mobile browser be better than the one on your desktop PC? The new BlackBerry 10 browser is, according to its designers at Research In Motion (RIM).
(Credit: Joe Hanlon/CNET Australia)
That is, when you’re measuring HTML5 compliance.
“We have a more [HTML5] standards-compliant browser than anybody else,” said Alec Saunders, RIM’s VP for Developer Relations. “It beats every desktop browser, it beats every mobile browser, it beats every tablet browser, when you start to measure the scores.”
The scores he referred to are points allocated by the site HTML5test.com, which awards a mark for every measure of compliance that it detects in a browser while running its testing regime. The maximum score is 500, and the new BlackBerry 10 browser scored 484.
“I think Tizen just beat us by one point,” Saunders conceded, “But Tizen doesn’t really matter, right?”
This high level of compliance has been a major focus for RIM in the development of the new BlackBerry operating system, with Saunders admitting that web browsing in previous BlackBerry devices had been “a very poor experience”.
The effects of this effort trickle down throughout the entire system, and not just in the browser. Applications can be written in HTML5, and take advantage of technologies like WebGL, which adds another tool to the app developer’s tool belt.
The RIM team demoed HTML5 apps at BlackBerry Jam Asia, Bangkok, showing how these apps can perform with the same functions as apps written natively for the platform. One app shown is for controlling parts of a car using a Bluetooth connection, allowing you to remotely open doors and the boot, and start the engine to warm it up before driving.
(Credit: Joe Hanlon/CNET Australia)
Joseph Hanlon travelled to BlackBerry Jam Asia as a guest of Research In Motion.
