Internet Explorer 9 mobile demoed on ASUS Windows Phone 7 device

By Tom Warren, on 20th Mar 11 3:00 pm with 11 Comments

Microsoft has demonstrated Internet Explorer 9 mobile at SXSW last week.

Microsoft Windows Phone product manager Joe Marini has been demonstrating some of the neat HTML5 capabilities of IE9 for Windows Phone at SXSW recently. Marini asked SXSW attendees to visit the Microsoft booth to grab a quick demo and The Next Web did just that. The Next Web has kindly posted a full 3 minute video of several standards support demos that Microsoft has enabled in IE9 for Windows Phone. Marini doesn’t reveal any additional features or dates but does confirm that the address bar will be moved to the bottom of Internet Explorer mobile “to give people more room in the browser.”

Marini’s demo took place on a non-production, engineering ASUS E600 device. Microsoft previously handed out the ASUS devices to the original ChevronWP7 Windows Phone jailbreakers. The devices are non-production and designed exclusively for development use.

Internet Explorer 9 mobile will be identical to Microsoft’s desktop browser according to the company and will allow Windows Phone to take advantage of the latest advances in web technologies, including HTML5. Microsoft is also likely to ship a Silverlight runtime inside of IE9 mobile but the company is refusing to comment until its MIX11 conference in April. Microsoft originally unveiled Internet Explorer 9 mobile at Mobile World Congress in February and plans to ship it as part of a Windows Phone platform update later this year.

  • http://anothersoandso.tumblr.com/ Christo27

    Does the dev device have a front facing camera? It looks like there are 2 dots on the front…

    • Anonymous

      Those dots are most likely just sencors. My LG has a couple of them aswell.

  • Jason

    IE9 on WP7 ought to be absolutely excellent but I hope they make the address/menu bar better than it appears in the video; not only is it ugly, but it also hides away quick tabs and favourites/history access.

    • GP007

      I like the bar at the bottom, it’s better for when you’re holding the device with one hand and on the move. Also the bigger refresh/stop button is better. On the flip side there could be a option to move it back at the top as well, we won’t know till it is released.

    • M_Lyons10

      I prefer it at the bottom from a UX standpoint as well. It just makes more sense. I’m not really sure how the bar being at the bottom can be “ugly”. More likely it’s just that some people don’t like change.

    • http://openid.tomservo.eu/ Tom Servo

      The iPhone and Android make the address bar part of the page area, i.e. it stays at the top of the page and scrolls offscreen. I’d prefer that than lose the app bar buttons.

    • Anonymous

      I would like it if they keep the address/search bar on top and add back/forward buttons at the bottom along with taps, favorites and the 3 dots.

      The hardware back button does not always work as expected. If you browse a few pages and then use the hardware back button it will take you to the previous IE page. But If you browse a few pages, then leave IE and go back into it, when you use the hardware back button it will exit the application.

  • http://twitter.com/antoha_by Anton Lakotko

    Where flash? I wanna play flash games.
    When will the massive porting flash in HTML 5?

    • GP007

      You gotta ask Adobe about flash, that’s out of MS’s hands really.

  • http://openid.tomservo.eu/ Tom Servo

    More cockteasing. Seriously.

    “Oh my god, check this out! IE9! Isn’t that fucking cool?! Oh wait, you’re not gonna see it for at least another six months… at the earliest… Ner! Ner! Ner! Ner! Ner!”

  • Guest

    Awesome, can wait to get that sometime next year when MS gets around to doing the platform’s second update.