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Nokia Develops a New Browser on Apple WebKit

Posted by Hemos on Mon Jun 13, 2005 10:30 AM
from the powering-small-devices-everywhere dept.
Technology (Apple) Businesses Technology Apple
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"."
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  • Let me know when its free to use (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CrazyJim1 (809850) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:32AM (#12802976) Journal
    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.
    • Sorry, but I gotta side with CrazyJim here on this one. I never use the browser on any of my phones just because the data service charge is so high. I'm sure it makes sense for some people but deffinitly not for most. it's not the same as asking an isp for a reuter and not exspecting to pay for bandwidth because the primary reason for use of a phone is to make phone calls. I think a lot of people have lost site of this and confuse their phones for instant messaging, camera, web browsing toys and not a devic

      • Re:Let me know when its free to use (Score:5, Insightful)

        by faedle (114018) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:59AM (#12803239) Homepage Journal
        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.

      • Actually, the primary use of a phone is to send and receive text messages. Now that flat rate internet access is getting reasonable, that will soon be the secondary use and since it will be moving into the #2 position from dead last, I guess everything else will be moving down. That should put "making phone calls" around 5 or 6.

        Of course it could just be me. I really hate talking on the fucking phone. And it costs too much in Japan anyway.
      • I pay only 3.99 a month for unlimited data use on my phone. T-mobile. :)

        • ... 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 [howardforums.com]. 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

  • If apple was actually working with them on this, or if they just are using the recently released webkit code from apple.

  • Wither KHTML? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by squiggleslash (241428) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:34AM (#12803000) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Re:Wither KHTML? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by m50d (797211) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:46AM (#12803122) Homepage Journal
      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.
      • So you saying the KDE people are producing a lesser project because they rather sacrifice features, correct behavior, and speed for clean code? perhaps they should reevaluate their levels.

        I agree code should be clean when possible. But it is not always possible to produce clean code. Sometimes you need to put an ugly fix in it to get it to work right.

          • Re:Wither KHTML? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by jellomizer (103300) * on Monday June 13 2005, @12:44PM (#12804249)
            Problem. You have to fix a program. You have 2 hours to fix it, if you are over 2 hours you are fired. The clean version of making a function more adaptible will take 3 hours to do. Vs. Copying and pasting the fuction and altering the bits and pieces and give it a simular name dostuff2(int x,int y, float z).

            Time it takes to code in reallife is actually an issue. If you spend to much time then you go over budget, when you are over budget then your job quality is in question, when your job quality is in question there is a hire chance of getting fired. These are real factors that are not taught in Computer Science, because in the virtual world people have endless time to write their code and make it optimised, and clean. In real life, If it takes you twice as long to write a program that is 25% faster. It is usually cheaper to buy a computer that is twice as fast then pay for optimised code. Also with the cost of repairing bad code vs. writting clean code from the start If the tradeoff of fixing code will simular amount of time as it does writting clean code you get the advantage of spreading the money over a longer period of time alling more time to invest money and make more.

            Real life sucks doesn't it.

  • That's quite strange (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2005, @10:34AM (#12803002)
    I had thought WebKit had some nontrivial tyings into Cocoa. Is WebKit that neatly separable from Cocoa? Does it use qt internally still?
    • They probably mistyped and meant to say WebCore. That would be my guess.

    • Re:That's quite strange (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Elwood P Dowd (16933) <judgmentalist@gmail.com> on Monday June 13 2005, @11:55AM (#12803756) Journal
      1. Yes, they meant WebCore not WebKit
      2. There's a bit of mailing list activity from people working on porting WebKit (and the internal qt-alike), and the Apple folks have been encouraging.
      Dunno who's doing the work, because I'm not watching CVS or bugzilla or nothing. It sounds like they'll merge the existing GTK Webkit port first. Some dude says he's going to pound on it 'till it compiles in Windows and swears he'll keep it up for a year. Dunno who these people are, so I don't know how much salt to take anything with.

      But the notable thing is that the Apple employees are down with WebKit getting ported to Windows, and that would imply that they will try to keep that port maintained.

      Mildly offtopic, but interesting, right?

  • There is a GTK+ Webcore based Web browser (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Which is based upon the Webcore released by NOKIA not long ago. Here is a Screenshot [img130.echo.cx]

    And further Information can be found here [akcaagac.com].

  • hmmmm. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Kaamoss (872616) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:35AM (#12803011) Homepage
    So dosn't that mean that the Nokia 60 browser is opensource too? Wonder where I can get the source code or if they'll bother to provide it. If anyone finds a link to it let me know.

    • Re:hmmmm. (Score:3, Informative)

      by CdBee (742846)
      KDE - upon which WebKit is based - is LGPL, meaning full source-code disclosure isn't required

      • Re:hmmmm. (Score:5, Informative)

        by oever (233119) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:45AM (#12803109) Homepage
        It is required! The code for the _library_ must be provided. The code linking to it may stay undisclosed.

      • Re:hmmmm. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Coryoth (254751) on Monday June 13 2005, @11:00AM (#12803249) Homepage Journal
        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 [sourceforge.net]. 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.
    • True, but at least partial disclosure is right? I'm not an expert on liscenses so let me know if I'm mistaken. I would think that they would need to give back to the community in some way...

      • Re:hmmmm. (Score:2, Informative)

        by XbainX (464073)
        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.

  • Hmm (Score:3, Informative)

    by Payalnik (852279) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:35AM (#12803015) Homepage
    I do suppose Opera has more experience in fitting web pages to small screens. Have they made it better?

    • Re:Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)

      by SpyPlane (733043)
      Opera is available on the competitor's phone (Qualcomm) on the Brew platform. So, I don't suppose Nokia made it better, they just didn't have Opera available to them.

      • Re:Hmm (Score:4, Informative)

        by kaarlov (259057) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:45AM (#12803113)
        Nokia ships lots of phones with Opera as a web browser. See http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/products/ [opera.com]

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

          • Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)

            by kaarlov (259057)
            Yes they do. According to Opera Software's first quarter earnings, they get three times more revenue from licensing their browser for various pocket devices, than from selling the desktop version for Windows and Linux.

  • How long... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Fermatprime (883412) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:37AM (#12803033)
    How long until Cringely announces the details of the upcoming Apple/Intel/Nokia merger?

  • Return the favor? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DeepFried (644194) * on Monday June 13 2005, @10:37AM (#12803036) Homepage
    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.

  • Minimo (Score:5, Interesting)

    by brolewis (712511) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:37AM (#12803038)
    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?

  • Opera (Score:3, Informative)

    by Eric Giguere (42863) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:39AM (#12803059) Homepage Journal

    This is a blow for the Opera for Mobile [opera.com] 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 [reqwireless.com] or even the BlackBerry's built-in browser?

    Eric
    J2ME acronyms defined [ericgiguere.com]
    • The problem is, ReqWireless WebViewer (and TLogic PocketWeb) is in a whole different class from Opera for Mobile, MiniMo, and this.

      The first two run on J2ME, whereas the others are native S60 apps (note: Opera is available in a BREW version. Does that count, though? I mean, you have to have a BREW phone...)
      • Yes, I know the Reqwireless browser is J2ME (I know the guys who built it) but it seems to me that you still need proxying to reduce the wireless network traffic so that pages don't load so quickly by stripping and transforming (and compressing) the pages that get sent back down...

  • It's very spiffy (Score:4, Informative)

    by Kyro (302315) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:44AM (#12803103)
    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 [sourceforge.net] and there's lots of other interesting tidbits of information on that site.

  • Gtk+ WebCore (Score:5, Informative)

    by mukund (163654) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:44AM (#12803104) Homepage

    Gtk+ WebCore [sourceforge.net] seems to be made at Nokia.

  • That's exciting (Score:3, Insightful)

    by J. T. MacLeod (111094) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:44AM (#12803105)
    But not nearly as exciting as it would be if Nokia would make a Series 60 phone that didn't have gnome-sized buttons or have them arranged in strange, unnatural ways.

    Why can't Nokia make a decent Series 60 phone?! To boot, they're all ugly as sin.

    I want Series 60, especially if it has a decent browser on it. But all the Series 60 phones are wonderful pieces of technology with garbage physical interfaces. It's so sad, considering how usable some of their lower-end models are.

    Ironically, Nokia is the only phone manufacturer with a sane software interface.
    • Ironically, Nokia is the only phone manufacturer with a sane software interface.

      I thought this too until I started to do some serious research. My aging nokia needed to be replaced and the new nokias turned me off for the same reason: horribly deformed keypads and general ugliness. Even though I was afraid of giving up the familiar interface I checked out some alternatives.

      To my surprise Sony Ericsson has really usable phones. I had discounted them because their phones lack dedicated answer/hang up ke

  • Wrong...WebCore, not WebKit (Score:5, Informative)

    by xeno314 (661565) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:46AM (#12803120)
    How hard is it for the submitter/editor to catch this one? WebKit doesn't even appear in the press release...

  • Good (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pherthyl (445706) on Monday June 13 2005, @10:49AM (#12803151)
    This is great news. The more people using KHTML based browsers the better for website compatibility. I think having 3 browser engines around with non-insignificant market share would be great.

  • Tabs? (Score:3, Funny)

    by tivoKlr (659818) on Monday June 13 2005, @11:19AM (#12803431) Journal
    Does it support tiny little tabs across the top of the browser screen? Then it'll be the total "killer app" ;-P

  • But why? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gilesx (525831) <gil@foresi[ ]linux.com ['ght' in gap]> on Monday June 13 2005, @12:23PM (#12804010) Homepage
    Am I going senile here, or is this the same Nokia that gave a large handout to the Mozilla corporation?

    This move just doesn't seem to make any sense whatsoever to me, as if you believe the rumours, they had some kind of gecko based browser already up and running. All I can assume is that it just didn't cut the mustard.

    Anyone know any more about this?
    • They did gave a large handout to Mozilla. And they do use, and will be using Opera as a browser in their phones. The reason why they are spreading their money and resources is to increase competition. By having three camps developing browsers for phones you get more competition, more innovation and more choices. In other words Opera can't rest or it will soon find itself phased off. The other reason I think is that they want to speed the development of phone browsers in case MS would come up with better p

  • Animated .GIF bug? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jay Maynard (54798) on Monday June 13 2005, @12:43PM (#12804240) Homepage
    Wonder if Nokia will fix the animated .GIF display bugs that Safari on Tiger has? I can reliably crash Safari looking at one, and there's another that doesn't display on the web page it's part of, but will display if loaded by itself.

  • Nokia Email on WebKit mailing list (Score:3, Informative)

    by cuijian (110696) * on Monday June 13 2005, @06:26PM (#12807708)
    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 [opendarwin.org])

    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 [nokia.com]

    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/ [nokia.com]
    and http://www.series60.com/ [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/ [nokia.com]) where we have built the GTK port of Apple's WebCore that we released last year - http://gtk-webcore.sourceforge.net/ [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
    • Symbian libc support isn't that bad: there are bugs (in sprintf printing 64 bit integers, for example), but in general it works pretty well. Good enough that you'd probably only have to use S60 libs for directly UI related code.

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