Safari on a Samsung phone? Not quite

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 30 May 2008 at 08:51

Samsung has backtracked on claims that its latest mobile phone comes with Apple's Safari web browser.

The company issued a press release for the new L870 phone earlier this week, which listed "Safari browser (full web browsing)" among its list of "features".

The news caused something of a stir, because the Safari browser has so far only appeared on Apple's iPhones, Macs or Windows PCs, and wasn't even known to have been ported to the L870's Symbian S60 operating system.

Now, in a clarification sent to Engadget, the company admits that the browser is in fact only based on the open-source WebKit browser engine, which Safari was built on.

"Actually, [the] L870 is equipped with S60 OSS browser, also known as S60 Safari browser because both are using same webcore [sic] platform," the statement reads. "Sorry again for the unclear specification, and bothering you with this."

It's not the first time Samsung has performed a quick about face in recent weeks. Earlier this month Samsung told PC Pro and other journalists in Korea that it would pull out of the laptop market if it didn't triple sales within three years - only to withdraw the threat days later.