The BlackBerry’s native browser is notoriously sluggish and awkward, but according to TD Securities analyst, Chris Umiastowski, RIM says it will be on par with the iPhone’s mobile Safari browser… eventually. Next summer, so they say. This is, of course, presuming RIM means they’ll keep pace with any improvements Apple makes between now and then as well, which is an awfully ambitious goal since there’s already such a gap in browsing quality between the two devices as it is now. I’m prone to think RIM could pull it off if they said they would match the iPhone’s current browsing experience after a year of work…
Those of you who have been with BlackBerry for the last year: how much has the browser really changed? The biggest update happened when the Bold came out, where we got a cursor, video streaming, and moderately improved HTML rendering, which, though significant, weren’t what you’d call a revolution in mobile browsing. Some of the key fixes to the BlackBerry browser in the next year will be in the realm of memory management, more consistently-on Wi-Fi connections, and improved JavaScript handling, which sound just as incremental. If RIM could somehow, magically manage to support Flash by next summer, presumably before the iPhone does, then they might have something that could play with the big boys, but even in a year, I think we’ll still have to lean on third party options like Opera, Bolt, Skyfire, and eventually Fennec.
[TD Securities via RIMarkable]