Skyfire Web Browser Gets an Update!

I love the Skyfire browser. If you aren’t fortunate enough to be running Android 2.2 (aka Froyo), Skyfire is your best bet for web video on the go and your only option for flash video. It’s also a very handy browser to have around in general, with the ability to swap between mobile, desktop and iPhone browsing. Best of all, it’s remarkably flexible and runs equally well on my Droid and on the Camangi Webstation. If you’re familiar with Skyfire from the Windows Mobile days, you may remember that everything went through their servers. With the Android version, only the flash content uses Skyfire’s servers, the rest is rendered natively on your phone (for anyone who has some privacy concerns about proxy servers.)

Well, with the new update Skyfire has more bragging rights. They’re saying the battery hit from using Skyfire to watch video is significantly less than if you were to use the native flash support in Android 2.2! I highly recommend giving Skyfire a shot, whether your phone uses Froyo or not!

Check out the youtube demo up top, and read the full press release for all of Skyfire’s success on Android thus far! Can’t wait to see what they bring out next!

Skyfire Launches Skyfire Browser 2.1 and Passes over 500,000 users on Android in first Six Weeks

Skyfire reaches top 1% of all apps on Android thanks to superior video quality, battery life and speed

Mountain View, CA – June 23, 2010–Skyfire today releases version 2.1 of its Android browser. The enhancement provides increased stability as well as support for 750,000 additional websites for watching Flash video.
Since the launch of Skyfire for Android on April 29th, Skyfire has added over 500,000 new users. In just six weeks, Skyfire activations have reached the top 0.7% among all the 65,000 apps on the Android Market.
Skyfire’s Cloud Solves Problems that Adobe Flash 10.1 Won’t

Skyfire enables Flash video from across the millions of web sites that use the popular Flash plug-in. Skyfire plays Flash video by transcoding video files into HTML5 in the cloud and optimizing them for mobile delivery. Skyfire’s cloud technology means videos play faster and smoother, with less buffering, less “stuttering”, and better battery life.
In a series of tests conducted by Skyfire, users were able to watch twice as many minutes of video per hour, and conserve 30% more battery life, when compared to native Flash 10.1 being released this week on a subset of Android phones. The vast majority of Flash video content on the internet is designed for desktop computers with high-speed connections. When it comes to mobile, this makes playback difficult, especially on crowded 3G networks. Skyfire’s cloud ensures that each video is adapted to the right bandwidth, as well as the right format to ensure hardware decoding, which saves battery and preserves video performance.
Using the cloud, in short, Skyfire optimizes almost any video in seconds, to enable a great user experience.

Watch this video to see Skyfire compared to Flash 10.1 in a side-by-side test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwOEofc1VIc

Skyfire: Built for the Social Media Generation

Skyfire is the first mobile browser built for the social media generation. It enables users to follow links from Facebook, Twitter, iGoogle, Digg, and more — and play the videos on these deep links shared across social networks. The Share button on the SkyBar allows for easy sharing of content to multiple outlets. Skyfire also provides smart recommendations on any topic the user is browsing. With this feature, the user can access the latest news, tweets, videos, and popular blog posts on any subject, with just a click on the Explore button on the SkyBar.

“Skyfire’s success on Android raises the bar for the mobile internet in general. Android users have demonstrated that smartphone users want all the content on the Internet to work on their devices, not just one or two ‘mobile’ sites,” said Jeff Glueck, CEO of Skyfire. “The content that matters changes each day and runs across millions of ‘long tail’ sites. Skyfire users don’t need to wait for a WiFi connection to enjoy great video.”

About Skyfire:

Skyfire is the creator of the Skyfire mobile browser, and has a mission to enable the “full internet” including rich media on mobile phones. The browser won the Best Mobile Application-People’s Voice at the 2009 Webby Awards and was named a Top App of 2009 by the New York Times’ Gadgetwise. Skyfire is based in Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. For more information, visit www.skyfire.com, or follow Skyfire on Twitter attwitter.com/skyfire.