Grab it while its hot - IE 6 Mobile emulator images now available

Internet Explorer 6 Mobile is inching ever closer to release, with the Windows Mobile Team Blog announcing the availability of emulator images of Windows Mobile 6.1.4 containing the updated browser.

What has been more interesting is the feature set announced with it:

• Improved fidelity (support for full fidelity desktop rendering)
• Layout fixes to accommodate a mobile screen (text wrap)
• Enhanced Script and AJAX support (Jscript v5.7 from Internet Explorer 8)
• Improved multimedia experience (Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 for Adobe Flash content)
• Deeper integration with search
• Enhanced cursor navigation model
• Touch and gesture support – pan support
• Multiple zoom levels
• Easy switching between mobile / desktop versions of sites by specifying UA strings.

So for people who have been particularly concerned about the quality of IE6 in today’s AJAX world, it seems those concerns are unfounded, with IE8’s javascript engine backported to IE6 Mobile.

What many people do not know is that Windows Mobile desktop emulators run native ARM code on an emulated processor, meaning the code can often be removed from the emulator and run directly on devices.

This being the case, I don’t think it will be long before IE6 Mobile is available in cab form from our favourite developer haunt.

Download the emulator images while its hot from Microsoft here.