{"id":9290,"date":"2011-02-15T21:06:03","date_gmt":"2011-02-16T05:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wapreview.com\/?p=9290"},"modified":"2011-02-16T08:58:57","modified_gmt":"2011-02-16T16:58:57","slug":"bolt-browser-2-5-html5-geolocation-improved-ui-and-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wapreview.com\/9290\/","title":{"rendered":"Bolt Browser 2.5 – HTML5, Geolocation, Improved UI and Ads"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TechCrunch<\/a> \"TechCrunch<\/a> \"Gawker\"<\/a> \"HTML5<\/a>
\nClick images to view full size.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bitstream released<\/a> a new version of the Bolt Java ME browser at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona yesterday. It’s Bolt 2.5 and new features include support for more HTML5 features including\u00a0 the Geolocation API, the ability to play Facebook videos and some subtle tweaks to the UI that make it more touch friendly and reduce the number of clicks needed to perform common actions. Download Bolt 2.5 from: boltbrowser.com\/dnld.html<\/a> (PC) or boltbrowser.com\/aindex<\/a> (mobile web).<\/p>\n

Like Opera Mini, Bolt is a proxy based browser.\u00a0 It’s written in Java ME and supports everything from basic feature phones to Symbian and bada smartphones. I installed Bolt 2.5 on four phones; a Nokia N8, Nokia N95-3, Samsung Wave GT8500L and a Motorola i776. Initially it didn’t work on the N8, It would hang when I tried to enter the Preferences screen. It locked up so tightly that the Symbian Task Manager couldn’t kill it and I had to power cycle the phone. But after I installed the PR 1.1 firmware update that Nokia released today for US model N8s Bolt ran fine. I ended up doing almost all of my testing on the N8 which is my main phone these days,<\/p>\n

I was particularly excited about the inclusion of geolocation in Bolt. It worked very well on the N95 and the N8 but not on the other two devices. There’s supposed to be option to enable in the Preferences screen. That option was missing on the Wave and i776. I presume that means that Bolt didn’t detect support for the Java ME Location API (JSR 179). According to the spec sheet the Wave does support JSR 179. But a lot of things seem to be\u00a0 locked down on bada phones so perhaps Samsung has restricted access to the API however . But I don’t understand why location isn’t available on i776 as it does support JSR 179, even for unsigned apps, and many location aware Java apps do work on that phone.<\/p>\n

I tried four location aware mobile sites on the two Nokias: Google Buzz<\/a>, Never Eat Alone<\/a>, Nextbus<\/a> and the Organic Wine Finder<\/a> (first three images below) and all where able to obtain my location quickly and correctly.<\/p>\n

\"NextBus\"<\/a> \"Never<\/a> \"Organic<\/a> \"Engadget<\/a>
\nClick images to view full size.<\/span><\/p>\n

The HTML5 support in Bolt is real and it does well on HTML5 test suites. I ran the W3C<\/a> and Momac<\/a> (image top right) HTML5 test pages in Bolt and the results speak for themselves. Bolt did very well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nBolt 2.5<\/td>\nAndroid 2.2 Browser<\/td>\nOpera Mobile 10<\/td>\nN8 Symbian Browser<\/td>\nOpera Mini 5.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
W3C (percent of tests passed)<\/td>\n75%<\/td>\n75%<\/td>\n34%<\/td>\n17%<\/td>\n17%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Momac (number of tests passed)<\/td>\n148<\/td>\n122<\/td>\n42<\/td>\n28<\/td>\n18<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Bolt’s revamped UI has shallower menus and bigger text making it more touch friendly.\u00a0 I had no trouble using the menus and settings dialogs on the touch-only N8.<\/p>\n

In real world browsing Bolt does a good job of rendering most sites including\u00a0 difficult ones like the desktop versions of Gawker and TechCrunch (first three images – top).<\/p>\n

However I ran into issues with several of sites that I visit.<\/p>\n