Opera mini coming to the iPhone
Opera Software announced on Wednesday that they're going to offer a sneak peek of their Opera Mini web browser for the iPhone during Mobile World Congress 2010 (MWC). Several features of the Mac-based Opera will be included, like tabs, Speed Dial and the password manager, says Opera co-founder Jon von Tetzchner. He also mentioned his app's compression technology that will make browsing fast and reduce data surcharges. For more details than that, we'll have to wait until the cat has been let out of the bag.Two years ago, Opera claimed that they submitted an iPhone browser to the App Store only to have it rejected, a claim that was later refuted. In a comment posted to the Opera blog earlier today, Espen André Øverdahl, the Community Manager at Opera Software, said "We have not submitted it yet to the Apple App Store. However, we hope that Apple will not deny their users a choice in Web browsing experience."
Before you assume that Apple will deny an iPhone browser because of Mobile Safari, note that there are several other web browsers in the App Store already, including Perfect Browser 3, Full Browser and Mercury Web Browser. As John Gruber notes, however, the browsers that are in the store use the system version of WebKit.
[Via Daring Fireball]
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Opera Software announced on Wednesday that they're going to offer a sneak peek of their Opera Mini web browser for the iPhone during Mobile...
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It will probably be rejected.
I'll be surprised if it doesn't and the only chance I see that hapenning is if Apple makes an exception or something given how big Opera is on mobile browsing.
Take a look at Alternate Web Browser
February 10 2010 at 7:09 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThat's just another WebKit frontend, Opera has a *real* alternative rendering engine.
Not only is Opera faster but also offers more features (like server pre-processing and compression).
Firefox I care about, because I like the rendering engine. Opera not so much.
February 10 2010 at 6:24 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyOpera Mini was great back then on Windows Mobile.
From the looks of it development is still going fairly well.
Yeah ! The iPhone and iPad definitely need a new browser with a built in flash plugin... Just a question of being able to choose...
What we really need is a browser with flash. Someone should make that so we have a choice.
February 10 2010 at 5:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyOut of all the browsers, why would I ever use opera? Mini opera? I only assume it will be rejected, it appears Apple wants to control a user's iphone experience. Personally I do not see the value of opera, I am sure it has some great features, I just never saw the value. Safari, Firfox, Chrome, and IE are the big players, nottt opera....?
February 10 2010 at 4:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyOn the desktop Opera does not have a huge market share, however that's not even where Opera makes its money.
On cellphones and other devices (see Nintendo) Opera is a huge player, and that's why they are hugely profitable and expanding.
Opera has a great product for practically ALL platforms out there from Linux to Nintendo Wii. You should give it a try.
and I think that Opera should keep building apps for consoles (c'mon PS3, Wii is better!) and primitive mobile phones (incl windows mobile), and stay away from desktop computers and the iPhone and Android.
February 11 2010 at 2:08 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyApple is never going to approve a "web browser" that renders the web page on Opera servers and passes that back to the iPhone as an image. It's not gonna happen.
February 10 2010 at 4:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThat's *not* how Opera Mini processes webpages.
It does however *reduce* the size of images on the selected webpage so that you don't waste bandwith downloading huge photos...
Having used Opera off and on for years I can't say I'd be bothered if it got approved.
February 10 2010 at 4:00 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHow does it compare to the iCab Web Browser for the iPhone?
February 10 2010 at 3:59 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyiCab uses the build in Webkit/Safari engine to render the page .. so you really use Safari to surf, just the Interface is better.
MiniOpera will bring its own rendering engine which would be something new in the app store.
T
I love that iCab is still around. Brings me back to the Atari days (Crystal Atari Browser = CAB. The developer later wrote iCab.)
February 10 2010 at 5:26 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHot Apps on TUAW
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