Filed under: iPad
First Look: Life, a web browser optimized for the iPad
Developer Saied Ghaffari's company, It's About Time, should be well known to TUAW readers. We highlighted the widget iPad app the company created, which regretfully never made it to the App Store. Apple essentially banned all widget apps, so Saied and company decided to try something different: creating a web browser optimized for touch navigation on the iPad.
The result is the Life Web Browser. Ghaffari's team looked at the shortcomings of Safari and alternatives such as Perfect Browser before beginning design. Safari doesn't provide tabbed browsing, and tapping any link opens a new window that must be loaded prior to viewing. Perfect Browser adds tabs, but Ghaffari's team found that tabs weren't exactly the best interface for navigating an iPad browser. In addition, tapping a link opens a new tab and the user must wait for that tabbed window to load.
Life is built upon WebKit, the heart of Safari, so any features that are added to future versions of Safari should make it into Life. But that is where the resemblance ends.
Life comes preloaded with a number of popular websites and will automatically remember your favorite sites as you use the app. While you're looking at the home page in Life, you'll notice the edges of two other pages, one to the left and another to the right. To navigate to these other sites, you can use the left / right arrows at the bottom of the page (which conveniently have the name of the sites on them), touch one of the edges (this works well when you're holding the iPad in both hands), or swipe right or left using four fingers. You swipe through sites as if you are swiping through pictures in iPhoto.
Other gestures work as usual: a one-finger swipe for scrolling a page and two fingers for zooming in and out. Three fingers navigate back and forward on one page.
The "side pages" are loading while you're looking at a page. When you're ready to move to one of your other favorite pages, they're already loaded and ready to view. Want to view a page in full screen mode with no buttons or the address bar? Tap the full-screen button at the bottom of the screen to toggle full-screen viewing on and off.
The Q (queue) button is the key to another powerful feature. Let's say you're checking out TUAW. Tap the Q and then tap on post headlines or links. As you do this, you'll see pages added to a "stack" for the site. Those are the individual posts and linked pages being loaded behind the scenes. When you're ready to start reading, tap the up and down arrows at the top of the page to move through the stack. Most of the time those pages will already be downloaded and ready to view.
You can share a page with someone without leaving Life Web Browser by tapping the email link button. The address bar works for entering URLs and Google searches, and Google suggestions appear underneath the address bar.
Another feature of Life Web Browser is picture bookmarks. Add a page to your bookmarks, and you see a thumbnail image of it in the bookmarks. There's a video tutorial that appears when you launch Life the first time, and it remains in the bookmarks for future reference.
With a user interface designed specifically for iPad, Life is sure to be a popular web browser for the platform.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
alphacrumb said 3:13PM on 6-17-2010
This is brilliant. Built-in "Send to Instapaper or Read It Later" would be greatly appreciated.
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Mark said 3:14PM on 6-17-2010
Has this been released yet?
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Sparks said 3:24PM on 6-17-2010
Yes.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/life-web-browser/id377598600?mt=8
Alex said 3:23PM on 6-17-2010
Will Apple authorize this app?
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evelez84 said 3:30PM on 6-17-2010
@Alex and Mark, look at the Source Link. :-) lol
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pinn said 3:35PM on 6-17-2010
Loading pages in the background is what makes this for me. Finally, I can read my FT and WSJ websites efficiently. Honestly, watching the pages constantly reload in Safari is what prevented me from buying an iPad in the first place.
Important question: Is there any way to sync bookmarks with this?
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Prometheus25 said 3:36PM on 6-17-2010
Won't let me download. Just says "Unable to Purchase".
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pax copia said 3:36PM on 6-17-2010
what happens when you visit horizontally scrolling sites? they are the fad du jour you know
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Eric Taylor said 3:49PM on 6-17-2010
Atomic Web Browser (iPad/iPhone binary, full version 99 cents) is another amazing alternative. I've been using it for several weeks and it is my preferred browser.
Some of the great features include ad block, tabbed browsing, optional bookmarks toolbar, full screen browsing, and my favorite, Identify Browser as (safari desktop, firefox 3, mobile safari iphone, internet explorer 6-8), and tons of other features.
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Jason Kallelis said 4:09PM on 6-17-2010
Yeah, that's my preferred browser too. I'd love to see a comparison of Atomic Browsee with this new one, at some point. The Q feature is nice, I must admit, and I hope Atomic "borrows" this idea, since really, I'm only willing to redo my bookmarks so many times.
Wonderboy said 4:26PM on 6-17-2010
I use Atomic Browser when I need to identify as a non-mobile site, but I have a hard time using it exclusively... seems to freeze while loading pages a lot.
Leiwei said 5:09PM on 6-17-2010
a little thing I don't like about atomic is that it seems to crash often when multiple tabs are open containing an html5 video. Also, i don't like how when a page is loading and I decide to enter a different url, it will revert to the current url while I am midway typing in the new url.
gorfgorf said 5:09PM on 6-17-2010
Ad block? Isn't it enough already that the iPhone/iPad doesn't have flash? As long as I don't have any dancing cowboys on my screen, I don't mind the site I'm viewing making a little bit of money from my visit...
Peteo said 4:17PM on 6-17-2010
Pretty cool. To bad the iPad only has 256mb of ram. The app can only load a few pages before it needs to clear out the old ones from ram
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Karim A. said 4:26PM on 6-17-2010
Just as the article headline says, the Life browser is optimized for the iPad. I've tried Atomic Browser and yes it does have more features, but the interface is designed for a mouse and keyboard with tabs and very small close boxes. Life is the first browser that has been designed exclusively for the iPad's touch interface.
This is the first version of Life and I'm sure they will be adding more useful features and enhancements in the future, but I love what I see so far.
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Hobbes said 4:30PM on 6-17-2010
It looks really cool and I don't mind the 2 bucks it costs.
I'd like to know if there is a way to sync bookmarks or import the ones I use in Safari. If anybody knows and would like to share the information that would be very appreciated.
I really liked the demo and moving through web pages by swapping left or right makes total sense. Looks like a solid app.
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Saied said 5:16PM on 6-17-2010
Thank you everyone for your kind words/suggestions. We've worked so hard creating Life Web Browser and making it the best web browsing experience on the iPad (so far).
@ alphacrumb - good idea
@Mark & Alex - Yes - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/life-web-browser/id377598600?mt=8
@Spark & evelez84 - : ) Thank you.
@pax copia - To swipe websites, you grab the slices on the left and right. The website you're looking at works normally even if it's ultra wide.
@Prometheus25 - Hope it works now
@Eric Taylor & Karim - Karim nailed it on the head. We're bringing touch features to web browsing as opposed to bringing desktop solutions to a touch screen. Tabs need the preciseness of a mouse. More features will follow.
@everyone - So glad you like the adjacent (background) loading feature. Safari bookmarks are a private API so there's no way we can access it. At the moment, Life Web Browser 1.0 is great for browsing the sites you visit 80% of the time. Better than anything else out there. Swiping and queuing are awesome unique features. Other browsers out there are on 3 and 4.0. I think we have a great first start and hopefully when we hit their level of versions, we'll be even better.
Please know It's About Time is a company that is driven by ideas. If you have any suggestions, whether it be a simple UI change or a big addition, complaint, anything. Please drop us a line - hi@ItsAboutTimeProducts.com - Thank you all.
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hecklerz said 6:53PM on 6-17-2010
Great idea. Your video demo sold me and I'm purchasing now!
I'm a self professed browser junkie (well, more of a full on app addict :) ). iCab has been a favorite on my iPhone for a long time and now iPad. It seemed to be the first 3rd party browser that added some real innovation from the built in Safari. I still use it as well as Atomic, I but I can see your Life browser getting the lions share of my iPads web time now because of one particular feature that you really hit on with me- the back loading of favorite web sites. You're absolutely right, I visit the same 7-9 sites 80-90% of the time I go online with the iPad.
I'd love to see some of the extensions and bookmarklets that iCab was first to market with, make it into Life. More for the concept of adding additional functionality than any specific extensions.
Best of luck with the app and I look forward to future updates/additions
KHarris
KarlW said 7:30PM on 6-17-2010
Certainly lots of really great ideas in there, and from the video, they look well executed.
Are you guys going to be releasing updates for this? The problem with many of these apps is that they have a few good ideas, release the app, make enough money and go do something else. If I buy this as a web browser (i.e. something I use all the time), I'd like to know you're going to keep adding new ideas.
Again, very nice app. From the looks of it, it perfectly suits how I like to use the web.
Saied said 8:40PM on 6-17-2010
@Hecklerz - Thank you for your feedback. I think having extensions is a cool idea.
@KarlW - We're already working on a minor update to fix some websites and memory issues. I just checked and we're the number 12 most downloaded paid app for iPad. I can't tell you how grateful we are for this. My family is going nuts. If we have continued success, we'll be here for a while and believe me, we have ideas that nobody has ever thought of... 1.0 seems to have a ton of people's attention and it's just the foundation for what's to come.