Skyfire which is a widely used browser on Windows Mobile is going over to Android and iPhone and leaving windows mobile behind. In a recent post on their site ( via WMPU )

Our team took a hard look at where we could double down our limited resources on these “hockey stick” growth opportunities, and on Skyfire 2.0.

As a result, we have decided to stop all future development on the old “proxy” Skyfire 1.0 (including version 1.5) architecture, and focus on the 2.0 product, which is our future. With 2.0, Skyfire has introduced the first “hybrid browser” in the world, combining the best of native webkit rendering with the best of cloud web services, including our famed rich media engine, mash-ups, and more.

Yesterday we began notifying 1.0 users outside of North America and Western Europe that we will phase out the 1.0 service. Because 1.0 is only on Windows Mobile and Symbian, only those handsets are affected. Our 2.0 product is growing incredibly fast and continues worldwide. Skyfire 1.X will no longer be supported outside of North America and Western Europe effective July 1st, 2010.

We will bring Skyfire 2.0 to more operating systems over the next year, after Android and iPhone……
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…. As an ad-supported app, we have seen that in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and other emerging markets, the mobile ad market and search monetization are very early stage. They are not mature enough to support the Skyfire 1.0 service operating cost. Skyfire had only officially-supported North America and Western Europe launches, but users in over 150 additional countries had “unofficially” downloaded the product. It was time to focus our resources on officially-supported countries, and on Skyfire 2.0 going forward.

Note: Skyfire 1.0 and 1.5 will remain available as a free service in the following countries after July 1st: United States, U.K., Canada, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Korea and Taiwan.

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SkyFire brings the full-featured PC versions of your favorite websites onto your windows mobile device. This modern browser supports a lot of format that other mobile browsers cannot handle. Check out the full review to see if its time to change your browser.

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Today I was able to play Hulu Videos on my Windows Mobile device using SkyFire. ( thanks to everythingWM via WMEXperts for the find. Usually Hulu Videos are only for US residents but I was able to play it from Australia , and I am assuming it should work from anywhere in the world. ( Coz I think skyfire routes all traffic through its servers located in the US ).

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The guys from CareAce has posted a short video review of Opera Mobile 10 vs. SkyFire 1.5. Head over there to vote for your favorite Mobile browser

Check out our impression of Opera 10 ( BestWindowsMobileApps.com )

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skyfire

Updates include :

• full support for high-resolution screens
• a sleeker user interface that is more finger friendly with crisper text
• smoother zooming
• full-screen mode that maximizes screen real estate
• support for the VGA and wVGA resolutions
• Kinetic scrolling to improve smoother browsing
• remove all UI icons and elements from the screen to enlarge visibility of the browser ( touch screen devices )
• Support for Adobe Flash 10 and Microsoft’s Silverlight. 1.5
• “Fireplace – home screen” integrating RSS feeds, Facebook and Twitter feeds, and Gmail

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skyfire

Good news is Skyfire hits version 1.1, do I hear you asking whats new ?

• Improved page load times. For sites that take a long time to load, we updated our algorithm to bring you the content much quicker.
• Improved scrolling and zooming on Symbian. This is a much faster and smoother experience now.
• Improved reconnect. Skyfire will show clearly when you can start interacting with the web page in case it previously timed out and disconnected (to save battery life).
• WML support. If you are browsing to mobile sites that use the old mobile WML markup, you can now view the content.
• Improved mobile website support. Mobile.* websites are now rendered automatically as mobile with the exception of mobile.yahoo.com since it is a PC site.
• Page up/down navigation via short-key: You can use now ‘2’ and ‘8’ to easily navigate one page up or down. Great for reading articles. Now the short-key for invoking the Superbar is ‘*’. Please note that on some devices with a non-standard keyboard layout, short-keys may behave differently since this is phone specific.
• Updated Plug-ins: For Flash, Silverlight and QuickTime we have the newest versions to give you more compatibility with more sites.

[ via MoDaCo ]

More info about this version

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Skyfire

What’s new in this 1.0 update?
* Reduced Memory footprint. We reduced the memory footprint of Skyfire for both Symbian and Windows Mobile devices. This should help folks reporting issues on memory constrained devices.

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Skyfire

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The Skyfire browser, which now supports Silverlight, will now be accessible to all who use the special code “Michael8”. Skyfire says they did this to commemorate Michael Phelps’s monumental accomplishment of winning 8 Gold metals in a single Olympic games.

The code will only be valid from the 18th to the 30th August, so readers will have to move fast to take advantage of this advanced browser and finally experience the Real Web on their mobile devices.

To sign up visit skyfire.com with your mobile device.

Note : as usual it didnt work for me, let us know if it was successful for you.

Source : wmpoweruser.com

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