Shocker: Apple Approves Opera Mini App for iPhone

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tayb

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Tried it out yesterday on my iPod Touch. It sucks. The page caching might be useful if I was on Edge but I don't notice any speed improvements over wi-fi. The menu is clumsy, red, and wastes way too much screen real estate but by far the worst thing about Opera Mini is how it renders pages. You have to zoom in to be able to read anything. Going to a news site such as Digg is readable on Safari without zooming in and completely incomprehensible on Opera.

I was actually looking forward to this release but I already deleted it. The whole tabbed browsing and fast Edge page loads is nice but irrelevant for me and it most definitely doesn't overcome all the negatives. They should have spent more time before releasing this.
 

touchdowntexas13

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Downloading for Ipod Touch...

This is something I would like to see more of. It's kind of sad that there are SO many apps out there, but up until recently there really has only been one browser to use. I hope Apple loosens their grip and allows more of this stuff to happen. I also hope they don't remove Opera from the app store after they find out a lot of people are downloading it...
 

zoemayne

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now chrome and firefox should do so

maybe they approved it cause it sucks so much and the fools who are cheap enough to be on an edge network wont be smart enough to download this app.
 

Hilarion

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[citation][nom]tayb[/nom]Tried it out yesterday on my iPod Touch. It sucks. The page caching might be useful if I was on Edge but I don't notice any speed improvements over wi-fi. The menu is clumsy, red, and wastes way too much screen real estate but by far the worst thing about Opera Mini is how it renders pages. You have to zoom in to be able to read anything. Going to a news site such as Digg is readable on Safari without zooming in and completely incomprehensible on Opera. I was actually looking forward to this release but I already deleted it. The whole tabbed browsing and fast Edge page loads is nice but irrelevant for me and it most definitely doesn't overcome all the negatives. They should have spent more time before releasing this.[/citation]
I would say that the only reason they approved it then, was to make their own browser look so good that Opera mini would be rejected by the Apple Almighty Sheeple vindicating Apple Almighty's so-called "wisdom" about what to approve.
 
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i recall MS recently lost an anti-monopoly law suit with regards bundling web browsers with OS.....
 

gm0n3y

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[citation][nom]tayb[/nom]by far the worst thing about Opera Mini is how it renders pages[/citation]

Yeah, this pretty much makes it useless unless the site has a good mobile version. It only lets you view the whole page or zoom in fully, no intermediate zoom. Very iritating.

I actually like the way they've done tabs, and it does seem quite a bit faster to me. If they can fix the zooming / font rendering, I'll definitely start using it.
 

tayb

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[citation][nom]gm0n3y[/nom]Yeah, this pretty much makes it useless unless the site has a good mobile version. It only lets you view the whole page or zoom in fully, no intermediate zoom. Very iritating.I actually like the way they've done tabs, and it does seem quite a bit faster to me. If they can fix the zooming / font rendering, I'll definitely start using it.[/citation]

Are you using cellular connection? Over wi-fi the speed difference was negligible. The tabbed browsing is not bad but it's the entire interface. Takes up way too much screen real estate, is very bland, and it's an obnoxious red. I could definitely live with the interface if they fixed the page rendering but as of right now it's not worth owning.
 

gekko668

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Tried it on my ipod touch and was disappointed because its able to display flash advertisements but not flash content from video streaming websites. :(
 

gm0n3y

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[citation][nom]tayb[/nom]Are you using cellular connection? Over wi-fi the speed difference was negligible. The tabbed browsing is not bad but it's the entire interface. Takes up way too much screen real estate, is very bland, and it's an obnoxious red. I could definitely live with the interface if they fixed the page rendering but as of right now it's not worth owning.[/citation]

I'm using a cell connection (at work). I don't find that it takes up much real estate. The only difference between OperaMini and Safari as far as that is concered is the red bar, which I don't find offensive at all. The tabbed browsing takes up space, but only when you are switching tabs and its still better than what Safari has.
 

Ragnar-Kon

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[citation][nom]gekko668[/nom]Tried it on my ipod touch and was disappointed because its able to display flash advertisements but not flash content from video streaming websites.[/citation]
Apple would have never approved the app if it had flash. I doubt Opera is displaying flash advertisements, they are probably just gifs/html5 advertisements that display if the page detects flash isn't installed.

Not having flash on the iPhone/iPod Touch is probably one of the better choices Apple has made imo. I jailbroke my iPod Touch, and installed Flash and it completely tanked my battery life (and people would be angry at Apple if they claimed a 5 hour battery life and only got 2). Now, Apple blocking Flash CS5's app compiler... thats a different story.
 
[citation][nom]gm0n3y[/nom]Yeah, this pretty much makes it useless unless the site has a good mobile version. It only lets you view the whole page or zoom in fully, no intermediate zoom. Very iritating.I actually like the way they've done tabs, and it does seem quite a bit faster to me. If they can fix the zooming / font rendering, I'll definitely start using it.[/citation]

The windows mobile version lets you do intermediate zoom...I've had Opera for years and I've always been very happy with it's page rendering. It'll fit text to the screen automatically instead of having to use the touchscreen to scroll all the time..
 

athreex

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Those of you with iPhones will know that Apple sometimes rejects useful applications because they perform (or out perform) a similar feature or application offered by Apple on the iPhone.

Nice news. This little extract is interesting. If Kevin Parrish were in charge of this news, the first statement would be somewhat different. (BTW Mr. Parrish if you're reading this, I'm not saying this in a bashing or criticism way). Indeed, it shows how different we can express news even when writing news about an app's approval. Cheers
 

qwed88

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I tried it yesterday and loved it. I didn't really notice any wasted screen space, I use it in full screen mode any way.
I really like the way pages move as you drag them with your finger, and I might actually prefer the double tap to zoom, though they do need to add a pinch feature to it too.
The quick dial page is great.
 

gm0n3y

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I just tried out the full screen option, and its pretty cool. Lets you see a bit more. Still useless though since I can't read anything without zooming to full size.
 

mbmcavoy

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I *very briefly* tried it on my 1G iPod Touch this morning.

Since speed is the primary advertised feature, I checked a couple normally very slow-to-render sites including Tom's Hardware and the Seattle Times. Wow, fast indeed!!!

Initial impressions: I did not find it very intuitive or easy to use. As others mentioned, I had to zoom to read anything, and the zoom/scroll features were a bit clumsy in comparison to Safari. It seemed there were many features with unclear purposes taking up a lot of pixels. Maybe with a bit more time I will discover their purpose and appreciate them, but in the first few minutes they just got in the way.

Apple has distilled Safari to "essence of browser", which is what makes it so usable on such a tiny device. I feel like Opera has missed that point. I am sure that future releases will either simplify or rework the UI.

I do hope that Apple allows more "competing" applications in the future.
 

hellwig

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Whether or not you like Opera Mini (using the Mini 5 Beta on my G1), at least you now have a choice. Pretty soon you might see Firefox or Chrome, if Mozilla and Google are so inclined to port their browsers.

Fact of the matter is, lots of people like Opera (and Opera Mobile, and Opera Mini). Now that it's an option for iPhone users, its a good thing. Just because you don't use it (or anything else Steve Jobs didn't personally crap-out), doesn't mean its worthless.

And no, if you're on WiFi or 3G you won't notice much of a speed difference, but if you are in the other 80% of AT&T coverage area that doesn't get 3G (remember those Verizon commercials), you WILL appreciate Opera's server-side rendering. It makes it much faster than locally downloading and rendering everything on the page. I especially like the image compression, which reduces the quality (if you tell it to), and also scales the image to fit on the screen. That saves lots of unnecessary data from being downloaded.
 
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