BlackBerry Browser To Be As Good As iPhone’s Safari By Next Summer?

By Mauricio

This one totally snuck by me last week.

CrackBerry Kevin let us know about a video evaluation put together by equity analyst Chris Umiastowski in regards to how BlackBerry is doing compared to Apple with its core features. Here are some things from the video that Kevin pointed out:

• RIM acknowledges it needs to improve panning and zooming within the web browser and that the issue is an on-device one – it has nothing to do with connecting through the NOC. The key issue is memory management (not enough device RAM). RIM says it’s a fixable problem and expects to have a browser on par with the iPhone’s Safari browser by next summer.
• Javascript support will be enabled by default within the web browser this fall. Currently it ships with the JS support setting disabled (enabling JS support tends to slow things down… remember my Bold’s Buggered browsers post which was written nearly a year ago?).
• And very interestingly, RIM gave a reason as to why WiFi on a BlackBerry can often be very slow (not any quicker than using Edge/3G). Apparently RIM has diagnosed the culprit and it has to do with being too conservative on BlackBerry battery management in that the device puts the WiFi radio to sleep too often. Not many details are given here (other than devices being released in upcoming launches should hopefully have much faster WiFi transfer rates) but it’s quite possible that if you’re using your WiFi browser at the same time that you’re connected to Edge/3G but your device doesn’t seem to be browsing any faster than if WiFi was turned off, that well, WiFi may actually be asleep and you are actually on Edge/3G.

I think RIM is definitely making some smart moves with its BlackBerry development. What do you guys think?

via TD Securities & CrackBerry