Bolt Browser Updated, Many Great Changes!

Bitstream, the makers of the awesome browser Bolt are at CTA this week and they brought along with them a nicely refreshed version Bolt. This is what I would consider a major update for the application, lots of feedback was generated from previous beta builds and Bitstream has taken all of that under consideration and has come up with a massive list of improvements especially when it comes to usage on the BlackBerry Storm. You can grab the update from the public beta link at http://www.boltbrowser.com/ full press release and noted changes after the jump.

Cambridge, Massachusetts & Las Vegas, Nevada – April 1, 2009 – With well over 300,000 users from around the world participating in a public beta that began in February, Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ: BITS) today announced that BOLT, the company’s web browser for mobile phones of all types, will get a significant upgrade today.

BOLT’s new features include:

Significantly improved BlackBerry scrolling speed and control
A new 3XL (extra large) magnification mode with content 33.3 percent bigger than in 2XL
Double tap approach to select links on touchscreen devices like the BlackBerry storm (eliminates inadvertent clicks)
Wi-Fi auto-selection as default option when Wi-Fi is both enabled and available
Save and view pages locally on the phone
Support for folders in favorites
A new landscape viewing feature
Improved magnifier dragging in split screen mode on the BlackBerry Storm

BOLT Beta2 also includes many enhancements based on feedback from beta users, including:

Improved video quality on mpeg4 capable devices
Improved scrolling speed on image-rich pages
A user preferences page to reduce menu clutter, especially useful on BlackBerry smartphones where the native menu structure, without sub-menus, is utilized

Optimized to conserve battery life and data transmissions, BOLT features unrivaled speed – consistently 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.

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
Extends battery life and uses less data than competing browsers

BOLT Usage:

With over 300,000 users, BOLT is being used on every continent on the globe. The top ten domains visited by BOLT’s users include:
1.   google.com
2.   orkut.com
3.   facebook.com
4.   yahoo.com
5.   youtube.com
6.   friendster.com
7.   myspace.com
8.   hi5.com
9.   craigslist.org
10. mocospace.com

It’s interesting to watch how people use BOLT to connect to friends and information,” said Sampo Kaasila, vice president of research and development at Bitstream. “Most of the heavy usage is around social networking, with about 10 percent of users spending well over an hour per session online with BOLT. We see Google visitors using search, mail, maps and translation services while Yahoo visitors use mail, messenger, fantasy sports and finance. It’s also interesting to see how BlackBerry users seem to prefer using BOLT for Facebook instead of the BlackBerry Facebook application.”

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 a third was consumed by streaming video.

BOLT is now available for free to anyone as part of its public beta test. Visit http://www.boltbrowser.com/.