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New iPad browser from Opera
- sspiff 13y agoThis promo site is a bit blurry on what it actually does. A browser with a focus on gestures sounds like it could be very useful, if done right. I haven't seen that many apps or platforms get gestures "right" though. I wonder what this browser is built from (Blink? What JS runtime?)
- jvzr 13y agoWebKit. Or else it wouldn't have been approved by Apple (or it's using a server-side engine, which I doubt).
- bla2 13y agoApple's app store doesn't allow apps that execute downloaded JavaScript without using the system WebKit library.
- do-it-good 13y agoAnd it doesn't run the JIT compiler. Which means all 3rd party browsers in non-jailbroken iOS are slower than Safari and Phonegap apps are a lot slower than native apps.
- sspiff 13y agoI had heard about the JS runtime restriction (which is why I was interested if Opera had avoided it somehow), but never heard about the JIT restriction. Is the JIT disabled for all third party apps? I was going to make a joke about Soviet app stores, but realized this isn't the place.
- captn3m0 13y agoJust noting that a "Nitrous", available on Cydia for jailbroken iPads, enables Nitro (JIT compiler for Safari) on all browsers.
- bla2 13y agoIt means javascript execution is slower in 3rd-party browsers. They can make up for that by e.g. using better networking libraries: http://www.guypo.com/mobile/ios-browsers-speed-bakeoff/ http://www.guypo.com/mobile/ios-browsers-speed-bakeoff/
- sspiff 13y agoThat still means it's a very asymmetric competition: by default, Apple has a significant head start because of the JIT. If others have to do some crazy engineering on networking libraries, nothing stops Apple from reusing the concepts the competition implements. The competition does not have this possibility with javascript engine improvements.
- Indyan 13y agoIt is Webkit powered. And perhaps the TechCrunch article can help you get a sense of what Opera is going for: http://www.techcrunch.com/2013/09/09/opera-launches-coast-its-new-webkit-based-ipad-browser/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2013/09/09/opera-launches-coast-it...
- skue 13y agoThat TechCrunch article includes this quote: > Kleinhout also noted that the team looked at how to keep users safe without having them evaluate lots of icons in the browser’s URL bar (which Coast doesn’t have). Instead of having to know what HTTPS is and how certificates work, Coast puts a very clear safety warning on the screen when it recognizes that the user is trying to access an unsafe site. I'm very curious to know how that works. I sure hope they don't simply show certificate errors but otherwise treat pages the same whether they are secure or not.
- chris_wot 13y agoGoogle search results show the Google search bar over the results. At least the first time. It's pretty fast though!
- chris_wot 13y agoI gotta say, I wish I knew more cool websites. Like truly awesome. There are a few in the link groupings.
- blankenship 13y agoThat’s one heavy-handed promo video for a web browser.
- AndreasFrom 13y agoToo bad it can't compete with Safari on performance, because the UI is interesting.
- baskalwabbit 13y agoAs others have pointed out, it uses the same core as Safari, so the performance should be nearly identical. So feel free to give it a shot!
- cytzol 13y agoActually, not quite - it uses UIWebView, which doesn't have some of Mobile Safari's JavaScript improvements, so no matter how hard it tries it won't quite be able to keep up.
- SG- 13y agoyou don't actually need insanely fast JS to load most web sites. i agree you'd need it for something highly interactive and intensive, but again not most websites.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- AndreasFrom 13y agoI actually find the difference noticeable when using Chrome on iOS. Only Safari can JIT Javascript for instance. At least with Chrome it also seems to run out of memory faster (it has access to less?).
- Trufa 13y agoA little bit off topic but I really don't like this new trend of breaking the scrolling of a site.
- glennos 13y agoI agree. I intuitively started scrolling and the iPad frame started spinning while the content moved sidewards. Very disorientating.
- BetaCygni 13y agoYeah, makes me physically ill. It feels like they caged me by disabling the default action of the scroll wheel.
- IanCal 13y agoAlso if you scroll around you can break it on chrome so there are multiple iPads. I cannot read this.
- manojlds 13y agoThe site doesn't even work right on Coast!
- deveac 13y agoIt doesn't make me want try their tablet browsing experience when they screw up the UI on my desktop.
- bengillies 13y agoAt least override the scrolling in the right direction (i.e. horizontally)
- Vektorweg 13y agoHow about css paged media?
- harrytuttle 13y agoSpot on. It's like the Flash/ActionScript developers of the early 00's have crawled out of their graves one night and worked out how to do splash screens again.
- mapleoin 13y agoWow, the website design is so bad that I can only see half of it and there's no scrollbar.
- manojlds 13y agoNice clean interface. And despite the iOS limitations, seems pretty fast. Like how the search shows a preview of the query being typed in Google. Like how the element you have clicked on glows as the page is loaded. Like the swipe interface and how smooth it is. Very nicely done Opera! But where is Opera Link??? I am not using one more browser that won't sync my existing bookmarks and speed dial.
- JohnTHaller 13y agoIt's important to note that, like all browsers on iOS, this is just a UI skin and added functionality over the Mobile Safari core (the slower one 3rd parties get access to). This isn't a true Opera browser based on the Blink core (Chrome/Chromium's now-forked WebKit core) that is/will be used by Opera on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.
- gsnedders 13y agoIt's worthwhile to note that Chrome (on iOS) uses its own network stack; I suspect Coast just uses the entire stock web stack (this is from having worked at Opera until recently — it shouldn't be that hard to verify through testing for presence of known bugs).
- rplnt 13y ago> like all browsers on iOS, this is just a UI skin and added functionality over the Mobile Safari core Not true, for example Opera Mini[1], perhaps others. I wouldn't jump to conclusions that fast. 1. http://www.opera.com/mobile/iphone http://www.opera.com/mobile/iphone
- JohnTHaller 13y agoOpera Mini represents the ONLY way to get around Apple's onerous restrictions: render the content entirely on servers and push it to the browser. It's inefficient and messy and makes for a less than stellar user experience. It also sets the barrier to entry very high. This is why you won't see Firefox on iOS. Mozilla would be happy to build it, but they won't live the lie of having a Firefox name on the Mobile Safari engine (in slower 3rd party mode). No one is jumping to conclusions here. This is the specific result Apple wants and is by design of their policies. It's well known and there's no debate over it. You can have your own browser on iOS, but it can't interpret JavaScript (no interpreted code on iOS), meaning it's completely useless on the modern internet. It's the perfect way to enforce a one-browser-to-rule-them-all rule, locking out all competitors, while couching it in a 'security' guideline.
- 13y ago
- vstepanyuk 13y agoShit
- VeejayRampay 13y agoAaaaannd it's gone.
- mholt 13y agoI'm getting 502 and 404 errors...
- rplnt 13y agoHere's a direct app store link https://itunes.apple.com/app/coast/id674024845 https://itunes.apple.com/app/coast/id674024845
- Grue3 13y ago"The requested URL /ru/frontpage was not found on this server."
- crazygringo 13y agoUgh. Do they think everyone has 50" monitors?! I can only see the top 1/4 of the initial iPad image on my screen... and when I try to scroll down to see the rest of the image, it moves on to the next one. Useless. Are there really people who just never use laptops?
- sp332 13y agoI don't think you're really supposed to scroll down on this site. There's nothing interesting down there.
- geuis 13y agoI tried viewing it on my phone (iOS 7) with little success too. I am not a fan of the change to Safari where going full screen is no longer a manual option. The pseudo swipe and resulting animation seem to be javascript animated too, which is extremely slow and jenky. Considering the intended audience, this experience is piss poor.
- vbl 13y agoTheir website for a new browser is ironically aggravating.
- null_ptr 13y agoI notice a lot of premium sites that are poorly executed. Either they look off if you dare increase the minimum font size a little (everything will overlap in a mad chaos, menus no longer work, etc. - this happens to the majority of websites out there today), or are unusable on mobile devices because they float large logos and menus on top of page content, obstructing it from view. It's amazing how despite an abundance of web professionals, there is still room for such poor experiences, on premium websites no less.
- jlgreco 13y agoConsidering the next image when you scroll down is the picture of the iPad rotated so that it does fit onto the screen, I suspect that it hangs off the screen intentionally at first (perhaps to encourage the user to scroll?)
- spyder 13y agoThe site is horribly broken for me in Firefox even after multiple reloads and after disabling AdBlock, cannot even read some text because scrolling stops at wrong places, some elements remains from previous pages...
- wmeredith 13y agoWeb sites like this are better for a designer's portfolio than the product they are pushing.
- rangibaby 13y agoThe gloss baked into the screen of the iPad not moving in relation to the imaginary light source as it rotated really annoyed me. Well, as much as that could possibly annoy someone. It's a major minor thing...
- umsm 13y agoThis is a bit off-topic, but these marketing efforts seem to take away from what the product is doing or trying to do. The first 50s of the video contains urban scenes with some dramatic music. It doesn't really explain what the product is, how it's useful or even how it's unique from the current competition. The product itself could be really really good, but I wouldn't know it from their video or website.
- bobsy 13y agoUsing Coast now.. I really want to like it. Trouble is it is slow.. you click a link and sometimes nothing happens. Also, i like tabs. I find a story on HN and just leave it on a tab for later and open HN in a new tab. Not sure how to do this with coast. Maybe create a bookmark? It is less simple than having tabs.
- Vektorweg 13y agoFunny. This website works fine in the old Presto-based opera.
- xenophanes 13y agocan't navigate with arrow keys, spacebar, pageup/down. have to roll mouse? or click the little arrows on edge of page. umm, wtf? no thx? bad website.
- ratherhost 13y agoUse a touch device, that is the whole point. There is no mouse. There is no keyboard.
- AaronMT 13y agoHere's the user-agent for those curious: Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 6_1_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Coast/1.0.2.62956 Mobile/10B146 Safari/7534.48.3 Interestingly, no 'tablet' token specified.
- skue 13y agoThis browser is a web security joke. 1. Unless you prefix URLs with http or https, you are relying on Opera and/or Google's algorithms to point you to the correct page. Some might say that's a feature, except... 2. You cannot see the URL of recommended pages before you select them or while you are browsing them. 3. There no indication whether you accessed a page via HTTP or HTTPS. This browser teaches users to ignore security. It assumes that no one ever enters a typo, that Google's search results can never be gamed, and that any anti-phishing functionality they have included (one would hope) is fully up to date. All the respect that I had for Opera as a company just vanished.
- mbitca 13y agoIt's there, just not out in the open. 1. Go to a web page 2. Click the "tabs" button in the bottom right corner 3. Press the "i" icon on the tab 4. Press the security circle for even more info
- skue 13y agoI know. You can tap on a button to reveal a button to show three more buttons to get some details. But there's a reason I didn't bother to mention that in my post: No one will ever do this. Edit: changed 'click' to 'tap' (old habits die hard)
- brongondwana 13y agoThe underlying problem is that nobody checks security indicators anyway.
- samweinberg 13y agoTrue, but hiding them will only make it worse.
- goldfeld 13y agoHaven't tried it yet, but this looks related to Firefox Junior[1] and the reason over which the product designer behind the initial idea got sued by Opera (since he came up with it while consulting on and off for Opera independently[2].) An interesting story and one that further tainted my respect for Opera. [1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5HPjhZeLYE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5HPjhZeLYE [2]: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/29/opera-claims-former-employee-gave-away-trade-secrets-to-mozilla-sues-him-for-3-4m/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/29/opera-claims-former...
- maxpert 13y agoI am posting it from Coast right now. I have to admit hands down to opera, there are some rough edges but I can see where they are going with this and it's awesome. For haters give them a chance they are the ones who gave the ideas for what lots of modern browsers are doing and you will see them doing some innovative stuff again (no fan talk history proves it)
- beyondcompute 13y agoAnother poorly designed web-site. Why the product is different? Because it's site is black and white and has video with boys and girls? Why tiny crumbs of valuable information are _written_? Is this information not _visual_ in nature? Can you show me how the thing operates? Screenshots? Animated gifs? Fancy CSS3 demos (animated gifs are better)? Schematically shown workflow?