Updated iCab Mobile Web Browser Lets You Open Apps Using Predefined Gestures
July 17, 2013
A couple of months ago, iCab Mobile received its huge 7.0 update. Now, the so-called "Internet Taxi for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad" has received its follow-up 7.1 update.
Version 7.0 of iCab Mobile introduced a drawing gestures feature that lets you specify gestures not only for opening websites but also for triggering actions. You can check out this feature in action in the demo video below.
Version 7.1 of iCab Mobile brings several improvements for this feature.
For starters, some new actions that can be triggered by gestures have been added to iCab Mobile. The gestures for going to the next and previous tabs are now also programmed to "wrap around" once the first or last tab is reached. Moreover, the gestures to change the font size now increase or decrease the size in larger steps.
If you can't see the video embedded above, please click here.
But perhaps the most significant improvement to iCab Mobile's drawing gestures feature is the added ability to launch apps using gestures. Alexander Clauss, the app's developer, explains this new ability:
This feature requires that the user knows the URL scheme of the destination App. It is possible to pass the URL of the current web site to this App, it is even possible to modify this URL. You need to define a URL which contains at least the URL scheme of the destination App (the App will be launched without any additional information). But you can define this URL yourself according to your requirements. There are certain keys which iCab recognizes and which will be replaced automatically. These keys represent the URL or parts of the url of the currently displayed web page. There are the supported keys: %url%, %path%, %host%, %query%, %specifier%. Use one or more of these keysif you need to pass the URL or parts of the URL of the currently displayed web page to the App you want to start with this gesture... (Attention: this is an expert feature ;-)The latest update to iCab Mobile also includes a number of fixes along with the following miscellaneous improvements:
Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad running iOS 5.1 or later, iCab Mobile 7.1 is available now in the App Store as a free update or as a new $1.99 download. The app is included in both AppAdvice’s Best Web Browsers for the iPhone AppGuide and AppAdvice’s iPad Web Browsers AppGuide. [gallery link="file" order="DESC"]
- When iCab is opened, it will now check if there's a URL in the clipboard and offers to open it (in case the web site is not already open)
- iCab now also supports search suggestions from DuckDuckGo, in addition to search suggestions from Google and Yahoo
- Search suggestions can be now also selected without immediately starting the search, so you can edit or refine these suggestions.
- The brightness controller is now also available on the iPhone.
- On the iPad creating a new Tab can now automatically activate the search field (configurable)