Skyfire For BlackBerry Back In Closed Alpha

A few weeks ago an OTA link for Skyfire was leaked causing the entire Alpha program to be temporarily shutdown.  Skyfire for BlackBerry Alpha, however, has been updated to version 3.5 and has a lot of nice enhancements like downloading files to your BlackBerry via the browser and setting Skyfire as your default browser.

Check out what changed in Skyfire 3.5 Alpha after the jump…

What got removed in Alpha 3.5 (vs. Alpha 3.1)?

• Stream Mode: We are actively working on an alternate method to provide streaming for Blackberry that will provide better performance and reduces the number of errors during streaming. This work has not been concluded yet. In the meantime we removed the existing stream mode. Stay tuned!

Thus please focus feedback for Alpha 3.5 on page load experience and basic browsing vs. the media experience.

What’s new in Alpha 3.5

• Inline Text Entry: You can now edit/enter form elements directly within the page, without being interrupted by a dialog box. Makes it more direct, convenient and retains the context.
• Click-to Call: The Blackberry client now will utilize tags in websites that trigger a phone call, when clicked (e.g. callto: and tel: links). You have to confirm before the call is initiated.
• Set as Default Browser: when set, links will open Skyfire
• Downloading of Files: you can now invoke the download of files to your device.
• Improved Scrolling: Further tweaking since the last Alpha.
• Reduced Checkerboard occurrences
• Alpha limit: We implemented a simple mechanism to limit the number of new users in our system. Once reached you see a message. If you encounter this and are part of this Alpha group then please contact us.

Known bugs in this Alpha

• Clear cookies: When you clear cookies in advanced settings it will not work. Will be addressed in the next release.
• Inline Text: We are seeing several issues.
• Sometimes old text is visible (Issue 331 & 409), when re-entering text box, the cursor is positioned at the beginning of the text field (Issue 333).
• Download: timeout when downloading large files (Issue 435)”

[Via BGR]