Screens of the new MobileSafari for the iPhone OS 2.2 have leaked. Registered developers had early access to Apple’s new souped up mobile phone browser.

iPhone Atlas had a short writeup on the browser. From the pictures, it seems that Apple has pared down the unnecessary from the browser, removing the magnifying glass and refresh buttons from the top. The URL bar and search fields are now side-by-side, the way the desktop version of Safari does.  The URL bar even has a refresh shortcut. Purportedly iPhone Atlas’s sources broke an NDA to get the screens live’; not the smartest of ideas if they want to continue getting access to iPhone software previews.

Users do have cause to be excited, because the iPhone OS 2.2 will likely see more substantial changes or new additions. For some reason, some users have been overexcited about Apple possibly adding cut-and-paste, but as reported earlier, Apple’s said before that the feature just isn’t really their priority. No demonstrated betas or developer versions of the software has been seen yet, so perhaps Wired is a bit off the mark on that particular speculation. And aren’t there better things to think about rather than copy and paste on the iPhone? What about security enhancements? Speed? Better text-messaging experiences?

What do should users expect to see in the next firmware update? It’s pretty obvious that Apple’s making the Web aspect of the phone a priority. Hopefully the next iteration of MobileSafari will see it doing a better job handling Javascript as well as other, fancier Web technologies such as Adobe’s Flash and Air. Should Apple take too long to make the MobileSafari usable, the iPhone would likely lose its appeal as an alternative mobile Internet device.

Apple’s competition or the other phone makers all seem to be in a desperate bid to establish their relevance. It’s embarrassing, after all, when a PC maker manages to capture the market attention with its first self-made phone, when you’ve never managed the same despite years in the business. Let’s see if the next iPhone firmware really establishes the iPhone as the king of the mobile phone crop.

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Entry was posted on Sunday, September 28th, 2008 at 6:27 pm under Firmware, Internet, iPhone.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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