7 ms·

Opera Mini approved for iPhone

258 points by apphacker 16y ago

antirez 16y ago
Just did a 20 minutes test: I'm loving it. It's amazing how I'm happy to trade features for speed. Also the UI is so much... like Fast Tracker :) That 2D interface that is clearly primitive but reacts like a videogame, instantaneously. Saving pages and fast access to favorites is also very cool, but speed is the real killer feature here IMHO.
ubernostrum 16y ago
I look at this as kind of amusing; my previous phone could only run Opera Mini, and the prospect of having a real web browser was one of the things which drove me to the iPhone. Mobile Safari's UI and its actual support for decently rendering pages (coupled with the privacy concerns Opera Mini's proxy system naturally raises) are so far ahead that I'm a bit surprised anyone would actually choose to use Opera Mini -- it's like I've stumbled into a bizarre parallel world where people are clamoring for the right to install and use IE6 as a replacement for Firefox or Chrome.
- bukster 16y ago
  Well put. Well people started making a fuss about Opera Mini getting approved I couldn't understand why. Safari on the iPhone is the best mobile browser out there in terms of both specification conformance and performance.
  - antirez 16y ago
    Because there is a percentage of people heating long waits... Safari is very nice but not responsive enough, and sometimes if you want just to read a news site, the user experience is just the same. Also I think that EDGE users will enjoy the fact that finally it's possible to have decent loading times of web pages. I live in a city covered by 3G but when I from in my home town it's almost impossible to suft the web with Safari, while it was ok with Opera Mini on a Nokia N70 phone. Opera Mini is surely not a drop in replacement for Safari Mobile, but it surely is a useful tool, much more useful than most of the other top-downloads in the Appstore.
- TallGuyShort 16y ago
  I hardly ever use my mobile browser, so I can't speak much for which one's better - but if nothing else, I think it's good that there's now more selection and variety available.
- dpritchett 16y ago
  In my few hours of use so far Opera Mini is the clear winner in terms of page load time, caching, and battery life. This is on a 3G. I have no good answers on the privacy side.
jackowayed 16y ago
USA: it's in the app store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id363729560?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id3637...
alextgordon 16y ago
The counter is still counting... http://my.opera.com/community/countup/ http://my.opera.com/community/countup/ edit: They've added a message, although the counter is still going
- apphacker 16y ago
  It's not available in the store yet.
  - romland 16y ago
    On the competition page it does say When do you think Opera Mini will be approved by Apple?
    - Frazzydee 16y ago
      And the last status update says "Opera Mini for iPhone was officially submitted to the [app store]". Although I find this hard to believe, signs point to Opera being late in updating the page. The time in Norway is 2:15 AM, but still...
- micrypt 16y ago
  Just enough time to send in a last minute guess then? :P
cmelbye 16y ago
My original guess (on the first day) for when it would be approved was pretty close; I was two days off.
- giantfuzzypanda 16y ago
  congratufuckinglations
stanleydrew 16y ago
Does the Opera browser app itself not interpret javascript? Is it offloaded to the iPhone's WebKit/rendering engine? Otherwise this would seem to fly in the face of the recent change to 3.3.1.
- sirn 16y ago
  Think of Opera Mini as an interactive image viewer. They interpret all JavaScript on the server side and sent result back to the client using OBML[1]. Or at least that's how it works on other device. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_Mini#Functionality
  - stanleydrew 16y ago
    Interesting. The section on JavaScript support is not encouraging actually. Can anyone report on attempting to use a js-heavy web-app through Opera Mini, e.g. Gmail?
    - sirn 16y ago
      From my experience with Opera Mini in Windows Mobile (since it's still not available in App Store), Gmail just fallback to the Basic HTML mode. It's safe to assume most JavaScript-heavy web apps won't going to work at all.
    - jackowayed 16y ago
      It's not great at AJAX. My brother has a Blackberry and mainly uses Opera, and the fact that Sporcle(.com) worked on my iPhone shocked him. Apparently Opera can't do onchange. Gmail just gives the normal HTML mobile version, like it did in the bad old days before iPhone.
      - kiiski 16y ago
        I just tested, and sporcle.com works well on Symbian. Does blackberry have it's own version of opera too?
    - 16y ago
gbookman 16y ago
They must've planned this as a way to placate pissed off app developers.
- IgorPartola 16y ago
  They don't give a crap about the developers or what the developers think about them.
  - cgranade 16y ago
    They should, or else they'll lose developers to a platform run by a company that does.
    - stanleydrew 16y ago
      Hopefully...
  - gbookman 16y ago
    Then why would they invest millions, if not billions, in creating, enhancing, and supporting developer tools? Obviously they only do so to benefit themselves, but it's quite clear from their actions that Apple does care about developers.
    - IgorPartola 16y ago
      Put it this way: they don't care about what the developers have to say about their platform or their policies and they assume that whatever minority of developers has left their platform will be replaced by an army of new ones. I mean, how many people have actually dropped their development for the iPhone/iPad? Have you noticed it?
      - ErrantX 16y ago
        out of my friends (who develop for the iPhone)? One or two. Most are still staying onboard (maybe... 25 or so). Don't forget this is the internet; like most things the disgruntled developers will be the most vocal. That doesn't necessarily make them a majority - or even a large minority.
barredo 16y ago
Link to the AppStore http://itunes.apple.com/uk/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id363729560?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/uk/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id3637... — It's not as fast as I expected, but still For now: "un-zommed" content is unreadable, for instance, nytimes.com in Opera http://cl.ly/JIP http://cl.ly/JIP vs Safari Mobile: http://cl.ly/J9i http://cl.ly/J9i (which is also unreadable, but well, I can distinct letters)
- kordless 16y ago
  Says "not currently available in the US store".
- chrisbolt 16y ago
  Both of your screenshots appear to be of Opera.
  - barredo 16y ago
    Fixed that :-O
- danudey 16y ago
  Frustratingly, it's not available on the Canadian App Store. I wonder if there's a reason for that, or if it just hasn't propagated yet.
  - some1else 16y ago
    A lot of the apps don't trickle down from the US store to local stores :-/
  - afterburner 16y ago
    Downloaded in Canada.
- hkuo 16y ago
  This is a major problem. Without even being able to read the article titles, there is literally nothing you can scan to decide where you want to look, what you want to click, or even just what you want to zoom in on. I can make out the Sheraton logo though? Maybe Opera takes a cut of banner ad clicks and wants those to be the only things we can read without zooming in?
IgorPartola 16y ago
Firefox mobile next?
- danudey 16y ago
  Unlikely. Opera Mini works by doing all the rendering on the server-side, and then sending the pre-rendered website to the client. It's not actually a browser, so much as an app that gets screenshots from a server-side browser. Firefox, on the other hand, would be a real browser, running Javascript rendering and Gecko on the phone itself, which would not be allowed. That said, I don't understand why anyone would want Firefox anyway. The iPhone's limited memory and CPU would likely make Firefox nearly unusable, while extensions would eat away at what little free space was left. Firefox isn't optimized for the mobile space, and I can't think of any features it would provide that would make it a better choice than Safari (or, on Android, the built-in WebKit browser).
  - CoachRufus87 16y ago
    what about encrypted/secured pages?
    - Maktab 16y ago
      The connection is only encrypted between the web site and Opera's servers, and Opera's servers and your phone. Opera's servers see all the data in its unencrypted form. From their FAQ[1]: Is there any end-to-end security between my handset and — for example — paypal.com or my bank? No. If you need full end-to-end encryption, you should use a full Web browser such as Opera Mobile. Opera Mini uses a transcoder server to translate HTML/CSS/JavaScript into a more compact format. It will also shrink any images to fit the screen of your handset. This translation step makes Opera Mini fast, small, and also very cheap to use. To be able to do this translation, the Opera Mini server needs to have access to the unencrypted version of the Web page. Therefore no end-to-end encryption between the client and the remote Web server is possible. [1]http://www.opera.com/mobile/help/faq/#security http://www.opera.com/mobile/help/faq/#security
  - elpuri 16y ago
niravs 16y ago
I'm shocked. The app is still somewhat crippled though, all links from other Apps can only be opened in Safari. So, not the same as switching a browser on your desktop or laptop. Nonetheless it seems like a step in the right direction.
- yanw 16y ago
  I'm not sure it's surprising, I suspect Opera-mini's nature of preprocessing and compression might have helped it get approved because of the bandwidth saving promise for AT&T.
  - tcdent 16y ago
    Nothing to do with AT&T or bandwidth; the preprocessing and compression are what make it abide by Apple's TOS.
bdwalter 16y ago
Now its time for Chrome!
- some1else 16y ago
  Opera complements Safari in a sense. It's an app to browse with on the ancient networks with bad reception. Chrome might conflict too much with MobileSafari's core functionality, so it would really be a miracle if it was approved. + Does Google even want to compete there? Chrome on the desktop may have some strategic value beyond spreading the Google brand, but is there anything exceptional made 'the Google way' in the Android browser?
mikebo 16y ago
I wonder if Apple keeps ambiguous apps like this on hold for when they really need a PR win. Maybe we'll see Google Voice next?
- ramchip 16y ago
  20 days isn't that long though. Just think about the time it takes to get anything approved by the government...
  - pxlpshr 16y ago
    The iPad + OS 4.0 backed up the approval process. We submitted before Opera, took about 14 days. Previously it's been about 5-7 days for new apps as Apple has been making a lot of improvements.
  - skeletonjelly 16y ago
    I'd garner that approvals for an application are drastically different then government approvals. At least stringent government requirements are there for a reason.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
gizmo 16y ago
First impressions: 1. it's very responsive. Much snappier than Safari; the difference is very noticeable. 2. pages download much quicker 3. zooming in and out is faster, but you only have two zoom levels. If you "pinch to zoom" it immediately zooms in all the way. 4. the home screen with 9 favorites works great 5. it's a little buggy (clicks don't always register) 6. killer feature #1: it automatically stores the entire app state, so you can open a few tabs, switch apps, go back and have everything the way you left it. This is a big deal, because Safari forgets your pages eventually, which is so frustrating when you have your travel plans in a safari tab and 3G is not exactly reliable. 7. killer feature #2: you can save pages 8. In full screen mode it makes for a pretty decent reader. 9. It doesn't suffer from "too small font" syndrome. 10. It has this "Snap to column" thing where your view automatically snaps to the column edges. This makes reading more like reading on Instapaper and less like safari. 11. It loads instantly, even when I have 3 tabs open. It's really that fast. The only real downsides I know of so far are that it has trouble rendering more complex web pages, invades my privacy and doesn't do Javascript. Flash content simply doesn't appear (so you don't even know it should be there) and YouTube links don't link to the YouTube app. Still very impressive.
- isani 16y ago
  For me, Opera seemed to forget tab contents after opening just 2-3 of them. It also displays a "please refresh" message instead of automatically reloading the contents. I've also seen a bug where all the tabs turn to grey, inactive rectangles. You have to kill the app and lose all your tabs.
  - dagw 16y ago
    For an app where one of the main selling points is to cut down on the number of bytes sent, not auto reloading pages should be seen as a feature. If I need the page reloaded I can do so when I need it, and if I don't then doing so is just a waste.
- jbm 16y ago
  I hate saying this, but I am having the opposite issue. It is not responsive at all; I tried clicking on any of the links and it just hangs. Are the intermediate servers being slashdotted or something, I wonder? I'll give it a shot again later on this week I guess.
arpit 16y ago
Big question then, can you embed Opera as the browser in your native app just as you can Safari?
- labria 16y ago
  I don't think so, unless Opera Software gives you the sources.
aresant 16y ago
What are plans for iPad version? Would love tabs for the browser.
jstevens85 16y ago
Does anyone know how Opera makes money from this version? Surely the bandwidth and computational costs of processing, compressing and sending out webpages would exceed revenue from Google search, right?
- naner 16y ago
  Well they know every page everyone visits and everything they click on, etc. What does the privacy policy say?
  - glymor 16y ago
    Opera does not store any users’ private information. Opera generates statistics of the usage of Opera Mini, but these are aggregated numbers and no information can be linked to a single user. http://www.opera.com/mobile/help/faq/#privacy http://www.opera.com/mobile/help/faq/#privacy
- barredo 16y ago
  I guess it's a bit about brand awareness
- raquo 16y ago
  Usually, OEMs pay Opera to have it preinstalled on their devices. That's obviously not the case with Apple...
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
vais 16y ago
Downloaded it for the Find in Page feature and uninstalled pretty much immediately - I thought it would be serious competition for my Find In Page plugin for Safari and finally deliver this functionality in a native way. Instead, over 60% of the screen is permanently covered by the toolbar at the top and the keypad at the bottom. No way to scroll either while in the Find in Page mode. No way to step backwards throught search results either - next button only. What were you guys thinking?! Find in Page could have been a killer feature for you over Safari, and it falls way short. In addition, the app does not feel Cocoa Touch-like - UI elements look faked and the feel is different. Sorry, I had much higher expectations for days waiting for the release, and it just did not deliver iPhone-like experience. Better luck in the next version, I guess. BTW, love Opera on the desktop! PS: almost forgot - PDF is not supported at all and is delegated to Safari instead!
justinchen 16y ago
For those that want to test for Opera Mini without the iphone: http://www.opera.com/mobile/demo/ http://www.opera.com/mobile/demo/ Also, don't forget to add the user agents: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/designing-with-opera-mini-in-mind/ http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/designing-with-opera-mini...
mannkind 16y ago
Opera: Irrelevant on yet another platform. Opera mini is great on a normal phone, but silly and pointless on a platform with with a real browser like the iPhone OS and Android.
- Shorel 16y ago
  No, not really. Not everybody has great broadband mobile connections. Android has a very good browser with WiFi, but it is totally useless with my Edge connection. Opera on the other hand is amazingly fast with any connection I have tested. YMMV
bruceboughton 16y ago
Scrolling requires repeated swipes. Links and buttons require multiple taps to activate, and some cannot be activate at all. (stay signed in checkbox on myOpenID). Initial zoom levep is useless with unreadable text. Zoomed in level feels too zoomed in without ability to adjust. But worst of all, the text area editor is custom--no autocorrection. This comment has takem far too long to edit. In short, a really poorly executed app that should not have been approved, save for the crapstorm banning it would have caused.
- bruceboughton 16y ago
  Sorry for the typos--i was correcting as I went along if you can believe that.
ttjervaag 16y ago
I wrote up my initial impressions here: http://thedailyt.com/2010/04/opera-mini-for-the-iphone-initial-impressions/ http://thedailyt.com/2010/04/opera-mini-for-the-iphone-initi... I have to agree with most posters here. It's a nice start and I think it's a very good thing there's now a competing browser engine in the App Store. It has quite a few non-native feeling elements to it, so if they iron out the kinks and give it a bit more of an iPhone feel it'll be a good contender. The usual Opera instant back function (no reloading of pages on clicking the back button) is killer!
thought_alarm 16y ago
First impressions: 1. It renders pages in exactly the same way it does on my Blackberry. 2. The UI is just as awkward. Amazing.
- mikeyur 16y ago
  Friend of mine: "Opera Mini's flagrant disregard for UI conventions would get any other app rejected." Pretty much sums up my thoughts. It's bad on so many levels and somehow received special treatment.
  - neonfunk 16y ago
    So, wait: you think it should have been rejected for not following UI conventions? My first thought is that plenty of games have UIs built from scratch. I think the conventions are just that: conventions.
  - axod 16y ago
    Maybe it's fine to duplicate existing functionality on the iPhone if you do it so badly that there's no danger of anyone actually using it.
    - whalesalad 16y ago
      That's the overruling statement right there for most of this App store shenanigans.., if something sucks people won't use it, and it won't be a threat.
rimantas 16y ago
I've just visited acid3.acidtests.org. That was funny on several levels :)

258 points by apphacker 16y ago

Just did a 20 minutes test: I'm loving it. It's amazing how I'm happy to trade features for speed. Also the UI is so much... like Fast Tracker :) That 2D interface that is clearly primitive but reacts like a videogame, instantaneously. Saving pages and fast access to favorites is also very cool, but speed is the real killer feature here IMHO.

ubernostrum 16y ago

I look at this as kind of amusing; my previous phone could only run Opera Mini, and the prospect of having a real web browser was one of the things which drove me to the iPhone. Mobile Safari's UI and its actual support for decently rendering pages (coupled with the privacy concerns Opera Mini's proxy system naturally raises) are so far ahead that I'm a bit surprised anyone would actually choose to use Opera Mini -- it's like I've stumbled into a bizarre parallel world where people are clamoring for the right to install and use IE6 as a replacement for Firefox or Chrome.

bukster 16y ago
Well put. Well people started making a fuss about Opera Mini getting approved I couldn't understand why. Safari on the iPhone is the best mobile browser out there in terms of both specification conformance and performance.
- antirez 16y ago
  Because there is a percentage of people heating long waits... Safari is very nice but not responsive enough, and sometimes if you want just to read a news site, the user experience is just the same. Also I think that EDGE users will enjoy the fact that finally it's possible to have decent loading times of web pages. I live in a city covered by 3G but when I from in my home town it's almost impossible to suft the web with Safari, while it was ok with Opera Mini on a Nokia N70 phone. Opera Mini is surely not a drop in replacement for Safari Mobile, but it surely is a useful tool, much more useful than most of the other top-downloads in the Appstore.
TallGuyShort 16y ago
I hardly ever use my mobile browser, so I can't speak much for which one's better - but if nothing else, I think it's good that there's now more selection and variety available.
dpritchett 16y ago
In my few hours of use so far Opera Mini is the clear winner in terms of page load time, caching, and battery life. This is on a 3G. I have no good answers on the privacy side.

jackowayed 16y ago

USA: it's in the app store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id363729560?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id3637...

alextgordon 16y ago

The counter is still counting... http://my.opera.com/community/countup/ http://my.opera.com/community/countup/ edit: They've added a message, although the counter is still going

apphacker 16y ago
It's not available in the store yet.
- romland 16y ago
  On the competition page it does say When do you think Opera Mini will be approved by Apple?
  - Frazzydee 16y ago
    And the last status update says "Opera Mini for iPhone was officially submitted to the [app store]". Although I find this hard to believe, signs point to Opera being late in updating the page. The time in Norway is 2:15 AM, but still...
micrypt 16y ago
Just enough time to send in a last minute guess then? :P

cmelbye 16y ago

My original guess (on the first day) for when it would be approved was pretty close; I was two days off.

giantfuzzypanda 16y ago
congratufuckinglations

stanleydrew 16y ago

Does the Opera browser app itself not interpret javascript? Is it offloaded to the iPhone's WebKit/rendering engine? Otherwise this would seem to fly in the face of the recent change to 3.3.1.

sirn 16y ago
Think of Opera Mini as an interactive image viewer. They interpret all JavaScript on the server side and sent result back to the client using OBML[1]. Or at least that's how it works on other device. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_Mini#Functionality
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  Interesting. The section on JavaScript support is not encouraging actually. Can anyone report on attempting to use a js-heavy web-app through Opera Mini, e.g. Gmail?
  - sirn 16y ago
    From my experience with Opera Mini in Windows Mobile (since it's still not available in App Store), Gmail just fallback to the Basic HTML mode. It's safe to assume most JavaScript-heavy web apps won't going to work at all.
  - jackowayed 16y ago
    It's not great at AJAX. My brother has a Blackberry and mainly uses Opera, and the fact that Sporcle(.com) worked on my iPhone shocked him. Apparently Opera can't do onchange. Gmail just gives the normal HTML mobile version, like it did in the bad old days before iPhone.
    - kiiski 16y ago
      I just tested, and sporcle.com works well on Symbian. Does blackberry have it's own version of opera too?
  - 16y ago

gbookman 16y ago

They must've planned this as a way to placate pissed off app developers.

IgorPartola 16y ago
They don't give a crap about the developers or what the developers think about them.
- cgranade 16y ago
  They should, or else they'll lose developers to a platform run by a company that does.
  - stanleydrew 16y ago
    Hopefully...
- gbookman 16y ago
  Then why would they invest millions, if not billions, in creating, enhancing, and supporting developer tools? Obviously they only do so to benefit themselves, but it's quite clear from their actions that Apple does care about developers.
  - IgorPartola 16y ago
    Put it this way: they don't care about what the developers have to say about their platform or their policies and they assume that whatever minority of developers has left their platform will be replaced by an army of new ones. I mean, how many people have actually dropped their development for the iPhone/iPad? Have you noticed it?
    - ErrantX 16y ago
      out of my friends (who develop for the iPhone)? One or two. Most are still staying onboard (maybe... 25 or so). Don't forget this is the internet; like most things the disgruntled developers will be the most vocal. That doesn't necessarily make them a majority - or even a large minority.

barredo 16y ago

Link to the AppStore http://itunes.apple.com/uk/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id363729560?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/uk/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id3637... — It's not as fast as I expected, but still For now: "un-zommed" content is unreadable, for instance, nytimes.com in Opera http://cl.ly/JIP http://cl.ly/JIP vs Safari Mobile: http://cl.ly/J9i http://cl.ly/J9i (which is also unreadable, but well, I can distinct letters)

kordless 16y ago
Says "not currently available in the US store".
chrisbolt 16y ago
Both of your screenshots appear to be of Opera.
- barredo 16y ago
  Fixed that :-O
danudey 16y ago
Frustratingly, it's not available on the Canadian App Store. I wonder if there's a reason for that, or if it just hasn't propagated yet.
- some1else 16y ago
  A lot of the apps don't trickle down from the US store to local stores :-/
- afterburner 16y ago
  Downloaded in Canada.
hkuo 16y ago
This is a major problem. Without even being able to read the article titles, there is literally nothing you can scan to decide where you want to look, what you want to click, or even just what you want to zoom in on. I can make out the Sheraton logo though? Maybe Opera takes a cut of banner ad clicks and wants those to be the only things we can read without zooming in?

IgorPartola 16y ago

Firefox mobile next?

danudey 16y ago
Unlikely. Opera Mini works by doing all the rendering on the server-side, and then sending the pre-rendered website to the client. It's not actually a browser, so much as an app that gets screenshots from a server-side browser. Firefox, on the other hand, would be a real browser, running Javascript rendering and Gecko on the phone itself, which would not be allowed. That said, I don't understand why anyone would want Firefox anyway. The iPhone's limited memory and CPU would likely make Firefox nearly unusable, while extensions would eat away at what little free space was left. Firefox isn't optimized for the mobile space, and I can't think of any features it would provide that would make it a better choice than Safari (or, on Android, the built-in WebKit browser).
- CoachRufus87 16y ago
  what about encrypted/secured pages?
  - Maktab 16y ago
    The connection is only encrypted between the web site and Opera's servers, and Opera's servers and your phone. Opera's servers see all the data in its unencrypted form. From their FAQ[1]: Is there any end-to-end security between my handset and — for example — paypal.com or my bank? No. If you need full end-to-end encryption, you should use a full Web browser such as Opera Mobile. Opera Mini uses a transcoder server to translate HTML/CSS/JavaScript into a more compact format. It will also shrink any images to fit the screen of your handset. This translation step makes Opera Mini fast, small, and also very cheap to use. To be able to do this translation, the Opera Mini server needs to have access to the unencrypted version of the Web page. Therefore no end-to-end encryption between the client and the remote Web server is possible. [1]http://www.opera.com/mobile/help/faq/#security http://www.opera.com/mobile/help/faq/#security
- elpuri 16y ago

niravs 16y ago

I'm shocked. The app is still somewhat crippled though, all links from other Apps can only be opened in Safari. So, not the same as switching a browser on your desktop or laptop. Nonetheless it seems like a step in the right direction.

yanw 16y ago
I'm not sure it's surprising, I suspect Opera-mini's nature of preprocessing and compression might have helped it get approved because of the bandwidth saving promise for AT&T.
- tcdent 16y ago
  Nothing to do with AT&T or bandwidth; the preprocessing and compression are what make it abide by Apple's TOS.

bdwalter 16y ago

Now its time for Chrome!

some1else 16y ago
Opera complements Safari in a sense. It's an app to browse with on the ancient networks with bad reception. Chrome might conflict too much with MobileSafari's core functionality, so it would really be a miracle if it was approved. + Does Google even want to compete there? Chrome on the desktop may have some strategic value beyond spreading the Google brand, but is there anything exceptional made 'the Google way' in the Android browser?

mikebo 16y ago

I wonder if Apple keeps ambiguous apps like this on hold for when they really need a PR win. Maybe we'll see Google Voice next?

ramchip 16y ago
20 days isn't that long though. Just think about the time it takes to get anything approved by the government...
- pxlpshr 16y ago
  The iPad + OS 4.0 backed up the approval process. We submitted before Opera, took about 14 days. Previously it's been about 5-7 days for new apps as Apple has been making a lot of improvements.
- skeletonjelly 16y ago
  I'd garner that approvals for an application are drastically different then government approvals. At least stringent government requirements are there for a reason.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

gizmo 16y ago

First impressions: 1. it's very responsive. Much snappier than Safari; the difference is very noticeable. 2. pages download much quicker 3. zooming in and out is faster, but you only have two zoom levels. If you "pinch to zoom" it immediately zooms in all the way. 4. the home screen with 9 favorites works great 5. it's a little buggy (clicks don't always register) 6. killer feature #1: it automatically stores the entire app state, so you can open a few tabs, switch apps, go back and have everything the way you left it. This is a big deal, because Safari forgets your pages eventually, which is so frustrating when you have your travel plans in a safari tab and 3G is not exactly reliable. 7. killer feature #2: you can save pages 8. In full screen mode it makes for a pretty decent reader. 9. It doesn't suffer from "too small font" syndrome. 10. It has this "Snap to column" thing where your view automatically snaps to the column edges. This makes reading more like reading on Instapaper and less like safari. 11. It loads instantly, even when I have 3 tabs open. It's really that fast. The only real downsides I know of so far are that it has trouble rendering more complex web pages, invades my privacy and doesn't do Javascript. Flash content simply doesn't appear (so you don't even know it should be there) and YouTube links don't link to the YouTube app. Still very impressive.

isani 16y ago
For me, Opera seemed to forget tab contents after opening just 2-3 of them. It also displays a "please refresh" message instead of automatically reloading the contents. I've also seen a bug where all the tabs turn to grey, inactive rectangles. You have to kill the app and lose all your tabs.
- dagw 16y ago
  For an app where one of the main selling points is to cut down on the number of bytes sent, not auto reloading pages should be seen as a feature. If I need the page reloaded I can do so when I need it, and if I don't then doing so is just a waste.
jbm 16y ago
I hate saying this, but I am having the opposite issue. It is not responsive at all; I tried clicking on any of the links and it just hangs. Are the intermediate servers being slashdotted or something, I wonder? I'll give it a shot again later on this week I guess.

arpit 16y ago

Big question then, can you embed Opera as the browser in your native app just as you can Safari?

labria 16y ago
I don't think so, unless Opera Software gives you the sources.

aresant 16y ago

What are plans for iPad version? Would love tabs for the browser.

jstevens85 16y ago

Does anyone know how Opera makes money from this version? Surely the bandwidth and computational costs of processing, compressing and sending out webpages would exceed revenue from Google search, right?

naner 16y ago
Well they know every page everyone visits and everything they click on, etc. What does the privacy policy say?
- glymor 16y ago
  Opera does not store any users’ private information. Opera generates statistics of the usage of Opera Mini, but these are aggregated numbers and no information can be linked to a single user. http://www.opera.com/mobile/help/faq/#privacy http://www.opera.com/mobile/help/faq/#privacy
barredo 16y ago
I guess it's a bit about brand awareness
raquo 16y ago
Usually, OEMs pay Opera to have it preinstalled on their devices. That's obviously not the case with Apple...

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

vais 16y ago

Downloaded it for the Find in Page feature and uninstalled pretty much immediately - I thought it would be serious competition for my Find In Page plugin for Safari and finally deliver this functionality in a native way. Instead, over 60% of the screen is permanently covered by the toolbar at the top and the keypad at the bottom. No way to scroll either while in the Find in Page mode. No way to step backwards throught search results either - next button only. What were you guys thinking?! Find in Page could have been a killer feature for you over Safari, and it falls way short. In addition, the app does not feel Cocoa Touch-like - UI elements look faked and the feel is different. Sorry, I had much higher expectations for days waiting for the release, and it just did not deliver iPhone-like experience. Better luck in the next version, I guess. BTW, love Opera on the desktop! PS: almost forgot - PDF is not supported at all and is delegated to Safari instead!

justinchen 16y ago

For those that want to test for Opera Mini without the iphone: http://www.opera.com/mobile/demo/ http://www.opera.com/mobile/demo/ Also, don't forget to add the user agents: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/designing-with-opera-mini-in-mind/ http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/designing-with-opera-mini...

mannkind 16y ago

Opera: Irrelevant on yet another platform. Opera mini is great on a normal phone, but silly and pointless on a platform with with a real browser like the iPhone OS and Android.

Shorel 16y ago
No, not really. Not everybody has great broadband mobile connections. Android has a very good browser with WiFi, but it is totally useless with my Edge connection. Opera on the other hand is amazingly fast with any connection I have tested. YMMV

bruceboughton 16y ago

Scrolling requires repeated swipes. Links and buttons require multiple taps to activate, and some cannot be activate at all. (stay signed in checkbox on myOpenID). Initial zoom levep is useless with unreadable text. Zoomed in level feels too zoomed in without ability to adjust. But worst of all, the text area editor is custom--no autocorrection. This comment has takem far too long to edit. In short, a really poorly executed app that should not have been approved, save for the crapstorm banning it would have caused.

bruceboughton 16y ago
Sorry for the typos--i was correcting as I went along if you can believe that.

ttjervaag 16y ago

I wrote up my initial impressions here: http://thedailyt.com/2010/04/opera-mini-for-the-iphone-initial-impressions/ http://thedailyt.com/2010/04/opera-mini-for-the-iphone-initi... I have to agree with most posters here. It's a nice start and I think it's a very good thing there's now a competing browser engine in the App Store. It has quite a few non-native feeling elements to it, so if they iron out the kinks and give it a bit more of an iPhone feel it'll be a good contender. The usual Opera instant back function (no reloading of pages on clicking the back button) is killer!

thought_alarm 16y ago

First impressions: 1. It renders pages in exactly the same way it does on my Blackberry. 2. The UI is just as awkward. Amazing.

mikeyur 16y ago
Friend of mine: "Opera Mini's flagrant disregard for UI conventions would get any other app rejected." Pretty much sums up my thoughts. It's bad on so many levels and somehow received special treatment.
- neonfunk 16y ago
  So, wait: you think it should have been rejected for not following UI conventions? My first thought is that plenty of games have UIs built from scratch. I think the conventions are just that: conventions.
- axod 16y ago
  Maybe it's fine to duplicate existing functionality on the iPhone if you do it so badly that there's no danger of anyone actually using it.
  - whalesalad 16y ago
    That's the overruling statement right there for most of this App store shenanigans.., if something sucks people won't use it, and it won't be a threat.

rimantas 16y ago

I've just visited acid3.acidtests.org. That was funny on several levels :)