It's been a while since we have heard from the folks behind Bolt Browser, but that doesn't mean they have not been hard at work improving on their already stellar (and popular - they passed the 1 million phone installs milestone) third party BlackBerry web browser. In fact, they have just released a hot new upgraded version of Bolt which signifies their jump into Beta3 (version 1.04) which introduces a whole slew of incremental improvements.
First of all, they have added the ability to upload too YouTube and Photobucket for your media files. Secondly, the ability to organize your favorites and copy text has been integrated. And finally, all of Bolt's servers (which do up the rendering job) have been upgraded too WebKit4 which enhances the fonts within the browser and allows for inline text entry on webpage forms and also adds the capability to display Cyrillic fonts. This is a solid upgrade to what was already a great browser to begin with. You can read the full press release after the jump and be sure to check out the newest offerings and leave some comments if you give it a go. Current Bolt users can upgrade within the app (visit a webpage and you'll be prompted to download the new version) while existing users can download from boltbrowser.com.
- Download The Brand New Beta3 Release Of Bolt Today >>
- Check Out The Bolt Support Forums To Report Any Issues >>
Press Release
Lightning Strikes a Third Time As Bitstream Releases Faster, Better
BOLT Mobile Browser
Expanded language support, copy and pasting text and other new features make the Beta3 version of BOLT the market's fastest, most fully-featured browser for mobile phones of all types
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts - June 29, 2009 - Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ: BITS) today announced the availability of its much anticipated update to BOLTTM, the company's web browser for mobile phones of all types. Complementing improvements to existing features in the even faster Beta3 release of BOLT are the ability to copy and paste text from web pages, enhanced font rendering, inline entry of text into online forms and support for languages using Cyrillic alphabets.
Based on beta user input after more than one million installs of the BOLT mobile browser, Bitstream added new features that make BOLT the most fully-featured browser for the widest range of mobile phones.
BOLT's new features let users:
- Copy and paste text
- Enter and edit text directly within online text boxes
- Upload files such as videos to YouTube or pictures to Photobucket
- Order favorites and arrange them into custom folders
- Toggle between viewing websites with or without images displayed
As part of its commitment to the BOLT user community, Bitstream has also created a forum at http://boltbrowser.com/forums/ where BOLT users can post questions and support issues in a public conversation. Bitstream's team of technologists will monitor these conversations, help users solve device-specific issues, offer tips and tricks for using BOLT and more easily learn what new features will keep BOLT the most powerful Internet experience on mobile phones.BOLT Beta3 also includes many enhancements based on feedback from beta users, including:
- Rendering bold, italics, superscript and other rich text styles
- Enhanced rendering of complex web pages
- Faster page rendering
- Servers upgraded to WebKit 4
Recognizing that some mobile phones currently in use cannot support robust applications and some network providers limit the size of application downloads, Bitstream has created a new light version of the BOLT mobile browser, BOLT lite. BOLT lite contains all the essential features of the BOLT mobile browser, retaining BOLT's feature-rich functionality, best-of-breed download speeds and desktop PC-style page layout. BOLT lite's 140kb package has been optimized for entry-level devices by eliminating BOLT's non-critical features such as orientation settings (landscape or portrait), inline videos, transport protocol settings, font installation, copy-paste operations, favorites organization, inline editing, find in page feature, inline videos, and 3XL magnification Both BOLT and BOLT lite include the additional language support in this release.
The new font support faithfully renders web pages using Cyrillic alphabets for languages such as Russian and Ukrainian, making BOLT usable for the more than 200 million mobile phone subscribers in Eastern Europe. With its heritage in software development and font technologies, Bitstream has built the BOLT mobile browser to scale text and images in six display sizes: small, medium, large, xl, xxl and 3xl. No other mobile browser for feature phones or BlackBerry smartphones can display or scale Cyrillic text with the range in size or crisp clarity of BOLT.
"Bitstream expects BOLT to become very popular in Eastern Europe where many countries have mobile penetration rates exceeding 100 percent," said Anna Chagnon, president and CEO of Bitstream. "We specifically engineered BOLT to make it easy for people to use their mobile phones for social networking, searching, communicating and watching videos. Our users have validated our design, making Google, Orkut, Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail and YouTube the top sites viewed on BOLT. People in Russia who enjoy websites on their computers such as Yandex, V Kontakte, Mail.ru and YouTube.ru will love how they can use these websites on their mobile phones with BOLT."
BOLT features unrivaled speed - consistently at least 25 to 50 percent faster than competitors. The WebKit based BOLT browser offers ultra-fast viewing of streaming and flash video, high standards compliance, rich media, and graphics enabling people to view websites just as they do on a PC.
BOLT Usage:
People are enjoying the video streaming feature of the BOLT browser - the only mobile browser that lets people enjoy streaming videos on average mobile phones from such popular video services as YouTube, vids.myspace.com, video.yahoo.com, blip.tv, dailymotion.com, metacafe.com and more. Of the total bandwidth used by all BOLT users surfing the Internet, nearly one third was consumed by streaming video. To complement the new support for Cyrillic alphabets, BOLT now streams videos from the popular Russian video website, RuTube (http://rutube.ru/ ).
Built with proprietary compression, navigation and rendering technologies, BOLT enables users to find and read information quickly and easily. Once users have navigated to the specific section of the large web page they are viewing, they can then zoom in to display clear text and images that look crisp on even small mobile phone screens.
BOLT's feature set includes:
- Fast, secure, desktop-style web browsing on both high-end and low-end handsets
- Streaming video capabilities
- Split screen and full screen modes for easy navigation and viewing
- Easily add and select favorites and view browsing history
- Intuitive keystroke shortcuts for easier navigation and content selection
- Protection against spyware and malicious or faulty add-ons
- 23:1 compression uses less data than competing browsers
BOLT and BOLT lite are available for free to anyone as part of its public beta test. Visit http://boltbrowser.com to download BOLT today.
About BOLT:
The BOLT mobile browser, compatible with the majority of the world's 4 billion mobile phones, offers unrivaled speed and desktop-style web browsing including the ability to stream video. A patented split-screen viewing and intuitive keystroke shortcuts make navigating web pages simple. Download BOLT for free at http://boltbrowser.com - the mobile Internet has never looked this good on your phone.
About Bitstream:
Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ: BITS) is a software development company focused on bringing unique software products to a wide variety of markets. The company's core software products include award-winning fonts and font rendering software, mobile browsing and variable data publishing and web-to-print software for personalized marketing. For more information about Bitstream please visit www.bitstream.com.
