Photonzone

Review: iCab Mobile

iCab mobile is the so called ‘little brother’ of the iCab which is available under Mac OS. I’ve been using it the past few days and it well earned the title, taking functions of the build in browser Safari and improving them as well as adding long desired features. 

The first is the handling and appearance. Both Landscape and portrait mode are supported. You can easily zoom in and out with the fingers as well as drag the webpage around to reach other parts of it. What I really like is the fullscreen mode which eliminates all bars and puts the web content as priority. Tabbed browsing is also working very well. Different to safari you will have to press a button which will bring up a menu, listing all different open tabs. From there you can choose one of the tabs which are named and have a little thumbnail besides for easier differentiation.

Like on a desktop browser it’s possible to change the behavior of tabs. In the option menu it will be differentiated between ‘Open Links to same domain’ and ‘Open Links to other domains’. As option it’s possible to choose between Normal, New Tab, Curr Tab and Ask. Based on your selection the browser will then open the tabs. But be aware! The iPhone has a memory limit. If a application exceeds this limit, the iPhone OS will close it to avoid a crash. Therefore it’s better to keep the number of open tabs below 6.

The browser also reveals its flexibility when it comes to a search machine. Unlike Safari you can choose one of the presets like Yahoo or Google or enter a custom domain.  Several other neat features will also help to improve the browsing experience. One is Private Browsing which will keep the browser from storing cookies or a history of visited webpages. It’s possible to disable images to decrease loading times.Also it’s possible to turn on the add filter which will keep certain pre-defined adds away.

Something that comes in very handy is the ability to Import and Export Bookmarks. The exchange happens over Wireless from a PC or Mac. No specific software but a Browser is necessary to do so. 

For a full spectrum of features and their explanation, iCab comes with a Handbook which can be found in the option Menu.

Overall I enjoyed this Application and it’s well worth the 1.99 USD the developer is asking for. The only limitation is that it won’t handle links to external Applications neither it can be set as the Main browser on the iPhone. But this is more a limitation of the SDK, not the developer. 

Category: Utilities / Browser

Available in SG Store: Yes

Released: 15 May 2009

Price: USD 1.99

Rating: 4/5 Stars

by Franz Geffke, Photonzone