Editing Mobile browser (section)

==History==
The first mobile browser for a PDA was PocketWeb<ref>{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1016/0169-7552(95)00093-6|title = PDAs as mobile WWW browsers|year = 1995|last1 = Gessler|first1 = Stefan|last2 = Kotulla|first2 = Andreas|journal = Computer Networks and Isdn Systems|volume = 28|issue = 1–2|pages = 53–59}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |doi = 10.1007/BFb0000360|chapter = Multimedia client implementation on Personal Digital Assistants|title = Interactive Distributed Multimedia Systems and Telecommunication Services|volume = 1309|pages = 283–295|series = Lecture Notes in Computer Science|year = 1997|last1 = Lauff|first1 = Markus|last2 = Gellersen|first2 = Hans-Werner|isbn = 978-3-540-63519-2|citeseerx = 10.1.1.6.6059}}</ref> for the [[Apple Newton]] created at [[Telecooperation Office|TecO]] in 1994, followed by the first commercial product NetHopper released in August 1996.<ref>{{cite web |date=July 1996 |title=''NetHopper 2.0'': First true web browser for Newton |url=http://www.pencomputing.com/archive/PCM_11/nethopper.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110611122918/http://www.pencomputing.com/archive/PCM_11/nethopper.html |archive-date=June 11, 2011 |access-date=October 13, 2009 |publisher=Pen Computing Magazine}}</ref>

The so-called "microbrowser" technologies such as WAP, NTTDocomo's i-mode platform and [[Openwave]]'s HDML platform fueled the first wave of interest in wireless data services.

The first deployment of a mobile browser on a mobile phone was probably in 1997 when Unwired Planet (later to become Openwave) put their "UP.Browser" on [[American Telephone & Telegraph|AT&T]] handsets to give users access to HDML content.<ref>{{cite web |year=2009 |title=About Us |url=http://owmobility.com/about-us |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315055353/http://owmobility.com/about-us |archive-date=March 15, 2016 |access-date=June 8, 2016 |publisher=Openwave Mobility}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |year=1997 |title=The Weather Underground brings weather service to mobile phone user |url=http://www.wunderground.com/about/pr/news.asp?date=19970513 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090606185810/http://www.wunderground.com/about/pr/news.asp?date=19970513 |archive-date=June 6, 2009 |access-date=February 26, 2009 |publisher=The Weather Underground}}</ref>

A British company, [[STNC]] Ltd., developed a mobile browser (HitchHiker) in 1997 that was intended to present the entire device UI. The demonstration platform for this mobile browser (Webwalker) had 1 [[Million instructions per second|MIPS]] total processing power. This was a single core platform, running the GSM stack on the same processor as the application stack. In 1999 STNC was acquired by [[Microsoft]]<ref>{{cite press release|url=https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/Jul99/STNCpr.mspx |title=Microsoft Acquires STNC, a Leader in Digital Cellular Software |publisher=Microsoft |date=21 July 1999 |access-date=14 April 2011 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110513182941/http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/Jul99/STNCpr.mspx |archive-date=13 May 2011 }}</ref> and HitchHiker became Microsoft Mobile Explorer 2.0,<ref>{{cite press release|url=https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/Dec99/MobileExplorerPR.mspx |title=Microsoft Introduces Microsoft Mobile Explorer |publisher=Microsoft |date=8 December 1999 |access-date=14 April 2011 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101114001316/http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/Dec99/MobileExplorerPR.mspx |archive-date=14 November 2010 }}</ref> not related to the primitive Microsoft Mobile Explorer 1.0. HitchHiker is believed to be the first mobile browser with a unified rendering model, handling HTML and WAP along with ECMAScript, [[WMLScript]], [[POP3]] and [[IMAP]] mail in a single client. Although it was not used, it was possible to combine HTML and WAP in the same pages although this would render the pages invalid for any other device. Mobile Explorer 2.0 was available on the Benefon Q, Sony CMD-Z5, CMD-J5, CMD-MZ5, CMD-J6, CMD-Z7, CMD-J7 and CMD-J70. With the addition of a messaging kernel and a driver model, this was powerful enough to be the operating system for certain embedded devices. One such device was the Amstrad [[e-m@iler]]<ref>{{cite web |date=5 October 2002 |title=The previous e-m@iler... |url=http://www.amstrad.com/emailer.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060209150511/http://www.amstrad.com/emailer.html |archive-date=9 February 2006 |website=Amstrad}}</ref> and e-m@iler 2. This code formed the basis for MME3.

Multiple companies offered browsers for the Palm OS platform. The first HTML browser for Palm OS 1.0 was HandWeb by Smartcode software, released in 1997. HandWeb included its own TCP/IP stack, and Smartcode was acquired by [[Palm, Inc.|Palm]] in 1999. Mobile browsers for the Palm OS platform multiplied after the release of Palm OS 2.0, which included a TCP/IP stack. A freeware (although later shareware) browser for the Palm OS was Palmscape, written in 1998 by Kazuho Oku in Japan, who went on to found [[Ilinx]]. It was still in limited use as late as 2003. [[Qualcomm]] also developed the Eudora Web browser, and launched it with the Palm OS based QCP smartphone. ProxiWeb<ref>{{cite web|url=https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~iang/pubs/wingman.pdf|title=Experience With Top Gun Wingman: A Proxy-Based Graphical Web Browser for the 3Com PalmPilot|website=uwaterloo.ca|access-date=4 May 2018}}</ref> was a proxy-based Web browsing solution, developed by [[Ian Goldberg]] and others<ref>{{cite web |title=About Top Gun Wingman |url=http://daedalus.cs.berkeley.edu/software/wingman/index.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180505135328/http://daedalus.cs.berkeley.edu/software/wingman/index.html |archive-date=May 5, 2018 |access-date=4 May 2018 |website=The University of California, Berkeley BARWAN Research Project CDROM}}</ref> at the University of California, Berkeley and later acquired by PumaTech.

Released in 2001, Mobile Explorer 3.0 added iMode compatibility (cHTML) plus numerous proprietary schemes.<ref>{{cite press release|url=https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2001/feb01/02-19mmepr.mspx |title=Microsoft Mobile Explorer 3.0 Provides Tomorrow's WAP 2.0 Functionality Today |publisher=Microsoft |date=19 February 2001 |access-date=14 April 2011 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110401232319/http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2001/feb01/02-19mmepr.mspx |archive-date=1 April 2011 }}</ref> By imaginatively combining these proprietary schemes with WAP protocols, MME3.0 implemented OTA database synchronisation, [[push email]], push information clients (not unlike a 'Today Screen') and PIM functionality. The cancelled Sony Ericsson CMD-Z700 was to feature heavy integration with MME3.0. Although Mobile Explorer was ahead of its time in the mobile phone space, development was stopped in 2002.

Also in 2002, Palm, Inc. offered Web Pro on Tungsten PDAs based upon a [[Novarra]] browser. PalmSource offered a competing Web browser based on [[Access Co.|Access]] [[NetFront]].

[[Opera software]] pioneered with its [[Small Screen Rendering]] and Medium Screen Rendering technology. The [[Opera (web browser)|Opera]] web browser is able to reformat regular web pages for optimal fit on small screens and medium-sized (PDA) screens. It was also the first widely available mobile browser to support [[Ajax (programming)|Ajax]] and the first mobile browser to pass the [[Acid2]] test.

Distinct from a mobile browser is a web-based emulator, which uses a "Virtual Handset" to display WAP pages on a computer screen, implemented either in Java or as an HTML transcoder.