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Video: Browsing the Web on Apple Watch With µBrowser

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If you've ever wanted to have a web browser on your wrist, there's now an app for that. µBrowser is an app designed to let you enter a web address or execute a search with DuckDuckGo so you can view websites on Apple Watch.

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Available for $0.99 from the App Store, µBrowser offers a lightweight browsing experience that's useful if you have no other device on you but want to look something up quickly. In addition to visiting a specific URL or searching the web, you can also see your last visited pages or save pages to your favorites. You can use the companion app on iPhone to manage your bookmarks.

The app is only able to offer a limited browsing experience on the wrist. The developer warns that there are limitations with Javascript and large webpages, and logins most likely will not work. There is also no back button.

Note that the Apple Watch does have a built-in browsing experience, but only in apps like Messages where someone has sent you a link. You can tap on that link and browse a webpage, but you can't enter a URL or search for a page like you can in µBrowser.

µBrowser is not the most practical app because most people probably aren't going to want to browse the web on the tiny Apple Watch display, but it's an interesting utility to have in a pinch.

Top Rated Comments

M
meson
56 months ago
Now the cool kids can learn what mobile web browsing was like 20 years ago.
Score: 41 Votes (Like | Disagree)
motulist Avatar
motulist
56 months ago
Neat to see, but it seems like the kind of app you download because it seems nifty and then never use again.
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
C
cupcakes2000
56 months ago
Why can’t a web browser exist on an Apple TV if it can exist on a watch?
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tgwaste Avatar
tgwaste
56 months ago

This feels very close to charging for a system feature (something Apple doesn't allow).

watchOS already has a web browser. It's just not meant to be launched like an app. You only see it when clicking links in messages / emails etc.

What this developer did is basically create a launcher for the built-in web browser, and added a way to navigate to different URLs. So it's like 99% Apple's work, and 1% this developer's, yet they charge for it, and market it like they actually built a new web browser (they didn't). Doesn't feel very ethical to me.

Meanwhile you have legit, hard-working app developers like Apollo's dev who were not able to add push notifications as a paid feature on their app, because Apple rejects it for charging for a system feature (even though renting and maintaining a push notification server has ongoing costs)...

App Store rules are a mess, and aren't enforced uniformly.
Quiet. This app is great. The developer finished apples half-a$$ed work for them. They deserve a dollar. After all, we gave Apple 2 trillion of them.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
M
Makosuke
56 months ago
Seems like a good time for a Jurassic Park quote…

Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.
Seriously, though, I can imagine some rare occasions I would have actually used this, mostly along the lines of quickly checking a fact on Wikipedia.

Not often, but might even be worth the dollar.

Better would be if it stripped all CSS and just spit out text. Badly-coded sites would be useless, but well-built ones you could actually get something from on a postage stamp display. And badly-coded sites would probably be unreadable anyway.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
iHorseHead Avatar
iHorseHead
56 months ago
Android watches such as Samsung have built in browsers already. Completely pointless. So small screens.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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