Slashdot Mirror
Nokia Develops a New Browser on Apple WebKit
Althazzar writes "Nokia has built a new browser for their Symbian system based on the WebKit open source project from Apple, released last week. "Apple is pleased to assist Nokia in creating their new Series 60 browser based on the same KHTML open source technology that powers Apple's Safari"."
Which is based upon the Webcore released by NOKIA not long ago. Here is a Screenshot
And further Information can be found here.
I do suppose Opera has more experience in fitting web pages to small screens. Have they made it better?
In case anyone is wondering... no this doesn't mean that Qt is part of Nokia's plans. Apple spent a huge amount of time and effort to remove the Qt dependency from KHTML to make this... like most KDE software, it was useable outside the KDE project unless you happen like being forced in using the GPL (thanks to TrollTech and its expensive licenses!).
So.. Webkit is an HTML render forked from KHTML, and with the Qt tendrils chopped out of it, leaving a decent quality LGPL HTML renderer that makes for good competition for mozilla. Let's hope it eventually kills off KHTML... since it is both technically superior and has better licensing.
This is a blow for the Opera for Mobile product, it seems to me. I wonder how usable this new browser is without a proxying component like the one used by the Reqwireless WebViewer or even the BlackBerry's built-in browser?
EricJ2ME acronyms defined
KDE - upon which WebKit is based - is LGPL, meaning full source-code disclosure isn't required
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
This has been out for a while, i've been using gtk-webcore for the last two months on my Slackware box.
you can get it from here and there's lots of other interesting tidbits of information on that site.
save the GNUs!
Gtk+ WebCore seems to be made at Nokia.
Banu
It is required! The code for the _library_ must be provided. The code linking to it may stay undisclosed.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
How hard is it for the submitter/editor to catch this one? WebKit doesn't even appear in the press release...
I think Nokia just want's lots of choice for browser on their phones, as they also tend to include Opera on the series 60 IIRC.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
The LGPL requires any distributed modifications of LGPL'd source code must be made available.
Nokia using a LGPL'd web library for their browser does not mean they have to release the source code for the browser.
Of course Nokia has apparently taken webkit and built the GUI for it using GTK+. The result is GTK-WebKit, which has indeed been open sourced - you can find it here. I have no idea how much of their browser that contains, but at the least it is an HTML renderer and basic GUI, which should get you the better part of the browser whole.
Does a GTK+/KHTML browser count as cross desktop cooperation, or a mutant bastard offspring created by third party mad scientists?
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
If you're an American, you might want to switch over to T-Mobile. Basic web access is free over GPRS, though they offer additional plans (T-Zones, which is exclusive content, and non-port blocked GPRS access for things like laptops) for an additional fee.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
his carrier is probably sprint. $15/mo for unlimited data.
I pay only 3.99 a month for unlimited data use on my phone. T-mobile. :)
Good article, showing that Apple's role as a leader of the open source movement is finally paying off. Apple's groundbreaking work on KHTML is to become the foundation of many of Nokia's future lines.
From the article (and there's even a linux quote for those of you who are into that kind of thing!):Looks like Apple and their open-source efforts have done it again!
I seem to remember Dave Hyatt setting us straight on that one. The iTunes Music Store does not use WebCore or WebKit to render its pages.
Just why, I couldn't guess. It seems like a natural application for it.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
... unlimited data use through the apps provided by T-Mobile, that is (i.e. their cruddy web browser and e-mail client).
Try to load up your own apps like Opera Mobile, Agile Messenger, etc. and you find that the dirt-cheap all you can eat plan blocks your service. You have to shell out $20/month to be able to bring your own apps.
Not that they document this anywhere you might see it before you buy a plan -- it's just "unlimited data!!! unlimited Mobile Web!!! " with the caveats buried deep in the fine print.
(Yes, I'm a bitter T-Mobile customer :-) )
Read my blog.
Why not port the Qt version? There is already Qt for windows.
Jokes aside, if you use the nox version of Konqueror, you will already have a functional browser. And not simply a html widget and a javascript interpreter which is what webkit/webcore are.
Here is an email from Roland Geisler at Nokia that was posted on the Safari Web Kit mailing list (more info at http://webkit.opendarwin.org/contact.html)
From: roland geisler
Subject: [webkit-dev] Greetings from the Series 60 mobile browser team at Nokia
Date: June 13, 2005 2:52:33 PM PDT
RE: Recent press release: http://press.nokia.com/PR/200506/998214_5.html
Hi,
I'm heading marketing and strategy at Nokia for Series 60's new mobile browser that will be built upon WebCore/KHTML and JavaScriptCore/KJS. I am writing you this email to thank you for having built the Konqueror and Safari browser with the two components WebCore/KHTML and JavaScriptCore/KJS. I would like to introduce myself and some members from our core development team, and explain why we at Nokia have selected your code base for our future Series 60 mobile browser. I also hope that this will start a mutual dialogue among us that will support all of our projects in the future.
Not all of you might be familiar with Series 60. Series 60 is a smart phone software platform developed by Nokia, which enables feature rich applications on mobile devices. Series 60 is based on the Symbian OS and is written in C++. More information can be found from http://www.forum.nokia.com/
and http://www.series60.com/.
I copied some of our core development team members on this email so you have their names and contact information. Antti Koivisto, whom you might know already, is one of the co-authors of KHTML and has been working for Nokia Research Center for the past few years and recently joined our mobile browser development team in Boston. David Carson and Deepika Chauhan are two of the original developers of the Nokia mobile browser. Zalan Bujtas, Prabhakar Marnadi, Yongjun Zhang and Sachin Padma have been working with mobile browsers for some years at Nokia in Helsinki and Boston. Keith Hollis has several years experience working with mobile browsers and has recently joined our team in Boston, earlier he was the principal person leading the port of the Opera web browser to the Symbian OS at Opera Software. Guido Grassel, Kimmo Kinnunen and Andrei Popescu are working at our Nokia Research Center in Helsinki (http://www.nokia.com/research/) where we have built the GTK port of Apple's WebCore that we released last year - http://gtk-webcore.sourceforge.net/.
The high performance, low memory consumption and small code footprint of KHTML and KJS make these components ideal for resource-constrained mobile devices. Clean architecture and good design create a good base for future development of mobile features. In addition, Web compliance was another important criteria for us. Congratulations to the KDE Konqueror developer team for building such a great browser.
Big thanks at this point also go to the Apple Safari team that has tremendously improved KHTML and KJS in many areas, in particular in Web compliance and performance. WebCore and JavaScriptCore also offer a cleaner separation to the underlying operating system. For these reasons we at Nokia chose WebCore and JavaScriptCore as the code base for our Series 60 mobile browser.
Our plan is that the new Series 60 mobile browser will be available as a standard Series 60 application during the first half of 2006.
We at Nokia are excited to use WebCore/KHTML and JavaScriptCore/KJS for our future Series 60 mobile browser. I hope that we can start a dialogue with your community and the Apple Safari team on how to "mobilize" WebCore/KHTML and JavaScriptCore/KJS to create the best Web browser based on open-source components for mobile devices.
Best regards,
Roland Geisler
Head of Marketing & Strategy, Series 60 Browser
Nok