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> Today I'm glad I don't have to use Opera Mini anymore, and as a programmer, I hope that my software will at some point have such a strong positive impact on s
by lysace 1y ago
> Today I'm glad I don't have to use Opera Mini anymore, and as a programmer, I hope that my software will at some point have such a strong positive impact on somebody's live as Opera Mini had on mine.
That was so nice to read! We were a small team and we really cared about making it as nice to use as possible.
To be perfectly honest though, we kind of built it for ourselves. Mobile data was really expensive and we were addicted to the web. I have a vague memory of mobile data pricing being like 2 USD/MB over 2G in Sweden when we started building it (2004). Sounds insane now. That progress bar clearly showing how many kilobytes of data you were using was a conscious design decision. There was real money at stake for the user.
- vel0city 1y agoin like 2005, one could get an unlimited data add-on to an AT&T dumb phone for something like $15/mo. If you managed to get a 3G dumb phone, you'd get a 3G-enabled SIM card. Just take the SIM and pop it in whatever GSM device supporting the right frequencies and boom cheap unlimited data. It seemed like as long as you didn't use a device AT&T sold they never noticed it wasn't your cheap dumb phone. It was tricky buying Euro phones. They'd mostly work but usually didn't support the more widespread lower frequencies for AT&T (was it 850 or 900MHz? I don't quite remember). Usually the higher frequencies were well supported like 1900MHz and 2100MHz, but those were pretty hit and miss on coverage and would often die once you went inside a big building.