Stream Web Review

A little bit like a regular web browser and a little bit like Tumblr comes Stream Web, a mobile browser that focuses on the visual side of things. It's a bit clunky to browse around despite its best intentions, but it does help you discover some interesting content.

The principle behind Stream Web is that you don't have to rely upon URLs or copying and pasting much. Instead, you search through a typical dialog box and glean the results that way. If you like something and want to share it, you tap and hold before pinching to draw a box around it to highlight the best part. You can share through all the major social networks but Stream Web is keen for you to 'restream' a page, sharing it with others using the app.

Full screen browsing is used throughout Stream Web, so you get a much clearer picture than with most web browsers. Gestures are used to move around and they mostly work well. The only issue I found was that sometimes I dragged down the notification center or music controls by mistake. Stream Web is also a bit vague at explaining what each button does, which is how I accidentally flagged a link as a problem.

Stick with it though, and Stream Web is quite a pleasant clutter-free experience. I wouldn't use it over a conventional browser and it's not quite as intuitive as it would like to be, but as a way of discovering new content its anonymous method of sharing links is quite an interesting approach. Stream Web feels on the edge of being the ideal way to browse through your phone, but doesn't quite get that far into essential territory.

Still, it's worth trying out and using as a new take on the Tumblr style format of sharing links, and is frequently more attractive to look at than boring old Safari.