Skyfire for Android shows Flash video minus Flash

Skyfire claimed a minor victory in mobile browsers today by launching the beta of Skyfire 2.0 for Android and detailing its plans for the iPhone. The browser is unique on Android in supporting Flash video without having to actually use the sometimes criticized plugin. It automatically scans for Flash-based video and, if found, automatically converts it to raw H.264 video that plays full-screen.

That approach is also key to the company's planned iPhone port; a team member explained that it would effectively allow Flash on the iPhone without treading on Apple's guidelines.

All versions also have an "explore" feature that scours sites for Flash video to put into an easy-to-browse list, a sharing button to send pages to Digg, Twitter and other pages, and Safari-style 'tabbed' browsing. On Android, multi-touch zooming is enabled for those phones that can support it.

We tried the Android version on a Milestone (Droid) and found it fairly good, but with caveats. It renders pages quickly and accurately, and the tabbed browsing and exploration features are simple. When it works, the video function is also very effective as well: we watched an 8-minute ESPN clip at reasonable quality. However, it doesn't necessarily work as well as one would hope: we visited a few sites with Flash video where Skyfire couldn't find the video and wouldn't let us tap the relevant button. There are tools to report broken videos, but for now it can be hit-or-miss.

As a beta, there is a certain amount of needed polish; besides the video, multi-touch needs to respond more quickly than it does. However, this last point won't be an issue on the iPhone, and we hope that the finished versions of both the 2.0 Android and iPhone browsers (if approved) provide a real alternative to the stock browsers on either platform.

By Electronista Staff