瀏覽器新星 Iris Browser 宣告早夭
八月 27
Iris Browser 可能還不為大家所熟知。這是由原來專以為 Windows Mobile 手機研發手機瀏覽器為主的 Torch Mobile 公司所研發的一款瀏覽器。這款瀏覽器的功能可以說是非常強大。就我所用過的 N70 （Symbian S60v2）、HTC Touch Pro （Windows Mobile 6.1）、iPhone 一代（iPhone OS 2.2、OS 3.0） 以及 BlackBerry 8820 （BlackBerry OS 4.5）而言，不僅沒有一款瀏覽器可以全面超越 Iris ，更沒有一款瀏覽器可以在功能上全面超越 Iris。
除去流量和翻牆因素，Iris 已經取代了 UCweb ，成為了我在 Pro 上的首選瀏覽器。但是昨天得到消息，Iris 的研發商 Torch Mobile 已經被 RIM 收購。並不再會繼續開發 Iris ，至少不會繼續開發 Windows Mobile 版本。
大驚。
來到官網 ，紅色的 ACQUIRES 赫然映入眼簾（英文不好者，參見其官方中文網站）。
就在7月6號，Iris Browser 1.1.9 剛剛發布，我還在期待著開學前能用上 1.2 沒想到 1.1.9竟成絕響。
我不信，給 Torch Mobile 去了封郵件，詢問關於 Iris 的前途問題，得到的答復是：
讓我們再來回顧下它的發展歷程吧：（整理自 Torch Mobile‘s blog）
✪ March 01, 2008
We released Iris Browser Preview version 1.0.5 for Windows Mobile today, three weeks after we unveiled our first preview.
✪ March 05, 2008
Today we released preview 1.0.6 of Iris Browser for Windows Mobile. The latest features include:
HTTP authentication
HTTP proxy based on system-wide settings
Chinese, Korean, and other multi-byte encodings supported
Networking fixes including some cases where redirects failed
Improved auto-update including a detailed progress panel and more fixes for various devices
Improved [...]
✪ May 03, 2008
It has been a long time coming, but Iris Browser 1.0.9 for Windows Mobile is now available! We’re very excited about this release because it includes an incredible number of improvements and fixes. A brief summary:
Memory optimizations to make more sites render within the Windows Mobile memory limitations
Faster scrolling – we think we’re the fastest [...]
✪ June 12, 2008
Preview version 1.0.11 of Iris Browser for Windows Mobile was released today with the following highlights:
Many site compatibility fixes
Further memory use reduction
New animations
Preliminary <canvas> tag support
A feature to save pages to flashGrab your copy today!
✪ July 14, 2008
Today we released the long-awaited Iris Browser preview 1.0.12 for Windows Mobile. This is our most significant leap forward yet. The long list of new features and improvements includes:
XSLT support
Bookmarklets (javascript: bookmarks)
Netscape Plugin API (NPAPI)
file:/// local filesystem browsing
Bookmark imports from Opera and Pocket IE
Google maps works!
Visual history
New list views for bookmarks and history
Improved memory usage
Many [...]
✪ August 03, 2008
Torch Mobile is happy to announce our final preview, version 1.0.13, is now available for Windows Mobile.
✪ September 26, 2008
We have made over 80 improvements since preview version 1.0.13, including some very big new features and fixes such as:
Full WML support with WCSS
XHTML [...]
✪ November 07, 2008
We’re happy to announce the second beta release of Iris Browser for Windows Mobile! It contains over 100 fixes and improvements since the last beta release, and is incredibly fast and stable.
✪ November 13, 2008
Yesterday Torch Mobile had the opportunity to participate in the Under The Radar event at the Microsoft Research Center in Mountain View, California. Over 25 companies presented at the event, narrowed down from over 400 initially. Certainly it was an honor to be selected to present, and even more so to be selected as the category winner by the [...]
✪ November 28, 2008
A couple of quick news items. First, we’ve finally moved all of our WebKit development into the public git server. We created a new repository, separating it from QtWebKit. You can access it here: git://code.staikos.net/WebKit-CE/
Also, for those of you with HTC Diamond or Touch Pro and have been experiencing freezes, we’ve diagnosed the error as [...]
✪ December 06, 2008
As promised last week, we decided to release an additional beta version of Iris Browser for Windows Mobile to solve the freezes experienced by those of you with HTC Diamond, Touch Pro, and some other devices. This beta features a whole lot more too! We’ve done some work to improve download times and UI responsiveness,[...]
✪ February 17, 2009
t has been one year since our first public preview was released, and today we made Iris Browser 1.1.0 available for download! There are many surprises waiting inside, including support for the Flash Lite ActiveX control, big performance gains, reduced memory usage, preliminary RSS and SVG support, the highest Acid3 score of any shipping mobile browser, and HTC accelerometer [...]
✪ February 23, 2009
Touch Pro and Diamond users should be happy to know that we released Iris Browser 1.1.3 for Windows Mobile just moments ago.
✪ March 14, 2009
Iris Browser 1.1.4 for Windows Mobile is now available for download. This is a bug fix release, and highlights include:
Fixes for zoom scale
Performance improvements in various areas
Fixes for some EUC-JP encoded sites, other encoding fixes
JavaScript fixes for some sites
Rendering artifacts fixed on some dynamic sites like Google Reader iPhone edition
All reported crashes fixed (potentially also [...]
✪ March 22, 2009
Iris Browser 1.1.5 for Windows Mobile was released today.Some highlights include:
Noticeably faster scrolling
Up to 25% improvement in page load time
Improvements to text input
Rendering and layout improvements
✪ April 01, 2009
Iris Browser 1.1.6 for Windows Mobile was released today – no joke! Highlights include:
Performance improvements
Some pages load up to 25% faster
Scrolling performance improved
Painting speed improved
History fixes
New registry flag to control the minimum and maximum zoom levels – use at your own risk!
Zoom scheme changes based on user requests and bug reports
Some site specific fixes
EUC-KR support improvements
Some hidden features
✪ April 23, 2009
Iris Browser 1.1.7 was released today. Highlights include:
More configurability
Click-to-play Flash can be disabled from the registry
Text reflow can be enabled from the registrySome crash fixes
Improvements to block zoom region identification and calculation
Much faster page loading due to new networking code
Various site compatibility fixes
Support more encodings for RSS
Scroll point is now preserved when going back
Touch Pro [...]
✪ June 07, 2009
Iris Browser 1.1.8 for Windows Mobile is now available for download. 1.1.8 includes more fixes and improvements than any release since 1.1.0. Among them:
Improved graphics performance
Faster networking and loading of local files
Improved memory usage
Improved asynchronous behavior while loading pages
Support for the W3C Geolocation API
Support for HTML5 SQL databases and client side storage
Rendering improvements, including for [...]
✪ July 06, 2009
Iris Browser 1.1.9 was released today. It includes a number of important fixes and some exciting new features. The highlights in brief:
Improved canvas support – curves, transparency fixes, and more
Application cache support
Some networking and javascript fixes
Flash reliability fixes
The link click animation has been removed, by popular request
A security fix in SVG support
Preliminary RTSP support and [...]
或許，又中了這句話:『一般地，我所珍惜在意的東西，大都鮮有人追捧；特别地，我所珍惜在意的人，絕少有在意我的。』
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