ACCESS’s NetFront is a popular mobile browser for PDAs and phones. The English release of version 3.2 is now out, including support for WM2003SE, integrated Flash, Rapid Render technology that gradually renders the page, a new Java VM for applets, and some other features, but it still comes with no VGA support.
NetFront 3.2-English Released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I had never heard of this before, but it seems like a powerful product. Has anyone on the board ever used it before? What was your expereice with it. I’m a flash programmer, and I’m specifically interested in people flash expirence with it.
Yes, I use it all the time (and I have reported on it many times before). Netfront is a very popular mobile browser and pretty powerful. Its best feature is its 4 rendering modes that allow complex desktop web pages to fit on a small screen.
As for Macromedia Flash, as long the Flash itself is not too big (smaller than 500-600 KBs for PDAs/PPC-phones and smaller than 50 KBs for certain lower-end smartphones) and it uses the mobile version of Flash (the format is different for the phone Flash, but it’s the same desktop format on PocketPCs), then it should work fine. Internet Explorer on PocketPCs also supports Flash the same way Netfront does: the user must install first the Flash libraries though they don’t come pre-installed.
Good deal. My flash apps are usually 100% actionscript and very rarely exceed 100k. I will have to look into developing for Mobile flash.
Yeah I have heard about the pre-install issue with flash. I have always wondered buy Macromedia will not let people package the client with their software. Strange.
Eugenia, I heard you were leaving. Good luck where ever you go
My (sadly dead) Sharp Zaurus C700 came with Netfront and it has a VGA screen.
I agrre, NetFront it still the default browser in current Zaurus PDA (in Japanese and english, the majorityu of the Zaurus applicationscan switch to english), and it works in 640×480 resolution. I think it is the pocket PC version that have no VGA support.
For information, NetFront is also apparently the browse on all I Mode Cell phone (at least in France). It works well on the current generation of I Mode terminal (but was damn slow on the first generation that came to France).
Oh yes and it was also the default browser on some Sony Clié PDA, also with VGA support.
The Clie does not have VGA, it’s 480×320.
As for the Zaurus VGA, you can’t compare that to the Pocket PC version of Netfront, the APIs are different to make the app understand that the device has VGA support. So, don’t compare apples and oranges. The fact that Netfront for Zaurus supports natively VGA (does it really?) does not mean that this will work on another type of device/OS.
Yes you’re right. The Zaurus version and the Windows Mobile one surely din’t use the same API.
Yes the Zaurus version really support VGA. On my C3000, it is version 3.1.