RockMelt April 20 launched RockMelt for iPhone, which looks to make inroads against Apple’s Safari browser by syncing favorite Websites and bookmarked Web pages with the PC and Mac desktop browser versions.
RockMelt launched last November as a social Web browser that frames the browsing experience with people’s contacts from Facebook, tweet streams from Twitter and other Web content to keep users from having to switch back and forth between those applications.
Facebook contacts appear along the left edge of the browser window after users log into RockMelt via their Facebook email and password. The right side of the RockMelt app includes buttons for accessing the Facebook News Feed, Facebook Profile, Twitter tweet stream and timeline.
RockMelt for iPhone aims to let users have the same experience by making all of their favorite content from their RockMelt desktop browser shareable with Facebook and Twitter friends from perhaps the world’s most popular singular phone.
Specifically, current RockMelt desktop users will have their favorite sites and bookmarks automatically synced when they download RockMelt for iPhone and log in to their Facebook account.
Users will be able to access Facebook and Twitter updates and notifications, bookmark new favorite Websites and access the new View Later feature, which lets users save long form and video content to read later, all from their iPhone.
RockMelt and iPhone users may view screenshots of the features, watch a video demo and download RockMelt for iPhone from the App Store here. The Wall Street Journal also reviewed the app, noting some missing features and the potential for RockMelt for Android app.
RockMelt has more than 300,000 users. It’s unclear how may of those are also iPhone owners and that’s a key point.
The value for RockMelt for iPhone lies in getting existing RockMelt desktop users to port their content so they can take it with them on the go.
iPhone users who don’t already enjoy the network value of RockMelt on the Mac or PC, or have a Facebook account, which is a prerequisite for using RockMelt, will just stick with the trustworthy Safari browser on the iPhone for Web surfing.