uZard Browser Runs Flash on BlackBerry

With the festivities for the 2010 ESRI User Conference already underway, I stumbled across a new browser, called uZard, that BlackBerry users (depending on how old your model is) can use to browse the web and which also supports Flash. The native browser on the BlackBerry is notoriously inadequate so many users I know (including me) are always looking for alternatives. I have tried Opera Mini and find it to be somewhat clunky. Of course, one of the other big problems with the native browser is its lack of support for anything really modern from a UI perspective (Flash, Silverlight, HTML5, etc.). It has decent javascript support but you can hit those limits pretty quickly.

uZard is still in beta and the BlackBerry version is “uZard Web P“. From what I can tell (the site is not clear), I think this means that it does not use Webkit, whereas “uZard S” does. I could be wrong about that.

Anyway, I installed it and immediately went to the ArcGIS Resource Center to try the sample apps and they do run. The photo below is my BlackBerry Tour 9630 showing one of the Flex API sample apps from the Resource Center. They are a little hard to use but I suspect that’s because the apps themselves haven’t been optimized for mobile users. Nonetheless, the BlackBerry users kicking around San Diego this week may want to give uZard a try in order to test all the new Flex stuff that ESRI will be showing off.