Skyfire, the mobile browser that brought Flash video to the iPhone, iPad and Android mobile devices, is unveiling version 3.0 for Android today. This latest version of Skyfire, dubbed the “Facebook edition”, offers a seriously slick social media integration that, quite honestly, we would like to see on our desktop.
The key to the new version of Skyfire lies in the “Skyfire bar”, a bar of icons that rests at the bottom of the browser. From this bar, users can easily “Like” any page they visit and share it via Facebook, Twitter or email. That’s simple enough, though, right?
Two features we really dig, however, are “Fireplace Feed Reader” and “Popular Content”. The first one provides a list of links, images and videos posted by your Facebook friends, meaning all the random status updates and musings are left for later – this is just the meat of your Facebook feed. “Popular Content”, on the other hand, looks at whatever page you’re on and cross references it with Facebook to see what other pages on that site are popular with Facebook’s 500+ million users. Pages shared by your friends float to the top, with the rest of the suggestions listed by overall popularity.
Skyfire’s “OneTouch Search” also looks pretty slick, as you can search from the mobile browser and choose to focus that search on Google, Facebook, VideoSurf, Digg, Twitter or Amazon, all from a simple navigation bar.
Now, when we say we wish we had a browser like this for the desktop, you might retort “What about RockMelt?” RockMelt, however, simply added standard Facebook functionality onto the edges of your browser. Skyfire’s new functionality sets it apart. There is no quick and apparent way on the Facebook website to just see all the content – the links, videos and images – posted by your friends. There’s also no way to navigate to NYTimes.com and see what the most popular stories are, according to your Facebook friends. But now there is – for Android users, at least.
Take a look at the video overview and go get yourself a free copy before time runs out – Skyfire 3.0 is available free for a limited time in the Android Marketplace.
