Rockmelt Blog

Introducing Rockmelt for iPad - A Fast and Fun Way to Explore the Web

We love the web.  The web is unparalleled in the depth and richness of content it offers.  No app comes close.  You can find stuff that makes you laugh or wonder.  You can find cute stuff and weird stuff.  You can spend a few seconds finding the answer to a specific question or hours exploring whatever interests you.

We love the iPad.  The beautiful display, the feel of it in our hands, and all the incredible things it enables us to do.  We love how it makes computing more accessible to more people.  The iPad entertains and informs; it helps us communicate and learn.

And we love our friends.  The web has gotten so big, we depend on our friends to help us sift through it.  We love our friends who send us links to funny or cute stuff.  We love that one friend who always finds the weirdest stuff out there.  We love sending stuff to them, and we love that they send great stuff to us.

At Rockmelt, for a while now we’ve been thinking about how to combine these loves - the web, the iPad and our friends - how could we make exploring the web even better on the iPad?
  • We knew it had to be fast.  Way faster than opening an empty window, pulling up the keyboard, entering a URL and then getting content.  It needed to start with great content, tailored to you, ready to go.
  • It had to be built for iPad.  To us, that meant beautiful and built for touch.  It had to take advantage of the display and the processor and fast Wifi and LTE.  Intuitive and easy…
  • It had to have access to the whole web, not some curated subset, but the whole thing. We wanted to enhance the serendipitous discovery that makes the web so awesome. One discovery leads to another and then another.
  • It had to make sharing great web content easier and faster than ever before.  We wanted to take our friends with us as we explored, sharing the great stuff we found with them, and letting them help us discover great stuff in the same way.
  • And, most importantly, it had to be fun.
After many trials, experiments and an eight-month all-company effort, we couldn’t be more excited to introduce to you Rockmelt for iPad.  It is an entirely new way to explore the web, built for you and your iPad from the ground up.

You can download the app by clicking here or clicking the image below.

We can’t wait to hear what you think!
Posted 7 months ago
16 notes
Tagged: rockmelt, ipad, web, browser, lol, humor, fast, fun, apple, itunes, sexy, facebook, twitter, .
Social Reading - Now on your Facebook Timeline

Happy new year, RockMelters! We’re starting the New Year with some exciting Social Reading news.

Starting today, sharing and discovering new articles from your Social Reading-supported apps will be easier than ever. When Social Reading is turned on, the articles you read can be added to your Timeline and will allow you and your friends to more quickly find and connect around the hottest news.

Social Reading launched in November and we’re already seeing some incredible usage, with RockMelters sharing an article with friends every second! With this update, you’ll discover even more awesome content you may have missed on your own.

As always, you have full control over the sites you want to share Social Reading activity from and those you don’t. You can also remove or hide stories from your Timeline and control how news appears on your Timeline from your private Activity Log. Plus, Social Reading is only available for a handpicked set of sites. Check out our Social Reading help page for more info.

We can’t wait to see what you think. Happy 2012 and happy browsing!

How to Upgrade

Your RockMelt will automatically upgrade over the next 24 hours so stay tuned! From that point on, you’ll be able to add the Social Reading experience to your Timeline.

p.s. A bunch of you have already told us how much you love the Social Omnibox. If you haven’t quite familiarized yourself with it yet, just know that — in addition to the social features — you can type in keywords and search directly from the Social Omnibox. Easy, right?

Posted 1 year ago
265 notes
Tagged: facebook, timeline, rockmelt, browser, reading, news, .
Welcome to RockMelt Beta 5 - Social Omnibox, App Center, and much more

Just in time for the holidays, RockMelt Beta 5 is here! We wanted to give you a present to finish 2011 with a bang, so we’ve been working non-stop to get RockMelt Beta 5 ready. 

Since you spend seven hours a day using RockMelt, Beta 5 was built to let you do all the things you love even faster and easier: staying in touch with friends, getting new updates from your favorite sites, and discovering sweet new content.

Here’s what’s new:

Social Omnibox

The omnibox has been completely re-designed to help you find what you’re looking for even faster. 

A big reason why chat is one of our most popular features — RockMelters now have seven chat conversations each day, up from three conversations six months ago — is because it’s so simple and accessible. With the new Facebook timelines rolling out, we wanted to make staying in touch with friends just as simple. So we built your friends into the omnibox. Now, when you enter a friend’s name into the Social Omnibox, you can navigate directly to their timeline or start a conversation. 

But the Social Omnibox isn’t just for friends. If you type in the name of an app, you’ll also see options to open or add apps. For convenience, you can use your keyboard’s arrow keys to pick and choose which action you’d like to take.

To try it out, just type a friend’s name into the omnibox.

The NEW New Tab

The brand new New Tab page (yes, double the NEW, just for you) lets you stay in touch with friends quickly. Pop open a new tab and you’ll see your friends’ pictures, have quick access to their profiles and even birthday reminders. Now, you won’t have any excuse not to wish them a Happy Birthday!  

Plus, we’ve added a ticker of your friends’ recent Social Reading activity in the top-right corner so you’ll never miss great new content. With a new “read” being shared among friends every second, Social Reading is a big hit.  But more importantly, it’s clear from your feedback that you love to discover the latest news (or cat videos) through your friends serendipitously. That’s why we built the Social Reading ticker right into New Tab page.

Open a new tab to take it for a spin!

Expandable, Scrollable App Edge

The App Edge is one of our favorite features because it makes reading news fun and easy (especially with Social Reading). It’s clear that you love the App Edge too: on average, RockMelters have 12 apps and click on them 26 times a day! 

That’s why we’ve made the App Edge better than ever. Now, the App Edge supports scrolling so you can add as many apps as you want and still navigate the Edge with ease. Don’t forget you can reorder the app icons by dragging and dropping them along the edge. Plus, it can now be expanded for easier app management. 

Try it for yourself by clicking the button at the bottom of the App Edge.

App Center

Because you love the App Edge so much, we wanted to make it easier to discover cool new apps and add apps from your favorite sites. That’s why we built the new App Center.

The App Center is a one-stop shop for everything apps. To open the App Center, click the + button at the top of your App Edge. Then, simply click on the icons of the sites in the App Center to start getting instant news from them in your App Edge. 

We have a lot more ideas for the App Center in the near future, so stay tuned.

EZ Text Sharing

Sharing text can now be done faster than ever. Select the text you want to share and right click to choose “Share text.” The text and link to the current page will automatically be included in a new Share window. Works like magic. No better! Works like computer science!

How to Upgrade to Beta 5

Your RockMelt will automatically upgrade over the next few days but you can upgrade immediately to RockMelt Beta 5 now by going to RockMelt menu > About RockMelt.

Happy browsing and happy holidays,
The RockMelt team

Posted 1 year ago
314 notes
Tagged: browser, rockmelt, social, facebook, .
RockMelt Update: Incredible Sharing, Thinner Edges, and More

We took everything you liked about RockMelt’s one-click Share and made it 10x better.

In addition to new features like thinner Edges and easier App adding, the latest RockMelt includes a completely re-designed Share button that lets you share to multiple people and services simultaneously.

Looking for Social Reading? It’s coming VERY soon.

Here’s what’s new in RockMelt:

Incredible Sharing

If you liked the Share button before, you’re going to love it now. Thanks to all your feedback, the Share button now lets you do all the following — at the same time:

  • Post to multiple friends’ walls on Facebook
  • Send multiple Facebook messages
  • Update your own Facebook status
  • Share to multiple Twitter accounts
  • Share to Facebook groups

Easier App Adding

You can now add Apps to your App Edge in one click. As you surf the web, your RockMelt will suggest sites at the top of your App Edge — just click on them to start getting instant updates.

Thinner Edges

The Edges and the navigation bar in the latest RockMelt are now thinner than before. The result? More room for you to browse.

Chromium 14

This RockMelt upgrade also includes all the enhancements from the latest stable version of Chromium to make it better than ever.

Coming Soon: Social Reading

Click here for a preview of Social Reading.

How to Upgrade

As always, your RockMelt will upgrade automatically over the next few days but you can manually upgrade now by going to RockMelt menu > About RockMelt.

Happy browsing!

Posted 1 year ago
303 notes
Tagged: rockmelt, browser, chrome, facebook, share, .
Coming Soon: RockMelt Beta 4 Brings the Ultimate Reading Experience

In the next few weeks, everybody will be updated to RockMelt Beta 4! 

One feature we’re especially excited about is Social Reading. RockMelt is one of the first companies to launch Facebook integration to make reading news more social, and we’ve done it in a way that’s uniquely RockMelt.

By building social right into the App Edge and browsing experience, Social Reading lets you and your friends connect around reading online like never before.

Social Reading



With Social Reading enabled in RockMelt, you can:

  • Discover what friends are reading
  • See what’s popular and trending online
  • Help friends find new content by sharing what you’re reading

Social Reading will initially be available for some of the most popular sites, including CNN, ESPN, Fail Blog, Gizmodo, and others. Like all things RockMelt, you are in control of how activity is shared and who can view it.

Stay tuned for more info — reading news online will never be the same!

Posted 1 year ago
400 notes
Tagged: browser, reading, rockmelt, facebook, open graph, f8, timeline, .
Welcome to RockMelt Beta 3: Richer Chat, More Facebook, Better Facebook.com Experience

Staying in touch with friends is now easier than ever with RockMelt Beta 3, our most exciting update yet!

For this major update, we’ve partnered with Facebook to give you the best possible browsing experience. Available for download and upgrade today, RockMelt Beta 3 adds over 30 features, including better Facebook chat, more Facebook integration, and a streamlined facebook.com experience on RockMelt.

Our goal is to build a browser that makes surfing the web better, easier, and more fun. We couldn’t be more excited to work with Facebook to make social a core browser component and to continue the browser revolution. By the way, Beta 3 is just a preview of what’s to come later!

You can download RockMelt Beta 3 here. We can’t wait to see what you think.

Happy browsing!


Here’s what’s new:

Brand New Friend Edge for Richer Chat Experience

Your love of chat on RockMelt is loud and clear! Since nearly 40% of RockMelters chat every day, we wanted to make the chat experience even better. In Beta 3, we’ve completely re-designed the Friend Edge with three new features so it’s even easier to stay in touch.

1. Expandable

Your Friend Edge can now be expanded to a full buddy list complete with names and search. This expanded view makes it a cinch to find any friend and manage your Friend Edge. Highly recommended if you have a high-resolution screen!

2. Swappable

You can now pick which side of RockMelt you want your Friend Edge – on the left or the right. If you’re used to chatting on facebook.com, you’ll feel right at home with your App Edge on the left and your Friend Edge on the right.

3. Scrollable

To make browsing through friends even easier, you can now use your mouse to scroll through friends in your Friend Edge. Scrolling can be done whether your Friend Edge is fully expanded or collapsed.


Quick Access to Facebook Friend Requests, Messages, and Notifications

One of our most popular requests has been to let you manage Facebook Friend Requests, Messages, and Notifications right in RockMelt. Now you can!

In Beta 3, you can confirm Friend Requests, send and reply to Messages, and see all your Notifications (along with the posts or links that you’re getting Notifications for). Like on facebook.com, these are located next to your profile picture in the top left corner of your RockMelt for quick access.


Unified Facebook.com and RockMelt Experience

We’re excited to announce that, by working together with Facebook, we’ve streamlined your facebook.com experience! You’ll now only have one set of Friend Requests, Messages, Notifications, friend lists, and chats when you visit facebook.com – the ones right in RockMelt. Additionally, chats you initiate on facebook.com will open RockMelt chat windows. We hope you like this is a unified effort to make your browsing experience even better.


31 NEW FEATURES

○ Brand New Friend Edge

  • Expandable View with names and favorite status
  • Scrollable
  • Swappable Friend Edge and App Edge
  • Friend search
  • Chat status can now be changed to online / offline even easier
  • Option to hide offline friends
  • Improved context menu when right-clicking friends
  • Unified View of Friends: Favorite Friends and Other Friends now shown together
  • Drag-and-drop to remove or add friends to Favorites

○ Facebook Friend Requests, Messages, and Notifications

  • Confirm and reject Friend Requests
  • View and reply to Messages
  • See Notifications and the associated item of interest (status updates, links, or photos)

○ Unified Facebook.com and RockMelt Experience

  • Universal chat experience from RockMelt – no more duplicate chat windows and friend lists
  • Initiating chats on Facebook.com will open chats in RockMelt
  • Universal Friend Requests, Messages and Notifications right in RockMelt – no more duplicates on Facebook.com

○ New Facebook App with Photo Album Viewer
○ Quick access to your own Facebook Profile
○ Better Chat

  • Previous chat history now shown when chatting with friends
  • Improved notification when chats are received
  • Simplified chat window

○ Easy status updater
○ One-click Quiet Mode button
○ Twitter: Option for growl and taskbar notifications for incoming tweets
○ (Mac) Scrollable App Edge so you can get updates from even more Apps
○ (Mac) Share Improvements

  • Quick image picker - just click on the embedded image to see all the ones that can be selected
  • Link titles and descriptions can now be edited

166 Bugs Fixed

  • Improved Twitter App reliability and performance
  • Improved syncing for App Edge contents and updates
  • More robust sharing
  • Improved spell check reliability
  • More consistent App Edge updates
  • Retain search engine preferences
  • Causes of several crashes
Posted 1 year ago
330 notes
Tagged: rockmelt, browser, facebook, beta 3, .