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Nokia Develops a New Browser on Apple WebKit

Posted by Hemos on from the powering-small-devices-everywhere dept.

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"."

13 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Let me know when its free to use by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have a built in web browser in my phone, but I never fired it up because it has fees that go along with its use.

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    God spoke to me.
    1. Re:Let me know when its free to use by faedle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      On my carrier, I get unlimited data usage and only 300 minutes of "anytime minutes". My PalmOne Treo is an IMing, SMSing, SSHing computer that just happens to have an expensive-to-use phone attached to it.

      It's all a matter of perspective.

  2. Wither KHTML? by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I wonder if it'd be worth the Konqueror people taking WebKit/etc and porting it back to KDE, rather than trying to keep up with WebKit in KHTML when the latter is obviously having problems because of slight architectural differences.

    This way the three groups, Nokia, KDE, and Apple, will be working on making one browser engine perfect, rather than working on two very similar systems that, really, have no major advantages over one-another.

    Symbian has little relationship with OS X/OpenStep. It strikes me if this was easy for Nokia to do, it should be architecturally reasonable to port it to a KDE environment.

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    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    1. Re:Wither KHTML? by m50d · · Score: 4, Insightful

      WebKit doesn't meet KDE's coding standards. They're quite strict, in order to keep a clean codebase, wheras Apple has rushed features in to a certain extent. Also, KHTML is integrated into KDE, and a large part of the difference between it and WebKit is that Apple have done a lot of work to remove that integration (and add their own). I suspect the reason Nokia are using WebKit is it is mostly de-integrated. Porting to KDE would just mean adding all the integration back in. (kparts, kwallet, etc.). Not too much work, but pretty pointless because the result would be very similar to KHTML.

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      I am trolling
  3. How long... by Fermatprime · · Score: 5, Funny

    How long until Cringely announces the details of the upcoming Apple/Intel/Nokia merger?

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    I hate the one hundred and twenty character limit for signatures with an all-enveloping, all-destroying, incredible pass
  4. Return the favor? by DeepFried · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Maybe they can return the favor by being more Mac friendly in their desktop and sync software rollouts.

    I have recently "discovered" the series 60 platform and I am really pleased with it. I was so happy with it that I was able to dump my Treo for a 6620. Finally, a real multitaksting smartphone alternative (non-msft). It's the best thing since sliced bread. Now if they could just give OS X some love.

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    Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?
  5. Minimo by brolewis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What happened to the minimo project? I thought that Nokia was supposedly funding this project for use on its phones. Is this an apparant shift or just a bad memory on my part?

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    A little learning never hurt anyone.
  6. It's very spiffy by Kyro · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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    save the GNUs!
  7. Gtk+ WebCore by mukund · · Score: 4, Informative

    Gtk+ WebCore seems to be made at Nokia.

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    Banu
  8. Re:hmmmm. by oever · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is required! The code for the _library_ must be provided. The code linking to it may stay undisclosed.

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    DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
  9. Re:Hmm by kaarlov · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nokia ships lots of phones with Opera as a web browser. See http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/products/

    If Nokia is serious with their own KHTML-based browser for their phones, it could be major financial blow for Opera Software.

  10. Wrong...WebCore, not WebKit by xeno314 · · Score: 5, Informative

    How hard is it for the submitter/editor to catch this one? WebKit doesn't even appear in the press release...

  11. Re:hmmmm. by Coryoth · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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    Craft Beer Programming T-shirts