In the wake of the news that the final version of the Internet Channel for Wii would be delayed until April, Nintendo has released the official features list for the final release:
- improved zooming and scrolling
- an improved zoomed font
- shortened startup times
- quicker access to "favorites"
- an ability to hide the toolbar
- buttons that will instantly type common preset letters, such as "www" or ".com"
That's all the information available in English at this time, but Nintendo of Japan has posted a lengthy article written by the browser's development staff, who discuss -- and show in video -- several of the new options. The new zooming and scrolling functionality looks particularly nice, as there's all kinds of levels of zoom now, and scrolling is done by holding the B button and dragging the cursor.
Besides what's listed above, there's also an integrated Web search feature -- the icon is a pair of binoculars. And as shown above, if other Wiimotes are plugged in, other people can use their cursors to point at things on the screen, but not interact.
Sadly, there's still no option to connect a USB keyboard. The designers address this issue, saying they weren't able to do it for this release, but that it's something they'd "like to think about for the future".
If you click on the blue highlighted text in the Japanese article, you can view embedded Flash videos of the new features.
Development Staff Talk About Internet Channel [Nintendo.co.jp]
