Despite having a lion’s share of the US smartphone user base, web browsing on BlackBerry devices has been a rather lackluster experience often compared to root canal surgery, prolonged gastrointestinal distress, and in some extreme case, socializing with your mother-in-law. This is by and large due to their antiquarian web browser which strips down web pages giving them a decidedly 1990’s look and feel. Picture if you would, popping over to Twitter for a quick Tweet only to find it overpopulated with “Work in Progress” construction men animated gifs, and belting out midi renditions of the theme song from Friends at maximum volume. Internet porn sites don’t work very well on it either, according to various anonymous sources.
Artist rendition of BlackBerry web browsing experience
Well, those hellish days are over. Or they will be a couple of months or so. Seriously, like three of four months tops. Because the co-CEO, Mike Lazaridis, of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (also known as by the provocatively erotic acronym, RIM) has proudly announced plans for a brand new web browser. While the release date for this new software has yet to be announced, it is expected that this near cutting edge technology will firmly plant the BlackBerry user experience into the 21st century, most likely resembling the Internet experience that desktop computers were capable of in mid to late 2002.
This as yet to be acronymed browser will be based on the Webkit layout engine. Webkit is also the Software Development Kit (or SDK) for the vast majority of the other browsers now in use, probably including Apple’s Safari, and Google’s Chrome, among others [Citation needed]. Sources at Firefox’s development team were unavailable to comment on RIM’s plans, as they were struck speechless and befuddled by the description of BlackBerry’s current Internet capabilities.
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