The default page for the Dolphin Browser includes a “speed dial” and “webzine.” A browser like Safari is built for browsing Google. That’s what it’s really good at. But we’re way past looking at the Internet just as a tool for gathering information. We spend our lives on a browser. Dolphin recognizes that. While the Speed Dial to the left of the default page includes favorite links, the most favorite of your favorites, it also includes a “Webzine.” It takes Facebook, Twitter, and newsy sites such as USA Today and Mac Rumors and places the most recent stories in capsules in your webzine so that you can quickly browse the latest news of the things that interest you the most. You can edit the webzine to include only the sites you want to keep up with.
Opening a Webzine capsule presents the articles in an easy-to-read format that can be flipped through. Clicking on a story brings it up in a text only format. Sometimes the text doesn’t completely come forward here, but that’s okay, as a link is included to read the rest, and you can also hit an arrow above the story to call up the story that way as well. Dolphin certainly isn’t the first browser to offer text only versions of articles, even Safari does this, but it’s the first browser I have found to place it in such an easy-to-use format that encompasses all the news you would want to read.
Dolphin syncs favorites as well, like many other browsers. I loaded it on my iPhone as well as my iPad so that I could keep my favorites synced throughout. I do wish it would also sync the Webzine and Speed Dial, though. Even better would be syncing the history.
The Dolphin Browser also makes full use of gestures. Instead of seeming like something that was added in as an afterthought, the browser is built around using gestures. Starting Dolphin for the first time, it shows you gestures that you can use right away, such as sliding from the left edge gives you your list of favorites, favorites that go beyond Speed Dial, and sliding from the left gives you an easy view of all your open tabs.
It seems the Dolphin Browser is made for a large aspect of the iOS. It’s meant for a touchscreen with its use of gestures and the browsing aspect of the webzine. The only thing that isn’t well-represented is pictures. This is a word browser. It features pictures just as well as Safari, but it doesn’t go out of its way to make the best of them like an iPad should. However, it’s still the go-to for me to replace Safari, that is until Safari makes adequate changes to convince me to switch back again.
