Today Opera announced that they had now reached 300 million monthly users, combining phones, tablets, TVs and computers into the mix. The even bigger announcement though is that they are abandoning Presto and are migrating over to the WebKit HTML/CSS rendering engine for its smarpthones, iOS and PC efforts.

WebKit started in 2001 when an Apple engineer began porting KHTML over from Linux to OS X. Being that KHMTL was open-source, WebKit would follow in the same steps. WebKit continues to grow in popularity as major browsers like Safari and Chrome are both based on it.

Opera hopes to further expand and make WebKit even better, and has decided that they would rather leave behind their own rendering engine and instead work with the open-source community. Opera has actually been playing around with WebKit for a while now, but the company now feels the time is right to fully make the move.

Before modern browsers like Chrome showed up, I personally used Opera, so I’m very interested in seeing where this latest development takes the company. Can Opera offer something unique enough to the WebKit experience to make them a competitive alternative to Safari, Chrome and the many other WebKit browsers?

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How much thought do you put into the kind of mobile browser you use? Odds are that you probably use what is already there. The same kind of attitude was persistent in the PC world for years, until Internet Explorer started showing some real problems and alternatives like Firefox OS started getting positive attention. Even so, both in the mobile and desktop world, browser choice isn’t that important as long as you can get to the pages you want.

All iDevices come standard with Safari. All Android devices generally come with Chrome or the older Android default browser- though certain carriers and brands use alternatives. Samsung wants to change things up a bit with their own offering.

No one will be surprised by this revelation, but the truth is that Samsung Android devices represent a pretty large chunk of all phones and (to lesser extent) tablets out there. If Sammy replaced the default browser or Chrome with its own WebKit-based alternative, few would do anything to remove it and Samsung would quickly rise up as one of the biggest mobile browsers for the Android platform.

For those that don’t know, both Chrome and Safari are based on WebKit. This means that Samsung’s browser would likely not seem much different from either of these offerings. It’s just another way that Samsung wants to take deeper, customized control over their smartphones.

Does the idea of Samsung mobile browser interest you, or are you indifferent to the idea?

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I think we all know that the Apple iPad is the current dominating force in the world of tablets. That much is obvious, but I don’t think too many of us thought that the proportions were this far out of whack. Comscore has put out a report stating that the iPad makes up an astounding 97.2% of all tablet web traffic.

That leaves just 2.8% for every other tablet, including those of the Windows 7 and Android variety (plus webOS, for those of you who snagged a $99 TouchPad). This Comscore report is just one way of measuring things, but I think the numbers just don’t add up. For starters, it is based solely on recognizing the web browser being used on the device and these aren’t always terribly accurate.

For instance, someone with an Android 2.2 Froyo or Android 2.3 Gingerbread tablet (like the original Galaxy Tab) could show up as a smartphone rather than a tablet and thus not be included in these figures. Similarly, someone with a Honeycomb tablet could be using a browser that is detected as a desktop webkit browser rather than one of the tablet variety. Again, this user would not be included in the figure.

I don’t deny that Apple’s iPad has to be the biggest dog in the tablet yard, but I don’t think 97.2% sounds right.

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Most folks in the know will agree that webOS was is one great operating system and it never got the right kind of push that it needed. I think we can blame it on the hardware. Apparently, some internal testing at HP led to the loading of webOS onto an Apple iPad and, well, it blew the TouchPad out of the water.

The precise details are quite scarce, but we’re hearing that webOS ran “twice as fast” on the Apple iPad hardware than it did on the HP TouchPad. This leads us to believe that it’s the hardware, and not the software, that led to the ultimate demise of webOS at HP. After all, the actual hardware for the TouchPad was already in place before HP acquired Palm. It’s two year old tech with a spanking new OS.

The wording is a little unclear, but it seems that webOS was run both natively on Apple’s hardware as well as being run through the mobile Safari browser as a web app. Even in the latter, where two operating systems were almost being run in tandem, webOS was “running many times faster in the browser than it did on the TouchPad.”

So, what does this mean moving forward? If HP does indeed go ahead with licensing webOS out to other manufacturers, the platform could get the push that it needs and deserves. The Google-Motorola deal might lead guys like Samsung and HTC away from Android and into the webOS fold. Maybe.

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BlackBerry Storm 3 leaked image

Research in Motion is rumored to be working on a touch screen phone hybrid that also includes a slider style keyboard, according to sources cited by the Wall Street Journal and our previous reports dubbing the device the BlackBerry Storm 3. Those familiar with the new hardware claim it is not unlike Apple’s iPhone and boasts many similar technical feats, possibly similar to RIM’s patents from 2008.

Just a few of these features include pinch zooming, landscape on-screen QWERTY keyboard and page-like finger swiping. According to the anonymous source, a universal search feature that scours not only the phone’s local memory, but the internet as well will be included. The browser is said to be based on Apple’s WebKit, a rumor that has been lingering since around early February. The web surfing app is expected to have the capability to significantly outpace the current BlackBerry browser and will be able to open multiple pages (or tabs) simultaneously. The device is expected to pack a 5 megapixel camera, 4GB of internal storage and run on BlackBerry 6, RIM’s forthcoming operating system that is to launch later this year.

This is most certainly RIM’s response to Apple’s success to the recent announcement of the iPhone 4. Apple’s stake in market share has made RIM very cautious. Current BlackBerry operating systems are clunky and difficult to navigate when compared to Apple’s slick and simple layout. RIM has 7000 apps in comparison to the 225,000 features within Apple’s app store. In March’s quarter, RIM’s North American smartphone shipments dropped from 54% (previous years quarter) to 38% recently. In contrast, Apple has grabbed 23% of the market share in the same period, up from 18%. RIM seems poised to ready a response to the iPhone 4 and this mysterious device may be an important part of their strategically planned counterpunch.

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Research In Motion has just announced, but not released the WebKit-based BlackBerry web browser. A sneak-preview of a video from this mornings Mobile World Congress show’s that it’s fast loading, smooth scrolling and enhances the javascript experience.

At the MWC was Mike Lazaridis, RIM’s Co-Founder and Co-CEO, he gave attendee’s a quick overview in the morning’s general session in Barcelona.

WebKit-based BlackBerry browser scored 100 percent in Web-rendering Acid 3 tests, and can handle AJAX, CSS and HTML5. Still no mention of support for Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight, however Adobe announced this week that it will launch the AIR platform for the Google Android OS, RIM devices are expected to be next.

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You’ve probably never heard of Torch Mobile and it’s far from being the biggest player in the game, but this is still a significant acquisition for the BlackBerry-maker. Why? Torch Mobile produces Iris, a WebKit-based mobile browser.

While the BlackBerry has traditionally been great for mobile email, the BlackBerry Browser isn’t up to snuff with some of the better alternatives on the market. Going with a WebKit-based browser can offer a huge improvement for RIM and BlackBerry, rounding off the BB experience a little better.

Since the acquisition has only just been announced, I’m thinking that they’ll still need to iron out some details before anything comes out from this new relationship. Chances are that the WebKit-based BlackBerry Browser won’t be ready until some time next year at the earliest.

Source: BlackBerryCool

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