The title of this post pretty much says it all. Jeff Glueck, CEO of Skyfire basically had this to say about why they’ve halted development of Skyfire for BlackBerry on the Skyfire blog earlier today. I paraphrase, of course… Head after the jump to see his actual words.
The Blackberry developer environment is not as favorable for cutting-edge application development. The APIs are fragmented and inconsistent, and the Java virtual machine Blackberry requires is not efficient. While Blackberry users are desperate for a better browser – we know, and we hear them – we only want to bring out something that meets our high standards and is truly great.
The timing makes sense to return to Blackberry in the future. Blackberry has pledged to improve their developer environment in their 6.0 OS coming at the end of this year, and we can’t wait to see it. Blackberry has said at that time they will introduce a webkit browser with server-side assist on html and text, developed based on their acquisition of Torch Mobile. We understand it will be a long way from able to handle native Flash 10.1 and similar rich media plug-ins, and we think we can build on that webkit engine and add cloud-based new features around it.
Long story, short… Skyfire is going to wait until it doesn’t suck to code for the BlackBerry platform before they start developing a Skyfire for BlackBerry browser again. This “should” coincide with the release of OS 6 towards the end of the year.
I love that headline! You know, I’m fairly new to Blackberry (I’ve only owened the Storm 1 & 2) and I love it. But I can’t help but think just how long I’m willing to stick around with a stagnant OS. Compared to the other OS’s it does look really dated. Just how long does it take a company like RIM to come around to the idea that it needs to be cutting edge as well as reliable and stable. I sure hope that OS 6 blows our minds, cuz Adroid looks real good and iPhone is coming to Verizon. My options are going to be crazy come next yr when my contract ends.
I tried the Bberry Bold 9700 for about a week, and then promptly went back to my Android device.
Along with the iPhone going to Verizon, does anyone know what the expected date for the release of the iPhone OS4?
Trust me, it won’t.
Lol, I almost don’t want to believe it, but I think not also.