In true soap opera tradition, iPhone rival Research in Motion, the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, bought Torch Mobile, the little company toiling away building WebKit-based browsers for other phones—including beleaguered Microsoft’s anemic Windows Mobile. Kevin C. Tofel:
Research In Motion bought the company yesterday, presumably to build its own WebKit browser for BlackBerry devices. While that’s a two-thumbs-up story for BlackBerry owners, Windows Mobile devices are apparently getting a different finger. Torch Mobile’s Iris browser, which brought WebKit to WinMo, is no longer under development.
Different finger, indeed.