RIM develops a better BlackBerry browser

22.10.2009
RIM is expanding its effort to redefine the Web browsing experience for users. In a recent , RIM asked for an expert C++ programmer who is firmly grounded in the open source Webkit browser engine.

The hire is for a “mid-senior level” Webkit developer who will have responsibility especially for “maintainability, scalability and reliability of the system.” The position apparently is fleshing out the program team RIM reeled in when , creator of the Iris mobile browser, also based on Webkit. Iris is no longer downloadable, an indication that the programming team has been refocused entirely on creating a modern browser for the BlackBerry OS. 

The acquisition marked how seriously RIM is taking the widening browser gulf between the BlackBerry smartphones and such rivals as the iPhone. The Safari browser, and the Palm Pre, with its Palm webOS browser, are both built on , as is Google Chrome and the Nokia browser for the S60 mobile phone operating system. Webkit was developed by Apple out of the code originally created by the KDE project, and released as open source in mid-2005.

All of these and many others seriously outstrip the current BlackBerry browser. CIO reporter Al Sacco, himself an avid BlackBerry user, notes that Web pages with to its knees. There are frequent problems with rendering common Web pages. Adding insult to injury, the browser is the “mandatory-default” browsing application for all BlackBerries, he notes. Some BlackBerry users have turned to a mobile browser from Opera instead.

RIM is a late arrival to the development of a powerful mobile Web browser. Not all use Webkit, but all of them exploit dramatic improvements in Javascript processing, and radically redesigned GUIs that, following Safari on the iPhone, make .