Bolt

The BOLT Browser was a web browsing system for mobile phones including feature phones and smartphones able to run Java ME applications. The BOLT browser was installed on the phone, and BOLT servers accessed Web pages, processed and compressed them, and delivered them to phones running the browser. The BOLT Browser was offered free of charge to consumers, and by license to mobile network operators and handset manufacturers. BOLT was produced by Bitstream Inc., the company which previously produced ThunderHawk for mobile network operators and handset manufacturers. BOLT was originally introduced into private beta on January 15, 2009 and was made available to the public on February 16, 2009 when the public beta was announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. BOLT supported Java-based handsets with Java MIDP 2 and CLDC 1.0 or higher. BOLT also has specially optimized version for BlackBerry smartphones and worked with Windows Mobile and Palm OS devices that employ a MIDlet manager or Java emulator. BOLT was built using the WebKit rendering engine to display a full Web page layout as found on desktop web browsers. In December 2011, the BOLT proxy server was discontinued, disabling the service, and browser development stopped. History January 15, 2009: BOLT was introduced as a private beta. February 16, 2009: BOLT was made available via free public beta at Mobile World Congress. April 1, 2009 – BOLT Beta2 was released at CTIA Wireless 2009 in Las Vegas, NV. This release included improvements, fixes to minor bugs and new features. June 29, 2009 – BOLT Beta3 released, BOLT lite announced. Beta3 included major improvements, fixes to minor bugs and new features. October 7, 2009 - BOLT 1.5 released. First commercial release marks end of beta testing. March 23, 2010 - BOLT 2.0 Beta Version announced by the developer Bitstream Inc. The biggest change is the inclusion of tabbed browsing May 24, 2010 - BOLT 2.1 Released, introducing support for HTML5 video Milestones January 16, 2009 - BOLT private beta (ver 0.73) reviewed as the fastest mobile browser. March 30, 2009 - BOLT (ver 0.86) reviewed as only browser for feature phones that can stream video. May 29, 2009 - 1 in 6 BOLT users resides in India (current version Beta2 0.94). June 23, 2009 - BOLT surpasses 1 million end-user installs (current version Beta2 0.94). July 28, 2009 - BOLT surpasses more than 100 million Web pages rendered (current version Beta3 1.04).