Opera Mini For iPhone Reviewed

Stoobalou writes "Everyone was mightily surprised when Apple allowed Opera entry to the iTunes App store, but there's one very good reason for the change of heart. Opera Mini for iPhone is not very good." I tried it for a little while, and the one thing that I really liked is how insanely fast switching tabs was.

Comments

Not very good?

[TheRaven64]

I thought Apple's reason for disallowing Flash apps was that they weren't very good. Now it's allowing Opera Mini because it isn't very good? Do I detect a little reverse justification going on somewhere?

Re:Not very good?

[Tim C]

Apple's stated justification for not allowing Flash is that it'll drain the battery and so give a poor user experience.

Common belief is that it is really because it will allow third parties to develop apps in Flash and deploy them on the web (potentially even downloading them to the iPhone), thus bypassing the App Store and Apple's cut of the money.

*Stoobalou's* stated justification for Apple allowing Opera Mini on the iPhone is that it's not very good; Apple has said no such thing.

Re:Not very good?

[jedidiah]

It depends on who you ask: fanboy or detractor.

Opera certain didn't turn out to be quite the alternative this detractor was hoping for.

It's hard to know if it would have been any better had the dev team not needed to worry about Apple's approval.

Re:Not very good?

[rolfwind]

Common belief is that it is really because it will allow third parties to develop apps in Flash and deploy them on the web (potentially even downloading them to the iPhone), thus bypassing the App Store and Apple's cut of the money.

That makes no sense because they are pushing HTML5 which allows the same thing (didn't Google come out with Google Voice in January to bypass the App Store?)

They also showcased the netflix app for iPad/iPhone and that would seem to cost iTunes money for videos.

The conspiracy theory doesn't add up.

Re:Not very good?

[jellomizer]

However the confusing part is that they allow the browser to use CSS, Javascript and even some HTML 5 components, thus making web based applications...

Re:Not very good?

[Deag]

That is because it isn't a browser, it is a viewer for compressed web pages on a bad internet connection - edge or gprs or whatever, using it on a fast wifi connection instead of safari misses the point.

Re:Not very good?

[Anonymusing]

The conspiracy theory doesn't add up.

They usually don't, except to the conspiracy theorists.

Re:Not very good?

[Culture20]

Apple's stated justification for not allowing Flash is that it'll drain the battery and so give a poor user experience.

As if a good majority of the apps don't already do that. Oh wait, duplication of functionality?

Re:Not very good?

[drinkypoo]

(didn't Google come out with Google Voice in January to bypass the App Store?)

Do you mean HTML5 google voice? That's interesting. It's certainly very fast in Chromium on my EEE 701 running Jolicloud - They switched from prism to chrome as the default host for webapps.

They also showcased the netflix app for iPad/iPhone and that would seem to cost iTunes money for videos.

Netflix is the 800 lb. gorilla in rental and streaming. (To be fair, there are several 600 lb gorillas waiting in the wings...)

Re:Not very good?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Common belief is that it is really because it will allow third parties to develop apps in Flash and deploy them on the web (potentially even downloading them to the iPhone), thus bypassing the App Store and Apple's cut of the money.

What?!?

Commoners appear to be idiots. Apple not only supports Web apps developed in HTML5, but their support for them surpasses most browser vendors. Then Apple allows free application through their store, and Apple pays for all the bandwidth fees on them. Apple's revenue numbers show the App store makes what 1-2% of Apple's revenue compared to the 40% of their revenue from hardware sales of iPods and iPhones. So the common belief is that Apple is willing to make fewer sales in the part of their company that makes all the money by making those products worse, in order to make more money on the part that makes basically nothing and which the CEO has stated is run at near zero profit in order to promote other products. So your "common belief" requires Apple business people to be complete morons who are also lying to shareholders and risking investigation from the SEC.

Seriously, even a freshman business student could tell you the Apps are blades and Apple's model is clearly to make money on the razor. It makes no sense to make it harder for people to provide blades, because Apple runs their blade business just to promote their very, very profitable razor (hardware) business.

Re:Not very good?

[sribe]

Common belief is that it is really because it will allow third parties to develop apps in Flash and deploy them on the web (potentially even downloading them to the iPhone), thus bypassing the App Store and Apple's cut of the money.

Really? If that's the case, then common belief is deluded.

After all, if that's Apple's big fear, then why do they do such a good, and constantly improving, job of supporting the very standards that "allow third parties to develop apps ... and deploy them on the web..., thus bypassing the App Store and Apple's cut of the money"??? Hmm. Two ways to allow third parties to develop apps and run them on iPhones without going through the app store, one way via standards and under Apple's control, one way via a proprietary system not under Apple's control and which on the Mac for many years was a steaming pile of constantly-crashing junk. Maybe their goal is to keep crashing junk off the iPhone. Maybe their goal is to limit iPhone apps to ones that support multi-touch and do not depend on mouse-overs.

Personally, I had never even heard that belief--I suspect it's only among Flash developers who seem to daily come up with a new crazy explanation when the rational one is in front of their face the whole time but they just cannot accept it.

Re:Not very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they could find a way to prevent this without utterly breaking the entire web or ending up looking like the Devil himself, I’m sure they would.

Re:Not very good?

[abigsmurf]

Apple will have full control over what HTML5 is able to do on the iphone they could limit performance or functionality in a way that would make it pretty difficult to make advanced apps.

Also, pushing HTML5 with the iphone lets then shape the specification more than perhaps they otherwise would have been able to.

Lastly, HTML5 is still years away from mainstream adoption.

Re:Not very good?

[Gadget_Guy]

...thus bypassing the App Store and Apple's cut of the money.

That makes no sense because they are pushing HTML5 which allows the same thing

It is not about the money, it is about the control. With HTML5, Apple can still control what is done on the device because only their own Safari can actually display it. They can still change the rules on a whim to disallow certain things being done on their phones. They also know that nobody else can slip in some undocumented API allowing unauthorised scripting on the phone.

Although Apple's attitude reeks of paranoia, I do have some sympathy for them wanting to ban Flash. After all, it is the biggest security hole on virtually every platform on which it runs.

Re:Not very good?

[commodore64_love]

Bah.

I've heard this "Opera browser isn't very good" refrain for awhile now, but what it really boils down to is: "I am used to using XYZ therefore if it doesn't use the same menu as XYZ, it must be inferior." When I first started using Opera it un-nerved me too, but now I'm used to it, and apparently 100 million other Opera users are too.

There's no simple way of transferring you Safari bookmarks to the new Mini browser

True however you can transfer bookmarks from your desktop PC to your iPhone, and viceversa, by using features like MyOpera (online home page). Safari cannot.

Re:Not very good?

[MartinSchou]

Are you entirely certain they allow ANY browser to use JS? Or is it only Webkit that is allowed to use it?

If it's the latter, that's not really an opening for competing apps. All you can do is put another paint-job on the car. In other words - you can get it in any colour as long as it's black.

Re:Not very good?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

However the confusing part is that they allow the browser to use CSS, Javascript and even some HTML 5 components, thus making web based applications...

If they could find a way to prevent this without utterly breaking the entire web or ending up looking like the Devil himself, I’m sure they would.

Umm, their original plan was to only support Web apps as the official API. They added native APIs because so many people wanted them and because Web apps did not perform as well as Apple liked. Saying they would ban Web apps, when that was the foundation of their business plan, reeks of ignorance.

Re:Not very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's revenue numbers show the App store makes what 1-2% of Apple's revenue

My back-of-the-envelope calculations ended in similar figures but saying this is somehow readable in Apples revenue figures is news to me. As far as I know they do not differentiate with App store and the rest of itunes.

Re:Not very good?

[iamhassi]

"Apple will have full control over what HTML5 is able to do on the iphone they could limit performance or functionality in a way that would make it pretty difficult to make advanced apps. "

Who needs HTML5 apps? If I was Apple be more worried about someone setting up their own Hulu for iPhone. This HTML5 video works on iPhones and is privately hosted, not pulling from Youtube. Not only does it work, it works very well, loading much faster than Youtube videos do on my 3GS.

Since the iPhone is locked down I'd be more willing to pay to access quality video content on my phone than my PC. Using HTML5 for video someone could create a iTunes competitor today. Come on TV/Movie studios what are you waiting for? Do you enjoy handing Apple 60%, or do you want someone else to create it all and then cry that they're stealing from you?

Re:Not very good?

[commodore64_love]

>>>freshman business student could tell you the Apps are blades and Apple's model is clearly to make money on the razor

First off you have that backwards. Typically the razor (or printer) is given away for free or near-free, and then the money is made on the backend from blades (ink).

Second I don't think Apple is following that model. They appear to be trying to make money on Both the razor and the blades - both the hardware and the software. Apple's view is that if you control both, then you can profit off both. It's similar to how the videogame console makers operate, earning profit on both the hardware and the software.

Vice-versa: Lose control and you end-up like IBM (they lost control of both the hardware and software).

Re:Not very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apple's stated justification for not allowing Flash is that it'll drain the battery and so give a poor user experience."

If you even have a shred of doubt in your mind regarding the truth of the above claim, you obviously
have no experience with OS X and Flash. Flash hogs both RAM and CPU power, and it makes
surfing the web miserable. because of this, most informed OS X users run some sort of Flash-blocker
plugin on the browser of their choosing.

Flash is crap, from the perspective of a user running OS X. And if you don't think the user experience matters,
you don't know shit about PCs.

Re:Not very good?

[commodore64_love]

>>>That is because it isn't a browser, it is a viewer for compressed web pages

By that logic, even the full-sized Opera Browser with Turbo is "just a viewer". Of course, you would be wrong. Opera Turbo or Opera Mini are not just viewers. The former receives compressed HTML/JPGs from Opera's servers, while the latter uses a text language called Opera Binary Markup that is about 1/5th as large as a regular page.

Opera Mini is not just a glorified JPEG viewer as many slashdotters keep repeating. That's simply false.

Re:Not very good?

[quadelirus]

Remember that originally Apple didn't want to allow 3rd party native apps and embraced developing open-standards web-based apps using javascript and the public didn't want it. Flash isn't allowed because it would have to be an addition to the platform (and not a separate app) that would be controlled by a 3rd party.

Also, Apple allowed Opera Mini because it is not in violation of the developer agreement. Plain and simple.

Re:Not very good?

[quadelirus]

There is a difference between allowing an application that is not very good and allowing a platform addition via a plugin (Flash) that potentially makes the entire device unstable and is not very good.

Re:Not very good?

[rayharris]

That makes no sense because they are pushing HTML5 which allows the same thing

Initially, Apple only wanted web apps for the iPhone. It took nearly a year for the iPhone SDK and App Store to be opened up. Apple cared mainly about opening up the platform to outside developers. A web app running HTML5 and JavaScript could do very little damage to the iPhone OS whereas a native App has the potential to do more damage.

I still don't think their hatred of Flash is about protecting their revenue stream (which shows why they allow NetFlix streaming). They sell songs on iTunes, but Pandora hasn't hurt that, so I don't think they see NetFlix as a threat either. They probably look at the trade off that having NetFlix would sell more iPads to people who might then buy more stuff from iTunes (music, apps, or videos).

I think their hatred of Flash is really a hatred of... Flash. I don't work at Apple, but I can just about guarantee you they've ported some version of Flash player over to an iPhone in-house and it probably sucks. The same probably applies to the Java Virtual Machine as well. When you have such a crappy intermediary on a phone where user experience is king, Apple doesn't want any part of it.

If you look at some of the other intermediaries that are out there, primarily Unity3D, Apple happily lets them in because they don't affect performance. Yes, you can build crappy apps in Xcode and Unity, but it's also just as easy to write good apps. I imagine in Flash and Java, it's probably hard to write apps that do anything useful, but still live up to Apple's expectations for providing a slick user experience.

Adobe is whining about CS5 apps being blocked, but my prediction is that a CS5 app is going to be sluggish, particularly the touch interface, compared to an Xcode or Unity app. We'll just have to see how it all plays out.

Re:Not very good?

[rayharris]

Using HTML5 for video someone could create a iTunes competitor today. Come on TV/Movie studios what are you waiting for? Do you enjoy handing Apple 60%, or do you want someone else to create it all and then cry that they're stealing from you?

HTML5 video does not allow for DRM. iTunes and Flash (to some extent) video does. Ergo, no HTML5 iTunes clone.

I hate DRM, but the reality is that a studio won't authorize the use of their material without some basic assurances.

Re:Not very good?

[quadelirus]

This isn't about competing apps. It is about security and code execution. Allowing a 3rd party to execute arbitrary code (think, javascript engine) is a potential security vulnerability and Apple wants to be the only one responsible for security issues, for better or worse. Opera Mini gets around this by executing the javascript on their own servers, rendering the result, and sending it to the app. Even if the experience were far better than Safari, Apple would still allow it because there is no danger to the iPhone in terms of code execution. Opera Mini is simply not in violation of the developer agreement and therefore was allowed, end of story.

Re:Not very good?

[0100010001010011]

That's what they want you to think.

Re:Not very good?

[quadelirus]

There is a difference between an app and a platform plugin. You wouldn't have a Flash app, it would have to be a plugin to the embedded safari component.

Re:Not very good?

[DJRumpy]

You do realize that bookmarks are synced in iTunes if you choose that option? Works on both Windows, and Mac.

Re:Not very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

so you can get a black car and paint it any color you want?

Re:Not very good?

[quadelirus]

Did you actually use the Opera Mini for iPhone before you posted that? It really is pretty terrible.

First, it has only two zooms, out and in. When you are zoomed out the text is unreadable since it is basically just an image trying to look like text. Contrast that with Mobile Safari where I, at least, can read a webpage even if it is zoomed out (because it is actually rendering the text rather than rendering it to an image, compressing the image and then transmitting it across the internet.) The zoom in is also a problem because it is often too far in. The bottom line is that Opera Mini is an inferior experience.

I'm not saying anything about normal Opera. I don't personally like it, but I see how some people could. Opera Mini on iPhone, however, is not good.

Oh, and also it apparently strips out the https security from the secure websites you use--or at least acts as a middle man, which means you are trusting Opera servers with your bank account info if you use it for such things.

Re:Not very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except... they allowed Opera Mini in. Unless it doesn't, won't or can't support HTML5 Apple *has* given up some degree of control.

Re:Not very good?

[Hatta]

Now someone just needs to write a C64 emulator in javascript, enabling people to code Microsoft BASIC on their iPhone.

Re:Not very good?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

My back-of-the-envelope calculations ended in similar figures but saying this is somehow readable in Apples revenue figures is news to me.

You make a valid point. They report out how much is from the iTunes store including apps and music and they announce periodically how many songs are sold and there have been plenty of analysts going over the numbers for many years. If you assume Apple has completely stopped selling music and somehow hidden this fact and that the administrative and hosting costs are negligible and that Jobs lied to shareholders and you look at the revenue numbers, you could make the numbers work out to Apple taking in a tenth of their profit from Apps, which is still a whole lot less than they make on iPhones or iPod touch hardware.

Re:Not very good?

[mister_playboy]

It's similar to how the videogame console makers operate, earning profit on both the hardware and the software.

Actually, consoles are usually sold at a loss in order to drive software sales. Sony bled money selling PS3s to be used in compute clusters where no games would be bought for them. Consoles such as the Wii that actually make money directly during their entire production run are quite uncommon.

Re:Not very good?

[DavidTC]

Yeah, I installed and ran Opera mini last night.

It appeared to be less useful than the actual built-in browser. I kept poking around and saying 'Is this it?'.

Even the sole 'feature' it had, 'full screen', is idiotic....they don't get rid of top status bar, and leave two stupid buttons on the bottom, making it microscopically more space than the built-in one.

I'm leaving it installed for the single fact it can render in 'mobile' mode (With a damn global toggle), and a few websites are better that way.

Re:Not very good?

[asdf7890]

That makes no sense because they are pushing HTML5 which allows the same thing

That is a battle on a different front. HTML5 is better for Apple than plugins that may be IE only, or cross browser but Windows only (or unstable on other platforms). While it may look like an inconsistent position from an iPod/iPhone/iPad point of view it makes much more sense when considering the desktop and laptop markets.

Re:Not very good?

[mr_lizard13]

However the confusing part is that they allow the browser to use CSS, Javascript and even some HTML 5 components, thus making web based applications that don't drain battery life or blow a security hole wide open...

Addition mine ;-)

Re:Not very good?

[DrgnDancer]

Two ways to allow third parties to develop apps and run them on iPhones without going through the app store, one way via standards and under Apple's control, one way via a proprietary system not under Apple's control and which on the Mac for many years was a steaming pile of constantly-crashing junk. Maybe their goal is to keep crashing junk off the iPhone. Maybe their goal is to limit iPhone apps to ones that support multi-touch and do not depend on mouse-overs.

I think this contains two good points and both probably have a lot to do with Apple's stance on Flash for the iPhone. The first point is that Apple has been badly burned by Flash. Adobe has a history of either not supporting new platforms with Flash players, or supporting them with horrible, buggy, barely functional players for years until they get around to putting in real effort. How long did 64 bit Windows take? How long is 64 bit Linux *still* taking? How long were the 32 bit Linux and the MacOS clients crap? Arguably the 32 bit Linux player is till crap, though has admittedly gotten better. The 64 bit Linux player went into alpha in 2008 and is still in alpha. It works OK, but getting it is a pain, and any support issues are essentially answered by, "Well, yeah, it's alpha".

The second point is of course, touch screens. I, and a lot of other people I'm sure, tend to think of Flash as a way of playing videos on the web. I know it *can* do a lot more, but I'd say 90% of the time when I use my Flash player it's to watch some kind of online video. the other 10% is when some moron uses it make the navigation system on a website that I have to use for some reason. Obviously when you think about videos, you tend to think that multi-touch screens will work fine. A tap is like a click and most of what you're doing is clicking stop, pause, play, rewind, etc. With a lot of other flash though, it's more complicated. Mouse hovers, right clicks, and keyboard entries are all used a lot in flash navigation pages and applications. None of that translates to multi-touch well. The experience is quite likely to suck even if Adobe makes a good player product.

Given Apple's insistence on as pleasant an experience as possible for iPhone users, I can see either or both of these playing a big part in their decision to disallow Flash.

Re:Not very good?

[Grizzley9]

This HTML5 video works on iPhones and is privately hosted, not pulling from Youtube. [jilion.com] Not only does it work, it works very well, loading much faster than Youtube videos do on my 3GS.

"Works very well" is rather subjective. On my 3GS it looked like a bad YouTube video horribly compressed with lots of smearing. And I've got 5 bars of 3G.

Re:Not very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>First off you have that backwards. Typically the razor (or printer) is given away for free or near-free, and then the money is made on the backend from blades (ink).

No, he doesn't have it backwards. He didn't say that Apple runs their business exactly like Gillette does, who give away the razor for very little money and make all the money on the blade. Apple, unlike Gillette, makes the vast majority of their money on the razor, and make a little bit of profit on the blades.

Their revenue numbers show that very clearly. They're not losing money on the blades, mind you. Those are still turning a profit. But that profit is very small when compared to the obscene amount of money they make on their razors.

Re:Not very good?

[AndGodSed]

Well personally I have found Opera Mini to be rather good on a wide selection of cellphones I have tried it on. Maybe it just needs some time to mature?

Re:Not very good?

[Ash Vince]

Although Apple's attitude reeks of paranoia, I do have some sympathy for them wanting to ban Flash.

There is another problem with allowing flash, it is a very flexible platform that will allow you to put insane load on the processor. That would allow a cross platform benchmark that would very quickly reveal exactly how slow the iPhone processor really is.

The reason they keep the exact specs of the iPhone processor under wraps is that they know it does not compare favourably to the competition. This is not actually a problem though if you can control how people interact with the CPU and ensure it is not overloaded by doing things like running to many applications at once or stupid flash based junk.

One of the reason that Apple have been so successful is by being careful exactly what information they release about each product. The first generation iPhones suffered lag issues in the same way as the early HTC Hero's. This was subsequently fixed by a software update just like the Hero. In the case of the Hero people could find out the CPU spec and then whine about how under powered it was even though it was not really the main thing causing the lag anyway.

Quite often when bringing a hardware and software based device to market people have a habit of reading too much into benchmarks of the hardware even though this often misleading. By writing very clever software you can do an awful lot with even the most underpowered hardware. If you think back to what you could get out of early computers like the Amiga or Atari (512K versions) then this should come as no surprise.

I have a sneaky feeling that if HTML5 falls by the wayside then we may see flash on the iPhones that get multitasking support since we already know that not every iPhone is destined to get this.

Re:Not very good?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

>>>freshman business student could tell you the Apps are blades and Apple's model is clearly to make money on the razor

First off you have that backwards. Typically the razor (or printer) is given away for free or near-free, and then the money is made on the backend from blades (ink).

Actually, razors and blades are the prototypical example used to teach loss leaders to economics and business students. The question for many business models is if they want to make money on razors or on blades, meaning whether their particular business model does better putting their margins on lower priced consumables or higher priced initial products. Both are common business strategies in different markets.

Second I don't think Apple is following that model. They appear to be trying to make money on Both the razor and the blades - both the hardware and the software.

Not really, no. When they entered the market for online music downloads, Apple undercut the prices of everyone else and ran the store at break even levels, making their money on iPods. This has been clearly stated by Steve Jobs to the shareholders and numerous business analysts have shown the same thing. Every now and again some blogger or incompetent news writer creates an article claiming it's all a lie and because Apple sells so many songs, they must be raking in the cash, but usually those people fail to take into account important things like operating costs or credit card transaction fees or they simply don't understand the difference between sales and profit. Anyone with any clue has known for a long time that Apple runs the iTunes store simply to sell iPods.

So then they enter the smartphone market. They offer a software developer package that costs all of $100 (basically nothing) and offer any freeware apps people put up for free. This costs Apple money for hosting and administration. Then they take 30% of the sales for pay apps, similar to what they take for song sales and for low priced apps, probably barely enough to cover bandwidth and credit card fees. It makes them a bit for more expensive apps, but all that has to cover the whole submission and evaluation process as well as cover the costs incurred for free apps. Just take a look at revenue numbers. From Q3 2008 to 2009, Apple's iPhone sales quadrupled (+300%). Their combined sales of music and applications went up +17%. If they're trying to significantly profit from app sales, they are failing miserably.

Apple's view is that if you control both, then you can profit off both.

Not really. Apple's philosophy for some time has been that if you can bring in consumables as cheaply, easily, and plentifully as possible, it will drive sales of expensive hardware devices.

It's similar to how the videogame console makers operate, earning profit on both the hardware and the software.

Historically both the XBox360 and PS3 have been subsidized and sold at a loss as a way to generate game licensing fees. Only the Wii (of the current generation) was initially sold at a profit. This late in the sales cycle costs have come down and it is debatable if either Sony or Microsoft is making money on each console sale, but it is clear that has not been the case in general.

Re:Not very good?

[xaxa]

Opera Mini is excellent on old or basic phones. I have it on my Motorola something-or-other. It's way better than the built in web browser.

I don't really see the point on the iPhone. Opera Mobile (proper Opera for phones) might be good, but if Opera Mini is crap it's going to put people off.

Re:Not very good?

[silverglade00]

(To be fair, there are several 600 lb gorillas waiting in the wings...)

I need to lose weight and shave my back, you insensitive clod! And don't get me started on the poo throwing...

Re:Not very good?

[insertwackynamehere]

Oh, you're sure? Well stop the fucking presses, an anonymous Slashdot poster just told us he's "sure" that Apple has a cabbalistic agenda that involves not allowing Javascript and CSS if they could get away with it. Apple hated the user experience and arbitrarily hates web development staples as a corrolary. In fact, if Apple could they would sell people computers that don't turn on, they would! Prove me otherwise, amirite?? I'm sure you were a holdout who hated CSS, HTML4 and Javascript back in 99 and I'm sure that when Firefox started to snowball, you were on board because of it's superior rendering capabilities. Now Webkit, which is arguably better than Gecko, pisses you off because "fuck Apple lol". Why don't you let the grownups talk and stay on your outdated sidelines.

Re:Not very good?

[sglewis100]

After all, if that's Apple's big fear, then why do they do such a good, and constantly improving, job of supporting the very standards that "allow third parties to develop apps ... and deploy them on the web..., thus bypassing the App Store and Apple's cut of the money"??? Hmm. Two ways to allow third parties to develop apps and run them on iPhones without going through the app store, one way via standards and under Apple's control, one way via a proprietary system not under Apple's control and which on the Mac for many years was a steaming pile of constantly-crashing junk. Maybe their goal is to keep crashing junk off the iPhone. Maybe their goal is to limit iPhone apps to ones that support multi-touch and do not depend on mouse-overs.

Apple doesn't care how much money they make on music|movies|tv shows|apps. If they turn a profit on it, great, but more importantly if the bulk of music|movies|tv shows|apps are purchased through iTunes for use on Apple hardware, then it helps them sell said hardware. Hey, I want to buy and watch TV on a portable media player, and sync my music, and occasionally buy an album and rent a movie... sounds like I need an iPod, iPad or iPhone. That's what they care about.

Apple wants to have a dominant market share of mobile devices. Heck, they make great money on their 10% desktop/laptop marketshare, but I'm sure they'd rather have 40% of the market and preserve their margins. On mobile, this is a strong possibility. If the primary source of third party software and services are either HTML5 based (including the local HTML apps that include sqlite DB access, etc), or the App Store, they are either in control (development kit) or capable of staying compatible (HTML5 is open, everyone can implement it).

With Flash, you could end up with apps that run better on other platforms, have features better supported on other platforms, see Flash be discontinued by Adobe, see Adobe introduce a mobile phone and kill off iPhone software, see versions come out first for Android and second on iPhone - there's a part of the control you give up. With HTML5, it's an open spec and Apple gets to implement it - if they fall behind, it's on them, not because of some third party that updates for the iPhone a bit slow/buggy/never. With the App Store and the native SDK, there's even less fear - they only have to offer compelling features that keep the users wanting more, and the developers will fall in line because that's where the HUGE majority of the money in phone apps lies right now. People bitch left and right about the policies, but at the end of the day, if you want to make a few hundred thousand dollars selling Apps, chances are your best bet is iPhone development.

Imagine if the Flash to iPhone App shipped, and then six months from now there were a dozen really popular apps - but on the iPhone a few features were missing because not every feature was supported in the CS5 Flash compiler, but if you play it on the web or through your Android you had full functionality. That's one big reason Apple is against it.

Re:Not very good?

[Guspaz]

Opera Mini is not just a glorified JPEG viewer as many slashdotters keep repeating. That's simply false.

Unfortunately, Opera Mini's poor rendering, while a problem, isn't the biggest problem. The lack of working zooming support probably is.

As has been pointed out, Mini has two zoom modes; 100%, and all-the-way-out. Text is unreadable in all-the-way-out (and the page layout looks a bit odd, indicating that it isn't trying to render the page as standards dictate), and you can't fit enough content in the screen at 100%. The lack of in-between is a huge issue, for me anyway. I like to zoom out to what is probably somewhere a bit more than 50%, where I find a comfortable balance between amount of content and readability.

More damning? Zooming is disabled in landscape mode, which I suspect is how most people browse the web on the iPhone. This one seems to be a simple bug, as you can trick Mini into being in one zoom mode by doing your zooming in portrait mode and then rotating the phone.

Another major issue is the touch detection. While Safari does a pretty decent job figuring out what you want to click on (particularly useful clicking on page numbers on DSLReports), Opera Mini's attempts at this are much more crude. Most of the time, it just doesn't try to figure it out at all and attempts to click on a small object (and even sometimes large UI elements like the browsers' own buttons) result in no action being taken. Safari tries to fix this by saying "Well the user tapped, and the center of the tap was pretty close to this link, so I'm going to click it."

I used the J2ME version of Opera Mini extensively on my old featurephone, and loved it. It was an enormous improvement over the built-in WAP browser. However, it's just painful to use on the iPhone. I do see a lot of potential, as issues like zooming, click detection, strange feeling scrolling, and even rendering issues are certainly fixable. But Opera is going to have to commit to making these improvements, and some of them (such as how scrolling doesn't feel the same as other iPhone apps) is going to have to be platform-specific.

Re:Not very good?

[Kaki Nix Sain]

Hey, how is Jolicloud? I tried to run it on in virtual machine to try it out and something in the install hung up past my desire that day to look into it. What's your first hand review?

Re:Not very good?

[Yvan256]

That's because the conspiracy theorists are still using Pentium-equipped computers.

Re:Not very good?

[shutdown -p now]

You do realize that bookmarks are synced in iTunes if you choose that option? Works on both Windows, and Mac.

Opera does syncing through its servers, so you get a single set on all computers (and phones) you're using, even if you never connect them together. Pretty much the same as what desktop Chrome does, except that Opera spans it across all versions of the browser (whereas Android browser doesn't seem to be able to pick up my Chrome bookmarks that are sync-enabled...).

Re:Not very good?

[sribe]

How long were the 32 bit Linux and the MacOS clients crap? Arguably the 32 bit Linux player is till crap, though has admittedly gotten better.

I'm inferring from your post that you're more of a Linux user and not much of a Mac user. Just let me assure you that right now, today, with the latest update, the Flash player plug-in on the Mac is extremely prone to crashing.

Re:Not very good?

[delinear]

Opera Mini is far from a fully featured browser, it seems the actual browser is running on Opera's servers and they just send you a compressed image, which might be largely fine for static websites, but it's certainly not going to cut it in the dynamic web application arena.

Re:Not very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you - finally someone who sees the real reasoning behind both the lack of multi-tasking and the lack of Flash. Oh, sure, they don't want people eating their App store pie but there are many other ways they can control that, but what this really boils down to is wanting to compete with the much more powerful smart phones without ponying up the dough for a faster processor (either because the iPhone is costing Apple a lot to make - doubtful if people like HTC can give higher specs for the same or lower costs - or more likely so Apple can keep a larger share of the profits while appearing competitively priced, because the average Joe doesn't realise he's being sold a Porsche kit car with a Fiesta engine, he just sees the shiny exterior).

Re:Not very good?

[DJRumpy]

The same is true for the iTunes sync, except your bookmarks are kept locally, rather than shared on Opera servers. It is a two-way sync from phone to PC and vice versa.

Re:Not very good?

[delinear]

I'm not sure if it's escaped your intention, but something called the App Store came along which might just have skewed their business plan from its original course...

Re:Not very good?

[MobyDisk]

It makes no sense to make it harder for people to provide blades, because Apple runs their blade business just to promote their very, very profitable razor (hardware) business.

The problem is that in the last 2 decades businesses have come up with a crazy new model where making it harder to make blades actually helps them sell razors. It sounds crazy, but it is the basis of why a vendor would want to lock people in instead of being open. In theory, vendor lock-in is bad and openness promotes your platform: as you say: more blades = a better product = more interest, etc. But there is another route... the evil route: lock-in.

What if you could put a restriction on the blades... an arbitrary one, and manufacturers would still make blades because your razor is so good and so popular? And people would still buy it? Then you add another restriction... shouldn't consumers and manufacturers move to another razor? No - yours is still the best. And they have devoted effort to it, and they profit from it. So the blade manufacturers jump through hoops and they even tell the user it is for their own good. The users still buy it.

Continue doing this until it is difficult for manufacturers to make blade designs that work on other razors too. Now they are locked-in to you. And the users think the blades are so much better they won't buy other razors. At this point, it is actually harder to develop blades for this vendor, and the razor is actually worse because the blades for other razors are better. But only the most technical consumers know this. And many manufacturers only make blades for this razor, so some of the most stable quality blades are only available on this razor.

This is what IBM tried to do in the mainframe days, and they lost. The IBM PC clones killed it. But there are no Apple clones. A world of DRM, absurd copyrights, unconscionable contracts, and cell carrier exclusivity deals makes it impossible to make clones now. Between Apple's developer license, the stigma of not making your app work on the iPhone, the lost sales from that, and the fact that Apple really is ahead of the curve (despite this rant, the iPhone really is a good product) - they are keeping the lock-in successful.

IMHO, it will eventually break. And I will cheer that day. But for now, Apple is succeeding in doing what IBM failed at. And it is nice while you are on top, but the fall is pretty steep.

Re:Not very good?

[dfghjk]

"The conspiracy theory doesn't add up."

I guess it wouldn't to someone who thinks that HTML5 allows "the same thing" as native apps.

Apple specifically disallows anything that would enable downloading and executing any program bypassing the app store. It's not a conspiracy theory, it's the stated policy.

Re:Not very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't have it backwards, you're right, but it was a poor analogy since the razor analogy is almost always employed to indicate a business that makes its money on its consumables and offers its hardware at a discounted rate. It's like saying "iPods are just like cars that don't lose a big chunk of their value the second you drive them off the car lot" - i.e. it would make sense if such cars existed, but it's not the model the vast majority of people are familiar with, so it's a flawed example.

Re:Not very good?

[shutdown -p now]

That was precisely my point. Can iTunes sync two PCs (say, desktop and two notebooks), and a phone, all two-way between each other?

Re:Not very good?

[dfghjk]

You are assuming that app profit was suggested as the ONLY motivation for Apple. It's not even the most important. Nevertheless, no app published for the iPhone is free; developers have to pay just to have their apps available. Apple is not doing charity work here.

Re:Not very good?

[DJRumpy]

Yes. Attach it to each, and the bookmarks will be synced. Anything created on the phone will be pushed to the PC and anything on the PC will be pushed to the phone.

Re:Not very good?

[s73v3r]

And yet, at just about every iPhone dev conference, including the ones put on and hosted by Apple, there is always a track for making WebApps for iPhone.

Re:Not very good?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The problem is that in the last 2 decades businesses have come up with a crazy new model where making it harder to make blades actually helps them sell razors. It sounds crazy, but it is the basis of why a vendor would want to lock people in instead of being open.

Once a vendor achieves dominance in a market, then artificial incompatibility becomes an asset. Before then, it is a detriment and there needs to be a justification in making the product better or you still lose money. Apple does not dominate the smartphone market.

What if you could put a restriction on the blades... an arbitrary one, and manufacturers would still make blades because your razor is so good and so popular?

An arbitrary restriction does not help you in this case. All it does is lead a few blade makers to move to some other market for investment. You can't implement an arbitrary inhibition without inhibiting someone.

Then you add another restriction... shouldn't consumers and manufacturers move to another razor? No - yours is still the best.

Except a few people will move as a result and you lose sales while gaining what?

And they have devoted effort to it, and they profit from it. So the blade manufacturers jump through hoops and they even tell the user it is for their own good. The users still buy it.

No they don't because that doesn't benefit them at all. They tell users it's dumb but they're coping... unless there really is a benefit.

You see the reason your application of this idea fails is twofold. First, Apple does not have dominance, so anything that makes things harder for developers does hurt Apple's bottom line. Second, Apple is pushing HTML5 as an open alternative to Flash, and HTML5 has less ability to lock in users than Flash does. Flash run poorly on many devices, especially Linux based ones and device makers and developers have no control over that. Only Adobe does. But Apple is not proposing a lock-in strategy or they'd be using something proprietary, like MS has done with Silverlight and their new phone OS. Apple is proposing the use of an open standard alternative that works not only on the iPhone, but can be made to work on any device and any platform. Now you may wonder why they are bothering, but you have to remember, Apple likes control (as in not having Adobe with a knife t their throat) and Apple makes more than phones. Pushing away from Flash and to HTML5 removes a problem for them with regard to OS X and Macs in that it improves stability, performance, and security there as well.

This is what IBM tried to do in the mainframe days, and they lost. The IBM PC clones killed it.

IBM did have market dominance and clones survived because IBM was restricted by antitrust law. Should Apple achieve dominance I'd like to think the same laws would apply, but the US hasn't been much for actually enforcing them of late.

Between Apple's developer license, the stigma of not making your app work on the iPhone, the lost sales from that, and the fact that Apple really is ahead of the curve (despite this rant, the iPhone really is a good product) - they are keeping the lock-in successful.

Apple is locking in developers by forcing them to use an open standard instead of a proprietary technology? Why can't developers develop HTML5 apps that run everywhere?

Re:Not very good?

[MartinSchou]

That wasn't my point.

My point was that the post I was replying to was inferring that browsers can use JavaScript ... and if Webkit is the only app that can do that, then it is incorrect.

Re:Not very good?

[TheRaven64]

HTML5 video does not allow for DRM

Yes it does. HTML5 does not specify anything about the format of the video - it can be in any container format and CODEC that the client supports. Safari delegates playback to QuickTime, so you can use HTML5 to deliver DRM'd video in any format that QuickTime supports.

Re:Not very good?

[drinkypoo]

Hey, how is Jolicloud? I tried to run it on in virtual machine to try it out and something in the install hung up past my desire that day to look into it. What's your first hand review?

Jolicloud is the holy grail of Ubuntu on netbooks. It's UNR with superior hardware support and a cute web app to install more web apps. It supports practically all relevant netbook hardware, and does it well, e.g. my poor old little EEE 701 is automatically overclocked from 600 to 900 mhz. Unfortunately it's based on Jaunty and not Karmic so it's less trivial to live on the bleeding edge regarding software versions. For the laptops best-supported by moblin there's an Ubuntu moblin edition, so that's also worth looking into — I'm going to try that next for my Aspire D250-1165. Moblin itself fails to properly resume from suspend. Jolicloud worked but had mediocre support for my mediocre GMA950 — it did about as well as Ubuntu though. Moblin has the video support but the resume problem. Meego so far doesn't have a GUI on intel, only on N900? Not sure if it has one even there :p So Jolicloud is probably the best bet for most people. Right now I'm just wishing someone would give me power management support for Athlon 64 L110, for the LT3103u. I'd likely jump to any distribution, even Fedora, for that.

Re:Not very good?

[tibman]

I am not an apple user but isn't Itunes for music? Why would you use your music player to sync your bookmarks? Does this work for whatever browser you have?

Re:Not very good?

[shutdown -p now]

Still not it, sorry. It means that I have to take the phone around all computers I own, regularly (since it serves as a transfer vehicle). With Opera, it all just happens by itself (and also survives reinstalls etc).

Re:Not very good?

[quadelirus]

Sorry, I clicked Reply on yours and had meant to reply to someone else's.

Re:Not very good?

[quadelirus]

Ah, I see now, I had meant to reply to the parent thread written by Tim C. Not to you. I must have clicked the wrong Reply button. My apologies.

Re:Not very good?

[DJRumpy]

If I recall, it works for Safari, and Internet Explorer.

Re:Not very good?

[DJRumpy]

So you are willing to give up privacy in place of plugging a cable in. To each his own, but the end result is the same. Unless you were to wipe both the phone and your PC, your bookmarks would survive in either case as well.

Re:Not very good?

[jprescott12]

I would submit that IBM did not fail, but actually succeeded, and continues to succeed, in the mainframe market. They absolutely punted in the PC market, but, in the supercomputer and mainframe worlds, IBM is clearly dominant, and, for mainframes, is pretty much the sole vendor these days. And, IBM is still a Fortune 50 company, and it still gets a lot of that cash from mainframe sales and service.

Re:Not very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Common belief is that it is really because it will allow third parties to develop apps in Flash and deploy them on the web (potentially even downloading them to the iPhone), thus bypassing the App Store and Apple's cut of the money.

Or maybe it's because Flash is a known malware attack vector? Could Apple maybe, just maybe, be doing its customers a favor by ensuring that when they dial 9-1-1 on their iPhones they reach the police instead of hearing a .wav file of some hacker saying "u bin p@wned noob"?

Nah, Apple obviously couldn't have reasonable or even upstanding motives. It must be all about greed and screwing Adobe.

Re:Not very good?

[nine-times]

I think this is the first time I'll be agreeing with you, commodore64_love. Now personally, I tried out Opera Mini on the iPhone and still like Safari better, but who cares what I like? Preferences vary. Which features you use varies. If it's your phone, the important thing shouldn't be what I like or what Apple likes, but what you like.

Re:Not very good?

[BagOBones]

You forgot the other reason of Flash being the number one reason for crashing on a Mac... It is so bad that Google built chrome to avoid it, Apple will have a build of Webkit 2 soon that runs Plugins in another process and even Mozilla is working on a Fix..

I didn't see how bad the problem was till my wife started using Chrome instead of firefox.. she was so used to firefox crash / closing that she was confused when Chrome popped up the dead plugin icons. Now she notices it all the time.

Re:Not very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the money That Apple wants, it's the exclusivity of apps developed just for there product so that you have to buy their product.

Your blades and razors analogy is a good one, only I must add that the blades are super cool blades that you can only get if your buy the iRazor.

That is the reason the want to keep flash off of their precious little money printer, because other wise it's a just a portable touchscreen computer with a some decent specialty applications you can get for it and a competitor could easily swoop in duplicate it and steal a ton of their sales because it would have all the same things except those few specific application, but who cares because there are others for free that are almost as good.

But if you make every developer who wants a cut of your enormous apple design something exclusive for you, suddenly your product is the only chrome gate to yuppie mecca.

Re:Not very good?

[dudpixel]

Sure it does. Show me HTML5 and I'll show you half a million flash applications AND developers that are out there RIGHT NOW.

Its ok now to say they allow HTML5 when almost nothing exists for it, but what happens when HTML5 gains popularity to the level of flash?

When Android finally gets a version of flash (seriously Adobe, why the wait?) THEN we'll see if the battery life argument holds up. Until then, the "conspiracy theory" is just as credible.

Re:Not very good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do mods not know a troll when they see it? Surely no one believes this? Apple is skimping on processor power as a way of controlling the platform? And what benchmarks are you using, anyway?

Re:Not very good?

[Lars T.]

I'm not sure if it's escaped your intention, but something called the App Store came along which might just have skewed their business plan from its original course...

And then they go and sabotage their clever business plan: http://www.apple.com/webapps/

Re:Not very good?

[Lars T.]

You are assuming that app profit was suggested as the ONLY motivation for Apple.

Ohh, absolutely not - I hear something vague about world domination far ore often.

Probably because of Adobe

[dragisha]

If, or when, they sue - they'll have some evidence to show. "Of course we allow competition, see this".

Re:Probably because of Adobe

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera Mini isn't a browser. I'm sure Adobe could explain why to the layman in about 2 minutes, so make that 5 for legal people.

Re:Probably because of Adobe

[JustOK]

Opera Mini isn't a browser. I'm sure Adobe could explain why to the layman in about 2 minutes, so make that 5 for legal people.

BULLSHIT!!!! Legal people would require several billable months.

Re:Was it

[Pojut]

DING DING DING!

Unfair Comparison

[mdwh2]

Opera Mini is intended to run on all phones (even locked down feature phones... and the Iphone). A fairer review would simply review Opera Mini, and take this into account - but of course, it only gets coverage on Slashdot if it's "For the Iphone".

For smart phones, Opera have Opera Mobile which is an excellent browser. Will the Iphone be able to run it?

Even on smart phones, Opera Mini is useful sometimes if you need low bandwidth usage. But it's never intended to be a replacement browser for phones that already have a better browser.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[Reality Master 101]

Even on smart phones, Opera Mini is useful sometimes if you need low bandwidth usage. But it's never intended to be a replacement browser for phones that already have a better browser.

So you're saying it sucks as a browser, and it's unfair to review it as a browser, because it's not intended to be a good browser? What? Exactly on what basis should it be reviewed?

It's a browser. If I'm reading a review of a browser, then I expect to read a review about how good it is as a browser. If it sucks, then it sucks.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[r_jensen11]

Even on smart phones, Opera Mini is useful sometimes if you need low bandwidth usage. But it's never intended to be a replacement browser for phones that already have a better browser.

How does Opera Mini compare to Opera Mobile with settting Opera Turbo and Mobile View on? I have both browsers installed on my phone, but have only used Opera Mobile

Re:Unfair Comparison

[jittles]

I would say that his review is pretty unfair just because I haven't seen a single text intensive website have a problem with overlapping fonts. Not NY Times, Slashdot, Slickdeals, his own website, or anything else. Did he ever think that perhaps the website was doing something that wasn't correct and that is why it is misrendering?

As for his clumsy link clicking? The guy is totally biased here. Opera does not even let you click a link unless you're zoomed in. When you touch the screen it zooms into that spot. I think that's a hell of a lot more intuitive and easier than pinch zooming in. I cant' tell you how often I click the wrong link in Safari when there are several links in a column.

But I did notice that when I have the phone turned sideways I can zoom in and out of the page. This is definitely a bug, but it never bothers me. I find it so annoying to try and hold the phone in landscape mode anyway, unless I have two hands on it.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I would strongly suspect that that is why Apple allowed it(but why full Opera for mobile will never see the light of day on the iPhone).

Opera Mini is, by design, a deeply compromised product. All traffic is routed through Opera's servers(yes kids, that includes SSLed stuff, probably best to avoid your banking) for pre-crunching. The whole idea is to, by using Opera's servers to do the heavy work, have a product that will run on the severely computationally constrained hardware in dumbphones and feature phones of various sorts. To the best of my knowledge, Opera Mini succeeds reasonably well in that context. You can get "good enough" web performance on an platform that couldn't run a real browser at all(unless you count the awful "netfront" crap that drags down the PSP and certain other Sony stuff).

The comparison against a real web browser, on a full smartphone, is hardly fair. I'm honestly not quite sure why Opera decided to expose themselves to the humiliation. Full Opera might have been a competitor. Opera Mini will be a barely-used App that provides ammunition for Apple apologists who want to argue about how "open" and "benevolent" Apple actually is.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[Cesa]

For smart phones, Opera have Opera Mobile which is an excellent browser. Will the Iphone be able to run it?

There is a setting in Opera Mini for iPhone that lets you render the web pages in "Mobile view". I have never used Opera Mobile, but perhaps that is the same thing?

I have to agree with the review, this browser is nearly useless for the iPhone. The way it zooms (or rather, don't zoom) is practically useless. In Safari I can just double tap a picture or text column and it is automatically fitted to the screen, in Opera Mini however there seem to be only two zoom modes, maximum zoom in and maximum zoom out. It's not even possible to zoom freely using the standard pinch zoom. When you have such a small screen it is essential to be able to view the web page content in a way that fits the screen, Opera Mini cannot do that.

That said, it does seem to have a nice set of features and settings, if they can get the zooming right it could be a very good browser, for now though I'm not gonna bother.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[sznupi]

It's quite a different kind of browser; and yet seems to be revieved on more or less the same terms to Safari.

To see why that's rather unfair - reverse the situation. Review Safari in scenarios that favor Opera Mini (yes, disregarding that Opera Mini runs fine also on "feature phones" with j2me). Like when you have really sucky connection, without even full "advertised" EDGE speeds. Suddenly Safary doesn't look so good. And Opera Mini becomes most usefull (as a bonus it has a real chance of conservng battery somewhat)

That's why it's good to keep it on the phone (any phone, if Mini is available for it) "just in case", IMHO; even you normally prefer full browser.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[RemoWilliams84]

find it so annoying to try and hold the phone in landscape mode anyway, unless I have two hands on it.

Landscape mode is much better when the girls are laying down, any other time you just cut off their heads.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[cbope]

I would agree with parent. Mini and Mobile are two very different browsers. I have used Mini on several non-smart phones and it gets the job done, and not much else. Mobile is a MUCH improved experience on a smartphone compared to Mini, but that's expected. It's the only browser I use on my Nokia E75.

So, while I would not say Mini sucks, it's definitely a low bar to clear. If you have a smartphone Mobile is far better and will likely never be allowed by Apple.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[cbope]

Sorry, I meant GP, not parent.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm planning on reviewing Opera Mini and Lynx today. Here's what I discovered in my research: Lynx can't even load images! It doesn't have any CSS or JavaScript support! I mean, when would somebody EVER want to use this Lynx thing? It is a browser, yet it clearly sucks. Don't EVER use it!

Re:Unfair Comparison

[heneon]

I have a symbian phone (3rd ep1) and opera mini 4.2 & 5 and opera mobile 10 installed. Both minis load pages fast. Mobile even with turbo and mobile view cannot compete with the minis.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[whisper_jeff]

I know I'm going to get modded to hell for being a pedantic fanboi, but it's "iPhone" - lowercase "i", uppercase "P".

Anyhow, as to your point, I think you have a valid point which you've expressed poorly. I've use Opera on the iPhone and it is notably inferior to Safari _BUT_ I could see people using it if they have limited data plans and are doing browsing while on 3G. It is fast and renders well-enough to get the job done. If, however, you're not worried about bandwidth (have the bandwidth to spare or are on wifi) or accurate page rendering is important, then Safari is going be the better choice. Any review of Opera should acknowledge it's weaknesses but simultaneously recognize it's strengths. It is an inferior browser that is very fast and utilizes much less bandwidth. There are times when that is entirely acceptable as a choice and thus it should be on people's iPhones alongside Safari. I know I'll be keeping it.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[mdwh2]

So you're saying it sucks as a browser, and it's unfair to review it as a browser, because it's not intended to be a good browser?

I'm not saying it sucks as a browser, I'm saying it's not as good as the browsers on high end phones (where you'd run Opera Mobile), but it is better than the browsers on a large range of cheap "feature".

The only platform that (a) has a decent browser but (b) can only run Mini and not Mobile, is the Iphone - and that's a limitation of the Iphone and its locked down nature, not Opera.

If I'm reading a review of a browser, then I expect to read a review about how good it is as a browser.

Sure, but this isn't a review of that browser. It's a "let's only compare it to the Iphone browser".

If it sucks, then it sucks.

It doesn't suck.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[mdwh2]

There is a setting in Opera Mini for iPhone that lets you render the web pages in "Mobile view". I have never used Opera Mobile, but perhaps that is the same thing?

Nope - mobile view is simply a way of viewing the pages ( http://www.opera.com/mobile/help/faq/ ). Opera Mobile is a completely different browser, and with more features, and is a full browser rather than using server side processing.

Yes, I don't think it's controversial to say it's next to useless for expensive phones - I've never had to use it on my 5800. But those of us who have smart phones rather than the locked down Iphone can happily use Opera Mobile instead; and this review misses that Opera Mini's main purpose is to bring a better browsing experience to all phones, even the cheap low end ones that don't have a good browser as standard. Why not simply review "Opera Mini" instead of making it only "For Iphone"?

Re:Unfair Comparison

[dissy]

So you're saying it sucks as a browser, and it's unfair to review it as a browser, because it's not intended to be a good browser? What? Exactly on what basis should it be reviewed?

It's a browser. If I'm reading a review of a browser, then I expect to read a review about how good it is as a browser. If it sucks, then it sucks.

In your case, you can just assume it will definitely suck in all but possibly one way. Compared to any other full browser (or just 'browser' as you call them) it will suck.

That one possible way is if you have an older phone that only has opera mini and can't use any other browsers (Original Razr, I'm looking at you! It's built in browser is less functional than lynx)
In that case, a non-full browser might be better than nothing at all.

Technically speaking, opera mini is NOT a web browser at all. It is a stream viewer application that can display a specific markup language served by opera mini's servers.
The web browser part of the process was between the web server/site you go to, and operas servers. It ends there, translates the webpage into another form, and streams that to your viewer application (Named opera mini)

Looked at that way, it becomes obvious you can't compare it to another totally different class of software known as the web browser, since it literally does not do much of anything a web browser app would do.
(Yes, it stores bookmarks and manages pages/tabs, but still has no html/webpage rendering engine in it)

We can only assume how good of a rendering engine opera used on their servers. I thought it was mentioned they used webkit, but that could easily be wrong.
The main point is that the webpage never makes it to your opera mini client in the first place, so comparing it to a program that DOES render html is silly.

The closest comparison I can think of is comparing remote desktop with a video player, and claiming remote desktop IS a video player simply because you can see a video window opening, but that remote desktop is a really crappy video player application because it doesn't decode video properly, and finally claiming remote desktop is clearly a video player app and must be compared to other video player applications.

Translating your statement:
So you're saying remote desktop sucks as a video player, and it's unfair to review it as a video player, because it's not intended to be a good video player? What? Exactly on what basis should it be reviewed?

Remote desktop is a video player. If I'm reading a review of remote desktop clients, then I expect to read a review about how good it is as a video player. If it sucks, then it sucks.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[del_diablo]

What was the CLI alternativ to Lynx? Lynx works for its purpose: Worst case backup browser 3

Re:Unfair Comparison

[netsharc]

Barely used? I think the killer argument is the supposed (never checked myself) size and speed savings. Speed is enough to get anyone to miss it if it's not there, and therefore Opera wins. Of course it's inherently insecure, etc, I know this, and if I'm just going to read CNN.com (wait, CNN is overflowing with shit, I meant news.bbc.co.uk), I won't care if Opera knows about it, and if I want to do online banking I'll switch to Safari. Even giving them my Facebook login is acceptable, I think they're a trustworthy company. More trustworthy than Apple and Facebook in my mind. Speaking of Apple, heh, Jobs' excitement was iAds, he must be happy that he's going to get a massive load of money for making ad-delivery devices that people pay 500 bucks to own...

Re:Unfair Comparison

[mdwh2]

I know I'm going to get modded to hell for being a pedantic fanboi, but it's "iPhone" - lowercase "i", uppercase "P".

Well, since you ask, I'll explain my reasoning. It's a proper noun, and I'm writing English - so I write "Iphone". Write "iPhone" if you prefer, but that's a matter of preference. (I've also seen "IPhone" sometimes used by people.)

"iPhone" is the stylised trademark representation. Since I'm writing prose rather than an Apple advert, I don't write it that way, just as I don't write "Toys R Us" with a backwards "R", or sing "ding-dong-ding-dong" everytime I write "Intel".

I also note for other trademarks that have odd capitalisation, such as all lowercase or all uppercase, people tend to ignore these. E.g., "Adidas" rather than "adidas"; "Time" rather than "TIME". I'm not sure why an exception should be made for Apple.

Yes, I agree with the rest of your post. But I also don't see why it should simply be only revieweed "For Iphone", when it runs on all phones. It's inferior to the Iphone's browser - as well as Symbian's, and browsers for many other high end phone. But it's superior to browsers on a wide range of dirt cheap low end phones (at least, it was a few years ago, things have presumably improved - though I imagine Opera Mini still compares well to them).

Re:Unfair Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of Opera Mini as the iPad whereas Opera Mobile is like an overclocked laptop. It has limited functionality but is really good at that limited functionality. Would you listen to a review that called out the iPad for not being able to play the latest 3D games at 60fps?

Re:Unfair Comparison

[sznupi]

We can only assume how good of a rendering engine opera used on their servers. I thought it was mentioned they used webkit, but that could easily be wrong.

They are using Presto of course (the engine of...Opera; though in a bit different version from current "normal" Opera; running under massivelly pararell Linux VMs, with frequent "restarts" of VMs from known state). Why wouldn't they use their own layout engine?

Re:Unfair Comparison

[ElusiveMind]

Opera Mini's end use is as an application to browse the web. It's not intended to do anything else. It may not "technically" render HTML and what not, but it IS a web browser since it's what you use to BROWSE THE WEB! :) It's even called "Opera Mini Web Browser" in the store.

Saying it's not a good web browser isn't an unfair comparison - it's a statement of opinion about how good that application performs as it's intended purpose.

Much like AOL's attempted speed boost by compressing images via proxy distorted web pages in the past, Opera's compression of web pages has the same effect. I tried it myself and was not impressed.

Fighting a negative review by saying "Well it's NOT a web browser" is just a straw man argument. It's clearly developed and marketed to be a competitor to Safari. And it doesn't live up to the hype. And now that the truth is out, those upset about it will make up a defense about the application being something it's clearly not marketed to be. Kinda funny.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[Threni]

> even locked down feature phones... and the Iphone

Ah, but you repeat yourself!

Re:Unfair Comparison

[insertwackynamehere]

Well, at one point Lynx was useful. Now it's outdated and not useful for general browsing. I can't tell if your post was a sarcastic jab at modern day web standards, but if it was you really oughtta get over it and move on with your life.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[pgmrdlm]

You look at their heads?

Re:Unfair Comparison

[insertwackynamehere]

Opera may not be the bad guy in the sense that I'm not insinuating they want to steal peoples logins, but what you have to worry about is how locked down their servers are from other people who do want that info. Maybe they are secure, but I still feel like with that kind of corporate security Apple and Facebook would be much more bulletproof (well at least Apple). I mean can you honestly say "Privacy Lawsuit Against Opera" sounds as headline grabbing as "Privacy Lawsuit Against Apple"?

Re:Unfair Comparison

[shutdown -p now]

So you're saying it sucks as a browser

It does. I mean, it's not even feature-complete by today's definition of a browser.

... it's not intended to be a good browser?

Correct.

What? Exactly on what basis should it be reviewed?

As a reduced-functionality browser for slow connections (i.e. no 3G or even EDGE), or connections of any kind where data is prohibitively expensive (so every kilobyte counts).

Re:Unfair Comparison

[radish]

But they released it for the iPhone. If it doesn't compare well to Safari, which every iPhone has, then why does it even exist? I get that mini is designed for feature phones with no other browser, the iPhone is not that.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[toadlife]

Mobile is a MUCH improved experience...

Not to mention the latest version of Opera Mobile has built in Flash support that is implemented very well.

Opera Mobile 10 >>>> iPhone Safari

Re:Unfair Comparison

[sznupi]

But you could take into account that there are different browsers for different purposes. After all, we already have various desktop web browsers (with somewhat notable differences between them, even though they all run in very comparable circumstances), and many "smaller" web browsers tailored to specific platforms or usage scenarios.

In that light, saying with such certainity that Opera Mini "is clearly developed and marketed to be a competitor to Safari" is much closer to straw man argument than what you are arguing against in your post. Mini is not a direct competitor - it strives to offer fairly usable, reasonably close to full web browsing experience on many devices which would be otherwise unable to have it (this part is not significant for the iPhone). It does that also rather nice in places with abysmal data connections, while at the same time limiting data charges and conserving battery (this might easily apply). Those things are not the main focus of Safari.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[sznupi]

Opera markets their Mini solution to quite a few cellular operators, for default inclusion on the handsets offered by them. I'd say they have a reputation to protect.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[sznupi]

"It doesn't compare well to Safari" when Safari has good conditions to work with.

It shows its strenghts when you're in an area with very poor data transfer, when you want to conserve battery a bit more aggresivelly for whatever reason, when you want to limit data traffic.

It can still be usefull on the iPhone.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[s73v3r]

And Opera Mobile is only available on Nokia phones and Windows Mobile. No Android or Blackberry versions available.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I agree with the rest of your post. But I also don't see why it should simply be only revieweed "For Iphone", when it runs on all phones. It's inferior to the Iphone's browser - as well as Symbian's, and browsers for many other high end phone.

Not to disagree with you on principle, but as far as, say, Nokia E51 or E71 are concerned, Opera indeed does kick the ass of the built-in browser in ways asses are rarely known to have been kicked.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Well done for almost making a convincing argument to back up your moral high ground, but the fact is you are still wrong. The modern English language doesn't always follow exact rules, such as the capitalisation of the first letter of a proper noun. The language has had to adapt to 'names' from trademarks or other cultures, and such strict rules no longer apply. For instance, many Dutch names are prefixed with a 'van', such as 'van Bommel'. The Dutch custom is not to capitalise the v, yet this is at odds with the rules of proper nouns. However, modern English has adapted to allow such irregularities. Such names or trademarks can count as exceptions, which is exactly the same situation as iPhone. iPhone (stylised as is) is an accepted name, and attempting to spell it otherwise based on a strict, traditional, language law has no place.

You indeed correct in pointing out the mistakes people make in not following the correct capitalisation of trademarks with your other examples.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

From one anon coward to another, well done for almost making a convincing argument to back up your slavish adherence to the whims of your shiny toys purveyors, but the fact is I still don't buy it. I will not capitalise the van in van Bommel because it's someone's goddamn name so I write it how they wish out of respect for the person who owns it. I see no such reason to give the same respect to corporations.

Not that I'm some sort of hippy who thinks he is snubbing the man, it's a practical thing as much as anything. All vans in Dutch names are uncapitalised, simple consistent exception, I can cope with that. Trademarks have a baffling and ever growing array of typographical quirks in the constant pursuit of branding novelty, I'm buggered if I'm going to think "is this the one I write like tHis, or like ThiS, or like this, or like Thïs..." You know what, fuck you, I'm going to write 'This'."

For example, since you're so keen on writing "iPhone" and "adidas" do you also live up to GP's other example, and always be sure to fish out your character map for the backwards R in Toys R Us? Do you bollocks. You write Toys R Us like anybody else. So get back in your box.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[mdwh2]

Well indeed, I don't know why Opera wasted the time writing Opera Mini especially for the Iphone. I wished they'd focus efforts on either Opera Mini for the platforms that need it, or Opera Mobile for the smart phones that aren't locked down.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[vertinox]

Well, since you ask, I'll explain my reasoning. It's a proper noun, and I'm writing English - so I write "Iphone". Write "iPhone" if you prefer, but that's a matter of preference. (I've also seen "IPhone" sometimes used by people.)

Oddly enough. When I type "Iphone" or "IPhone" or "IPHONE" on my iPhone, it automatically changes it to "iPhone" so it must be the right way.

Though on this comment in Firefox it wants to of course change all of my aforementioned spellings to just "Phone"

Re:Unfair Comparison

[mr_matticus]

"iPhone" is the stylised trademark representation.

No, it's just the name. If someone's last name is van Sant, and they spell it van Sant, then it's incorrect to do it any other way. Saying, "I see that your name is 'van Sant', but I'm going to call you 'Van Sant' because it makes sense in the rules of proper nouns from the perspective of a four year old" is just wrong.

E.g., "Adidas" rather than "adidas"; "Time" rather than "TIME".

Neither example fits your criterion. The formal name of the shoe company is Adidas AG (capitalized just like everyone else does); the magazine, officially Time Magazine or Time Europe, is the eponymous product of Time, Inc., a unit of Time-Warner, Inc.

I also note for other trademarks that have odd capitalisation, such as all lowercase or all uppercase, people tend to ignore these.

Since you're talking about prose and formal style, you're incorrect.

There's a difference between stylized typefaces (backwards letters, use of all caps or all lowercase, letters substituted with shapes or images, etc.) and the exact naming of a product, company, or service as specified by their press release.

You're free to ignore the oddities of logos and stylization, but it is improper to use an incorrect name when it is specified in standard text in official government registries, press releases, and other formal first- and third-party documents.

I'm not sure why an exception should be made for Apple.

None is. Professional prose writers conform to the actual name of products. It's not ignored. Intel i5 is written "i5", not 'I5' or 'I-5' or any other variation. Intel is written 'Intel' because that is the company's formal name, even though its trademark is written in an all lowercase typeface.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[oakgrove]

What you said. I have Opera Mini on my G1 and it has exactly the same deficiencies as this one appears to have on the iPhone. But, you know what? When I'm in GPRS, I can still use the internet. The default browser? Forget it.

Re:Unfair Comparison

[Santzes]

But then you're not going to have two hands on it

How many issues caused by Apple's restrictions?

[MartinSchou]

No interpreting languages means no javascript which will kill off quite a lot of pages. Also means they can't port the Opera Mobile which is a full fledge browser.
No setting another default browser means you're corralled into Safari.

Fonts is a bit silly, but that might be because the rendering is done on Opera's servers, and they aren't allowed to use Apple's fonts outside of the iPhone?

No importing bookmarks from Safari - if the API doesn't expose that option, you can't really blame Opera for that restriction. If the API does make it possible, it's silly not to have the option.

I've seen quite a few people complaining, that it's not using the iPhone friendly pages, but ... is that a valid complaint? I don't mean "suck it up", but if the webserver doesn't serve up the iPhone pages when Opera Mini on iPhone requests it, that's the server's fault. And to some extent having the server serve up the iPhone page only when Safari/Webkit on iPhone requests the regular page is silly as well. If you can detect Webkit on iPhone, you can probably detect any kind of mobile browser and serve up the mobile page for it. But I have neither a webserver nor an iPhone with Opera on it, so I can't tell you what kind of identifiers Opera Mini gives to the server.

Re:How many issues caused by Apple's restrictions?

[atchijov]

Actually, Safari on iPhone supports Java Script exceptionally well. If you read carefully, Apple explicitly allow JS in WebKit container. I have tried Opera for few hours - and went back to Safari. Unless you are on Edge - the speed difference is negligible and really there is no any other benefits to compel me to switch from Safari.

Re:How many issues caused by Apple's restrictions?

[sznupi]

Yes, but Apple won't allow anything other with js (or, more generally, any 3rd party app that can execute arbitrary code); besides, using locally available Webkit engine would work against the purposes of Opera Mini.

And you know, nobody said you have to abandon Safari; you can always keep Mini just in case when you're in an area with poor connection...

Re:How many issues caused by Apple's restrictions?

[inpher]

No web font is under Apple's control, especially not fonts such as Verdama, Arial, Lucida, Times or Georgia. My guess is that Opera are using only one font to save memory on the rendering sever.

Re:How many issues caused by Apple's restrictions?

[sznupi]

Lack of js and only one font is more of a design decision, stemming from one of the main purposes behind Opera Mini.

Mini gets preprocessed webpages in highly compressed binary format - letting js through or relying on local rendering assets would work against it, I guess (especially where it mosts matter, in so caled "3rd world" countries on very poor connection and basic mobile phones). In exchange, yeah, you get speedy browsing while in poor network conditions; also usually lower battery usage (the ability to run of almost any mobile phone doesn't matter so much in the context of the iPhone)

Re:How many issues caused by Apple's restrictions?

[insertwackynamehere]

This is because they are selling a product to the end user demographic and it is a demographic sick of being rootkitted and virused and having their tech-savvyish friend come over and reinstall their OS again. Seriously, is it that hard to figure out why Apple doesn't want arbitrary code execution? If they allowed that, how quickly would you jump on them for it when it broke on Slashdot that an application had successfully stolen PII from the iPhones it was installed on and began a rant in how we should regress technology because you think Facebook is stupid?

Re:How many issues caused by Apple's restrictions?

[sznupi]

There's a straightforward way around security concerns - sandboxing (which is already avaliable on iPhone OS) together with Appstore admission process (which can easily make sure that the apps to which it might apply use sandboxing properly). Don't kid yourself why Apple put that limitation (and has taken it much further recently)

And what's with Facebook? It's consistently among the top pages viewed under Opera Mini... ( http://www.opera.com/smw/ )

Re:How many issues caused by Apple's restrictions?

[s73v3r]

I've seen quite a few people complaining, that it's not using the iPhone friendly pages, but ... is that a valid complaint? I don't mean "suck it up", but if the webserver doesn't serve up the iPhone pages when Opera Mini on iPhone requests it, that's the server's fault. And to some extent having the server serve up the iPhone page only when Safari/Webkit on iPhone requests the regular page is silly as well. If you can detect Webkit on iPhone, you can probably detect any kind of mobile browser and serve up the mobile page for it. But I have neither a webserver nor an iPhone with Opera on it, so I can't tell you what kind of identifiers Opera Mini gives to the server.

A user is on an iPhone, they would expect an iPhone friendly page. They don't care they're on a different browser. Besides, shouldn't Opera's servers be able to detect that they've received a request from an iPhone, and then be able to retrieve the iPhone version of the page from the site?

Re:How many issues caused by Apple's restrictions?

[exomondo]

This is because they are selling a product to the end user demographic and it is a demographic sick of being rootkitted and virused and having their tech-savvyish friend come over and reinstall their OS again.

Can't seem to recall having heard of anyone needing to re-install their smartphone OS.

Re:How many issues caused by Apple's restrictions?

[MartinSchou]

Possibly. But like I said, I have neither an iPhone or a webserver, so I can't tell you what differences there are in the requests presented to a server.

Re:How many issues caused by Apple's restrictions?

[insertwackynamehere]

I'm referring to the Window's market who shifted over to Apple in general because they lost faith in MS products in general. The iPhone is easy to use and not by the company they associate with viruses and computer crashes. Remember, we are thinking as a end user here and not as a Slashdot poster so it doesn't matter if the comparison between Windows PC and smartphone is relevant.

Re:How many issues caused by Apple's restrictions?

[exomondo]

I'm referring to the Window's market who shifted over to Apple in general because they lost faith in MS products in general.

So you're saying that is apple's target market? I think that's aiming a little narrow.

The iPhone is easy to use and not by the company they associate with viruses and computer crashes.

But what other phones that allow arbitrary code execution suffer from the problems you described? The end user is smart enough to know that there is a difference between their desktop PC and a smartphone.

Same conclusion I reached...

[ktappe]

I couldn't use Opera for iPhone for more than a few minutes before abandoning it. Pinching in and out, possibly due to Apple restrictions to be fair, doesn't work well at all--it's not smooth, instead jumping between too far in or too far out. But the worst part is trying to change the pages shown on the home screen, To change or add one you have to hold your finger down on one of the 9 buttons. Then a menu pops up....UNDER YOUR FINGER WHERE YOU CAN'T SEE IT. But if you lift the phone up so you can peek under your finger to try sliding onto the pop up menu, IT DISAPPEARS as you move to it. It's literally impossible to change the home screen. I persistently tried, but had to give up after nearly 2 dozen attempts. It's truly an infernal piece of software. I had high hopes.....

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[rarel]

Same experience here about the zoom feature, really not user-friendly.

It's really disappointing, as a whole it didn't feel as smooth as Safari, a bit of a bummer as I really wanted to like it. However this is on an iPod Touch with blazing fast WiFi, so I can't really judge on Opera's alleged advantage on slow networks over Safari (even though it seemed to load pages faster).

I'll keep it but not as primary.

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[Bazzargh]

That's exactly the same horribleness that made me drop it. However you can actually get that feature to work: once the menu appears, lift your finger, NOW tap the menu. Of course if you move your finger AT ALL the menu is gone and you are left dragging over a bookmark you didn't want to open (it won't ever reappear again)

Its also inexplicably worse than having these bookmarks as icons on your phone. At least there you can drag them to reorder them - in opera mini, you have to re-bookmark something to have it appear somewhere else (or maybe there's a trick to this one too)

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[notrandomly]

The zoom in Opera is not supposed to be pinch zooming. Just tap where you want to zoom, as that's how it's supposed to work. Trying to get it working like Safari will just cause frustration. Use it the way it was meant to be used.

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[Anonymous Coward]

try lifting your finger after the menu appears - then you can choose a menu item - yeah i know - not the apple way but it works.

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[notrandomly]

Don't bother pinching. Opera works by tapping where you want it to zoom in. Trying to pinch-zoom when Opera doesn't really support that it just silly. It's nothing but a gesture, so you might as well just tap to zoom instead.

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[mr_lizard13]

Damn.... what we need is a stylus!!!

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[notrandomly]

It's plenty user-friendly. The point is that Opera doesn't do real pinch-zoom. You are supposed to put your finger where you want to zoom in, and that's it. Don't try to use pinch zoom as in Safari as that isn't even supposed to work.

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[at_slashdot]

Opera doesn't have pinching at all, it works by tapping. Duh!

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[insertwackynamehere]

This is the problem with Linux...an application should not be controlling the interface above the rules if the platform. Telling confused users to "use it the way it's meant to be used" turns people off. Not standarizing interface guidelines ruins user experience. This is why the iPhone is doing well. This is why it is 2010 and still not the year of the Linux desktop. Apple has a standard guideline for human interfaces. Opera Mini did not comply. Opera Mini has lost. The end user has lost. But you get to feel a few seconds of self satisfaction :)

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[s73v3r]

That's the problem. The user expects pinch-zoom to work like it does in Safari, and in every other iPhone app. Changing that behavior is unexpected, and is making the user learn a new mode of interaction, which only works in this one app.

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[s73v3r]

No, its silly that Opera decided to completely abandon the UIG of the platform, and put their own thing in instead, which conflicts with every other application on the platform.

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[notrandomly]

What does Linux have to do with anything? Apple tells users to use things the way Apple wants them to. Apple basically dictates what the user should be doing.

Opera Mini has lost? According to Opera, people didn't just download it, but they also seems to keep using it. The end-user won because Opera Mini leads the way in many areas, and Safari is sure to follow (as Apple has always followed Opera on other platforms).

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[notrandomly]

That's no problem when the mode of interaction is superior to the constant adjustment and zooming in Safari.

Re:Same conclusion I reached...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lemme help you with that. They designed it the same way Apple designed as a method for rearranging icons on your screens. Hold your finger down on it for a few extra seconds, then when the menu pops up, you take your finger off, then you click on the option you want. You don't need to slide to it.

Quite the opposite

[bynary]

I found the Opera Mini experience on my iPod Touch to be quite pleasant actually. It rerendered the pages I viewed just fine when switching from portrait to landscape views. Maybe the websites from TFA just suck.

What change of heart?

[mccalli]

Was it ever rejected? I can find references to Opera saying Apple might not let it in, but nothing definitive.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:What change of heart?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Was it ever rejected? I can find references to Opera saying Apple might not let it in, but nothing definitive.

No, it was never rejected. Opera decided not to submit Opera Mobile, because they assumed it would be rejected since it does not comply with the requirements. A lot of people speculated that Opera Mini would not be accepted either, but it has never been rejected in the past.

Naturally...

[Luchio]

Of course, they didn't put that much effort into it, considering they didn't know if it was ever going to be approved by Apple. There was a fair risk that their work would go to waste. It will probably improve from now on, now that they breached the door open.

Speed

[Vectormatic]

One thing many first-day reviews of opera-mini said was that it was much faster then safari, even while on wifi.

I tried it yesterday (on wifi, since i have an ipod, not an iphone), and opera mini took serious time connecting to the opera servers, after which loading was fast. however, the opera-server connection pretty much killed it for me..

Opera mini is a nice try, and some things do improve on safari, but on the whole, what i really want is opera Mobile (and once the app store is open enough, CHROME) for the iphone/ipod

Re:Speed

[Anonymous Coward]

But Chrome is like a dumbed-down version of Safari anyway! WTF?

Re:Speed

[insertwackynamehere]

Chrome uses Webkit like Safari. Since mobile Safari is lighter than real Safari what exactly do you dream about in a mobile version of Chrome that would improve upon mobile Safari?

Re:Speed

[Vectormatic]

To be honest, i'm not quite sure. All i know is that on the desktop chrome is my favorite browser by miles, and i think somehow, some way, the chrome team could do the same thing on the iphone.

Before i got chrome, i was perfectly happy with firefox, right now though, i hardly ever use it, chrome just feels much better to me.

DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[pak9rabid]

Since Opera's proxy servers do the actual rendering of the page, anything that's accessed via https has to be decrypted by Opera's servers, then re-encrypted and sent back to the user (ala man-in-the-middle).

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It says that right in the official Opera Mini FAQ at opera.com.

Good going, Paul Revere of the 1850's.

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[pak9rabid]

Yes...and it's something important enough that deserves being announced again.

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[AaxelB]

Since Opera's proxy servers do the actual rendering of the page, anything that's accessed via https has to be decrypted by Opera's servers, then re-encrypted and sent back to the user (ala man-in-the-middle).

If you don't trust Opera not to spy on your data, why in the hell would you trust them not to spy when you use https in their normal browser? You're always forced to place trust in your browser to keep things encrypted and secure; using their proxies is approximately the same amount of trust. If you're worried about them caching sensitive pages on their servers, that's somewhat more valid (even if you trust them, they could be hacked, say), but still not a very strong argument.

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[notrandomly]

It works fine with HTTPS. The server and client use encryption. Of course, you should avoid entering your banking details if you don't trust Opera Software, but most people probably won't care. I certainly don't. Opera is not going to spy on anyone.

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[pak9rabid]

If you don't trust Opera not to spy on your data, why in the hell would you trust them not to spy when you use https in their normal browser? You're always forced to place trust in your browser to keep things encrypted and secure; using their proxies is approximately the same amount of trust. If you're worried about them caching sensitive pages on their servers, that's somewhat more valid (even if you trust them, they could be hacked, say), but still not a very strong argument.

Last I checked, there weren't any backdoors in Opera that allow Opera employees access to my browser data.

Giving Opera the ability to decrypt my "secure" data on their servers gives them the ability to view that data and do whatever with it. I'm not saying this is something that is likely to happen, but there are such things as Bastard Operators From Hell, who on a bad day might decide to do something nasty with your private information. Probably not likely, but the way I see it, the least amount of hands in the cookie jar, the better.

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[sznupi]

Last I checked, there weren't any backdoors in closed software I use that allow developer employees access to my data.

(fixed your quote bit)
And how do you know that? On what grounds you're putting this trust in most of the closed software you use? (heck, also open one...did you make sure all your binaries are fine? Do you trust all eyes looking at the code? The compiler?)

Plus there are organisational ways to deal with hypothetical BOFHs. Also, don't forget where is the HQ of Opera Software, consider they're likely to approach their users differently than typical corp you're used to; and that there are plenty of hands in the cookie jar already.

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[AaxelB]

And how do you know that? On what grounds you're putting this trust in most of the closed software you use? (heck, also open one...did you make sure all your binaries are fine? Do you trust all eyes looking at the code? The compiler?)

Exactly. I considered linking to this in my post above, but it seemed a little too philosophical for the topic. Still a great read, and excellent point.

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's why Opera notifies you about this when you do try to open a https page for the first time... It is not a hidden feature. (damn, never moderate before reading the whole thread...)

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the issue goes further than caching.

With Opera routing all https traffic, it provides a single point of attack for any site accessed by the clients. A single point can be exploited for data from (millions?) of users across the entire internet. If someone breaches it without alerting Opera they could be scooping a huge amount of data for nefarious purposes.

Like you say, most people are arguing that you shouldn't trust Opera and that's completely stupid. However, I do have a slight concern that there is now a single point (metaphorically, I'm sure it's spread amongst multiple data centers) that is arguably a much more lucrative target than any single bank/client

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[radish]

But if the Opera browser were doing something with my secure traffic it would be pretty easy to spot if you were looking for it ("why does my browser open a connection to opera.com everytime I go to my bank's site?"). If you already know they're piping everything though a proxy, you have no way of knowing what they (or anyone else) are doing with that data.

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if their "normal" browser were to start forwarding copies of every page I visit to an unknown server on the internet my firewall would instantly detect it. Not so with mini.

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[Midnight Thunder]

Do you know whether this server can be avoided with the current version?

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[nine-times]

Interesting point. Still, I think those are two totally different modes of attack, and they have to be evaluated differently. It might be possible, for example, that Opera is very careful to check their source code for vulnerabilities and malicious alterations, but to be less thorough in checking their proxy servers for vulnerabilities or protecting their proxies from employee snooping. That's not an accusation, by the way. I'm not saying Opera isn't guarding their proxies, just pointing out that securing their browser and securing their proxies are two different things.

There's also the issue of convenience, and the likelihood of being caught. To give a more concrete example, imagine you ran a small business. You might trust your employees to not break into your petty cash lock-box, even if the employees know where it is and it's effectively unguarded. However, you might still not want to leave a couple thousand dollars in uncounted small bills loose on your desk. Trust isn't a binary thing. It's not "either you do or you don't."

If Opera included spyware in their browser, it would be a pretty bold move. If they were sending private data out, there's a decent chance someone would catch them. It's not a lot to trust that they wouldn't do something that stupid. It takes a higher level of trust IMO to purposefully send your unencrypted banking information to Opera's servers and assume that no one will bother to look.

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[AaxelB]

That is a very good point. In all honesty, if I had a phone that had Opera Mini and a normal, non-proxied browser, I would probably use the normal browser for things like online banking, and Opera for everything else, for exactly the reason you said. In a bind, though, I generally trust Opera, both as a business and as software developers, and they have a very good track record for doing security well; if I really needed to I wouldn't hesitate to use Opera Mini for my banking.

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[Lakitu]

Ummmm, it's pretty obvious how he knows it -- he said it was free of backdoors the last time he checked! After a thorough review of every version of every Opera browser source code, line by line, he can say affirmatively that there are no backdoors.

oh who are we kidding, everyone knows he's never checked. He just trusts the download implicitly.

Re:DO NOT USE FOR HTTPS!!

[Anonymous Coward]

A developer could always disguise that bit (i.e. cache it until time for an "automatic update" or "update check" whether it's user initiated or during application start-up). So whether you go through a proxy or not, you are putting trust in the software when you use a closed-source implementation.

My question about speed

[linumax]

How do they do it? It's not just the browsing speed which is faster (though a bit "degraded" page viewing experience compared to Safari) but everything in the interface is faster. On 3G, even the keyboard which seemingly is the same keyboard widget that Safari uses is much much more responsive than when typing in Safari. Same goes for tab switching as mentioned in the summary and other actions like stop, reload, etc. Very snappy interface altogether.

Re:My question about speed

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

How do they do it?

They run the HTML and Javascript interpreter in the cloud instead of using Webkit. Basically it offloads a lot of the processing from the iPhone to Opera servers. As a side note, it also means even for encrypted pages (like your online banking) the people at Opera have full access to what you're doing, so you need to decide if you trust them with your security.

Re:My question about speed

[linumax]

But that was not my question, I understand how the rendering through proxy and OBML work.

But Opera Mini has a much faster interface altogether, even the same keyboard widget that Safari uses is much more responsive in Opera Mini.

Re:My question about speed

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

But that was not my question, I understand how the rendering through proxy and OBML work. But Opera Mini has a much faster interface altogether, even the same keyboard widget that Safari uses is much more responsive in Opera Mini.

When Safari is running it is also running the entire Webkit engine and processing data for the pages. When Opera is running it is running a stripped down engine for processing the data display from Opera's servers. Less processing occuring on the device means more responsive UI elements, at least for devices with CPU bottlenecks, like smartphones.

What was the reviewer smoking?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a 3G 16Gb model owner. I have to say, I've found Opera to be REALLY nice so far! It's WAYYYYYY faster at rendering pages, zooming, scrolling, etc. Plus, because it's completely wiped from memory when closed, it doesn't keep it's cache sitting out in RAM making the whole phone slow the way that Safari does if you keep a couple tabs open.

Additionally, I like that they allow you to reduce the quality (and thus size) of the images, or turn them off altogether.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the HTTPS stuff all going through their servers.

I LOVE the "home page" thing. That's nice given that I tend to only hit the same couple of sites on a regular basis from the phone.

All in all, in a LOT of ways, Opera is what Safari on the iPhone SHOULD have been IMO.

It's just "okay" for now

[davidbrit2]

The initial release looks like a pretty straight port of the native Windows Mobile version, warts and all. To understand some of the weaknesses, you need to understand that Opera Mini was originally just a Java (J2ME) application, and smooth, arbitrary zooming is not something that would have worked well. Thus the Opera Mini proxy sends both a zoomed-in and a zoomed-out version of the page that the browser can jump between to allow the user to zoom in and out, even if it's only two zoom levels. With the greater CPU and graphical power offered by porting the application to Windows Mobile and the iPhone OS, I don't doubt that we'll eventually see an update that simply uses the zoomed-in version of the page and scales it accordingly to implement zooming, but these two ports are relatively new, and the developers obviously haven't yet had a chance to spruce up the rendering beyond what the Java version does already.

In summary, I'd recommend putting it on your iPhone/iPod Touch so that you'll be informed when an update becomes available. I'd wager it will be improved significantly.

Webapps

[Anonymous Coward]

it will allow third parties to develop apps in Flash and deploy them on the web
 
Isn't this the same thing as "webclip" style Web Apps that the iPhone was supposed to originally use? Why would Apple suddenly be against that?

Insanely fast?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're really that impressed by fast switching between tabs?

Re:Insanely fast?

[insertwackynamehere]

When all you do is whine that you have to program in a native library and language for a certain product, you are impressed when your non native, forceport actually functions in a realistic time scale.

I like it.

[gurutc]

The speed dial feature is nice. I'm seeing Opera handling non-mobile-formatted sites better (for me) than Safari.

Just my .02

Having used this for a few hours, I agree

[DJRumpy]

It really is that bad. Although some people may find it useful in very low bandwidth situations, it is a struggle to use on the websites I frequent (Slashdot being one of them). It was totally unintuative, very unfriendly when zooming between the two zoom levels, and just a struggle to use. Browsing shouldn't be a struggle. I think the worst part of it was the zoom. You were either all the way out, or zoomed in to some pre-determined value that either had you scrolling left, right, up, or down to find something, or you were zoomed out to 20,000 feet with an illegible mess of lines, bars, and tiny graphics. There was no in-between.

As to why Apple approved it, I don't see this as much different than a PDF viewer, although I would say it is much less user friendly than a typical viewer.

I remove it after trying it. It was just too painful to use.

creators' planet/population rescue reviewed

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a chance to see/save what's real.

Hogwash

[snsr]

Anything less than a fully functioning browser would defeat the iPhone's raison d'être.

Re:Hogwash

[GameboyRMH]

Are you suggesting that the current Flash-less browser is "fully functional?" Sad as it may be, Flash is an integral part of the web right now, and going without Flash totally breaks the functionality of many sites (such as youtube, which has had to introduce workarounds such as client apps to let the iSheep use their site). Sure you can still browse but it's far from "fully functional."

Re:Hogwash

[dfghjk]

You couldn't be more wrong both in the iPhone's reason for existence and for suggesting that it has a fully functional browser.

Re:Hogwash

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not fully functional, it's mostly functional, and that's good enough. Really.

Re:Hogwash

[Steve Max]

The iPhone's raison d'être is to make Apple more money. Anything it may offer is just a way to make that happen.

Re:Hogwash

[mattack2]

That's funny, because I have ClickToFlash (http://clicktoflash.com/) installed on Safari on the desktop, and rarely use Flash at all. (I have a very few sites white-listed, and can't remember the last time I clicked on a Flash box on another site to load it.)

I think the browser on the phone is definitely fully functional.

Review? This is a review?

[notrandomly]

Why did the Slashdot editors even bother to link to this single-page piece of text? Why this exact review? Weren't all the reviews that praise Opera Mini pro-Apple enough for you or something?

The problems: Doesn't take the page width into account (in fact, it's the opposite. Text is wrapped to fit the screen width even before you zoom in. This can be disabled in the opera:config page), doesn't resize the screen when you rotate (since the server does the page handling you'll have to reload the page to make the server send it in a new width. Duh), page zooming is clumsy (that's because you are just supposed to touch where you want it to zoom. It's just a single step zoom, so the pinch zoom is a fake emulated one), problems with pages (you get lots of site problems with Safari too), can't import bookmarks, and doesn't have a spelling checker. Oh, and it can't be set as the default browser.

So my summary: Several non-issues, one problem that is shared by Safari, and lack of a spelling checker and a default browser setting.

This review is simply garbage. Why is Slashdot linking to it?

Re:Review? This is a review?

[DJRumpy]

It doesn't matter if the text is 'wrapped' if it's illegible due to extreme zoom levels attempting to fit it all on a single page. Did you try browsing to Slashdot with it?
As to reloading the page, doesn't that defeat the purpose of getting more speed if you have to reload every page when you want to switch from landscape to portrait? I think you would be surprised at how often people switch from portrait to landscape when browsing.
Zooming is crap on this app, and no amount of lipstick will make it pretty
Problems with pages in Safari? I don't recall any that don't work, sans flash only pages. The issues with Opera go a bit deeper in regards to fidelity.
You also didn't mention privacy, meaning you have to trust the proxy completely for all data.

Ditto on the spell checker and default browser.

The above are valid concerns and I don't think the linked article is 'garbage'. This app should stand on it's merits, or fall due to it's lack of them. It has speed, but little else going for it.

Re:Review? This is a review?

[SnowDog74]

Wait, so... usability, user experience, intuitiveness... basically all the reasons we use tools (to make the output of a task greater than the input required; i.e. to make our lives easier)...

These are all "non-issues"? I'm really interested to know what you define as an "issue," then.

Re:Review? This is a review?

[Anonymous Coward]

The other posters beat me to an articulate response, so all I can say is, "Suck it".

Re:Review? This is a review?

[notrandomly]

No, these are either non-issues or minor/irrelevant issues. Safari has far worse problems, such as the rotten fake tabbed browsing, the terrible usability issue of reloading when navigating back, no find in page, etc.

Re:Review? This is a review?

[notrandomly]

Switching from landscape to portrait always introduces lag, also in Safari. You navigate back and forward far more often than you switch viewing modes too.

Zooming works fine in Opera Mini. It allows for easy one-handed browsing, and no need to constantly adjust the zoom level like in safari.

The default browser thing is up to Apple.

The article is garbage because it only superficially touches on the subject, and was written by someone who was obviously biased. There are several far more in-depth reviews out there, and some of them praise Opera Mini while others give both valid praise and valid criticism. The crappy article Slashdot linked to was just a shallow hit piece.

As for privacy, that goes for everything. You have to trust your ISP, Apple, etc.

It has speed, but little else going for it.

Are you trolling?

• It has something as basic as find in page, which Safari does not(!)
• Simple one-handed browsing (just one tap to zoom)
• Text always wrapped to fit the screen just right. No constant zooming adjustment or horizontal scrolling
• Proper tabbed browsing
• Instantly navigate in history (no reloading)
• Pages load instantly even on slow connection
• etc.

And the review is wrong on a couple of points...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using it and I have not experienced all the issues that the reviewer complains of. Hor/Vert works and page rendering is very good for layout. Slow to start but the UI is significantly easier to use than Safari IMHO. Pinch and spread works very well. Perhaps Opera did some quick updates?

Anyways, glad to have the competition. The iPhone is an excellent piece of h/w but Apple is such a bunch of fascists. Choice is good.

One thing that makes it almost-great

[sootman]

One thing I love about Opera is the "long click" that you can use to pop up a menu to, for example, open an link in a new tab. Unfortunately, new tabs open in the foreground, but if they ever make it so that new tabs open in the background I could see myself using it a lot just for that reason, ESPECIALLY if I get an iPad.* (At least switching among tabs is pretty easy.)

For short browsing sessions (like when I want to kill a few minutes when I'm in line somewhere) Mobile Safari is fine. For longer sessions (like what I think I'd use an iPad for) I think I'd miss easy use of tabs a lot. When I sit down to browse for a while, I'll open a site like Google Fast Flip or DF or TUAW or Slashdot, start reading, and middle-click on linked-to articles that I want to read; then, when I'm done with the starting page, I close it and start reading items. This is how I browse probably 80% of the time. The ability to quickly and easily consume lots of a certain type of content would be the one killer feature that would push it to my primary browser, using Safari mainly for sites that Opera doesn't render well. (Funny--that reminds me of the early days of using Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox. :-) ) OTOH, if Safari ever implements open-new-tabs-in-the-background, my Opera use will pretty much cease.

* assuming, of course, that they make it for iPad. That reminds me--why are they doing this at all? They're giving it away for free AND they've got to run the servers they use to prep content for it. Why? This is like giveing away the razor and the blades. Do they think it will drive people to use Desktop Opera?

What thread is this?

[forand]

I find it amusing that you post that "only their own Safari can actually display" HTML5 on the iPhone in this thread discussing the acceptance of a different browser onto the iPhone/iPad.

Re:What thread is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it amusing that you don't understand the nuances.

The point is Flash can be embedded in a web page. This can break the Safari experience. If Adobe slips in a broken Flash (by mistake or intent) that causes CNN to crash, it looks like iPhone can't handle CNN. Who cares the root cause is actually a plugin or whatever else?

Completely different with Opera, or any other browser. So the browser crashes. Who cares? Not Apple's product. It may diminish the reputation of the app store's vetting process, but still Safari on iPhone is fully within Apple's control.

Re:What thread is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera Mini isn't a real browser. All the processing is done on Opera's proxies. There's no JavaScript engine, for example.

Re:What thread is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera Mini can't display HTML5, though, as all javascript execution is done server side.

Re:What thread is this?

[Gadget_Guy]

While you may be amused by my statement, it is actually correct.

Opera mini will never be a contender to run Flash like web apps. It doesn't even support HTML, but uses OBML or Opera Binary Markup Language. This highly optimised language is used to transfer renderings of pages that have been built on Opera's server (which as far as I am aware, doesn't support HTML5). Doing an animation on web page actually means downloading the entire page multiple times.

The scripting is performed on Opera's servers and is incredibly basic. For example, there are no mouse, key or focus events. And since the javascript is all run on another computer, it can't possibly do anything on the iPhone/iPad that Apple doesn't want. They can't look up phone numbers, or call undocumented APIs.

Re:What thread is this?

[insertwackynamehere]

Are you fucking serious? People had their panties in a bunch because of _this_? People talk shit about iPhone's Safari because they'd rather use what you just described? Yeah, screw Apple and their crappy crap that brings nothing new to the table! Now here, here is a real contender, this Opers Mini. For starters, it's not Apple.

Re:What thread is this?

[shutdown -p now]

This highly optimised language is used to transfer renderings of pages that have been built on Opera's server (which as far as I am aware, doesn't support HTML5).

Opera servers use the same backend as Opera desktop browser to render HTML (or at least so they claim). This means that there is HTML5 support is there, though to what extent it is useful working in such mode is unclear - most interesting features (such as canvas) are dynamic.

The scripting is performed on Opera's servers and is incredibly basic. For example, there are no mouse, key or focus events.

Since this may be misunderstood - there are no move, hover, or button up/down events for the mouse, but it does handle click events, so it does generally work with dynamic websites where "dynamic" part of it is e.g. showing (and possibly downloading via Ajax) a previously hidden part of the page on click - such as Slashdot.

Re:What thread is this?

[shutdown -p now]

People had their panties in a bunch because of _this_?

People have their panties in a bunch because Apple wouldn't allow a proper browser (which isn't just another WebKit wrapper) on iPhone in the first place.

People talk shit about iPhone's Safari because they'd rather use what you just described?

I haven't seen anyone talk shit about Safari on iPhone, at least not in Opera context. People generally talk shit about Safari on Windows, which is perfectly understandable, given how crappy it looks and works there.

As for the reasons why people use Opera Mini - it's because, for all its limitations, it downloads pages several times (can get to 10x) as
fast, due to extreme compression levels attainable by the scheme they use. You normally wouldn't bother on 3G, but even on EDGE it is already noticeable enough that you may want to use Mini to surf when you know you won't need anything it doesn't support, and when EDGE isn't there, either, Mini is a godsend.

I don't get why Opera Mini is on the iPhone

[revlayle]

Isn't Opera Mini for resource starved mobile devices that have a hard time rendering and dealing with semi-complex web pages on the device directly? The iPhone has a very capable, full-featured mobile browser already - you know, Mobile Safari? I know the iPhone (as well as the iPod Touch and iPad) can be a bit resource-light for applications, but it is more than enough to handle most of the intarwebs quite well and fairly smoothly.

Re:I don't get why Opera Mini is on the iPhone

[shutdown -p now]

Isn't Opera Mini for resource starved mobile devices that have a hard time rendering and dealing with semi-complex web pages on the device directly?

It is, but it is also for slow connections - it seems that OBML compresses better than HTML (not surprising, given that it's binary to begin with, and it also doesn't have all that JS in it), and then also they apply lossy compression to the images on Mini servers.

Personally, I find that I rarely use it on Android, and mostly rely on the primary browser instead - but when 3G isn't around, or when roaming (when data rates go through the roof), it's good to have Mini around. And it's free.

Re:I don't get why Opera Mini is on the iPhone

[DragonWriter]

Isn't Opera Mini for resource starved mobile devices that have a hard time rendering and dealing with semi-complex web pages on the device directly?

Not exclusively. While it is for that (i.e., the case of "resource starved" for which the "resource" at issue is processing power), it is also for the another case of "resource starved", that is, the case where the "resource" at issue is bandwidth. Its much faster than Safari on most pages I've tried it on, which makes a big difference even when you don't have a fast connection (and by fast, I mean faster than 3G usually is.)

"Not very good"? Others beg to differ

[RevWaldo]

At least that what Computerworld's IT Blogwatch has determined:

There's a few pundits with egg on their faces this morning, as Apple approves Opera Mini. Against predictions of rejection, the alternative Web browser is now available from the App Store. Initial reviews are mostly positive, bar some fanboi grumbling. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers boggle and try it out.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/15917/apple_oks_opera_for_iphone_its_really_quite_good?source=CTWNLE_nlt_blogs_2010-04-13

Re:"Not very good"? Others beg to differ

[Anonymous Coward]

The browser is also somewhat popular in the Apple Store. ^.^

Not a surprise Nor change of heart

[SuperKendall]

I posted on Slashdot before I thought it would be allowed. After all, it does nothing against Apple restrictions, nor does it even operate the same way as Safari - all operations are done on the server. And here it is.

Gruber of DaringFireball said that anyone surprised by Opera Mini being allowed does not understand the app store, and I can see from comments here he is correct.

FYI - there is NO page 2 in the original article!

[RevWaldo]

Thinq.co.uk is either glitching or trolling for ad views.

"literally impossible" - as opposed to?

[fantomas]

"literally impossible"? as opposed to what? "metaphorically impossible"? "orally impossible"?

My impressions

[WebManWalking]

The press-and-hold gesture temporarily puts up a rotating circle of dots to show you that it's thinking about it, then gives you an "I-beam" insertion point that you can drag to select text for Copy and Paste. Takes some getting used to. It's slower, which is worse, but haven't decided yet whether it's better or worse as a UI.

Large icons/buttons gobble up screen space, leaving less space to view the page. Haven't figured out how to turn them off or at least shrink them. Definitely worse, because you feel you have a cramped "peephole vision" view of the page.

The settings allow you to select HTTP or Socket as the protocol. Since HTTP is layered on top of a TCP socket, that makes no sense. I'm guessing it's poor English for "go directly to the site you requested" (HTTP) and "go through our compression server" (Socket). But I wouldn't know how to confirm this guess.

Didn't seem as peppy as the YouTube preview video. Hoping that the next upgrade will fill the iPad's screen without having to use "2x", for less cramped view of page. Haven't tested Web Forms 2.0 yet, because my extensive WF2 test page is on a server behind my workplace's firewall.

Overall, it's usable, but I agree that it's not very good (yet). Still hopeful that it will get better and cattleprod Mobile Safari improvements when it gets genuinely competitive.

Re:My impressions

[shutdown -p now]

The settings allow you to select HTTP or Socket as the protocol. Since HTTP is layered on top of a TCP socket, that makes no sense. I'm guessing it's poor English for "go directly to the site you requested" (HTTP) and "go through our compression server" (Socket). But I wouldn't know how to confirm this guess.

Your guess is wrong. It always goes through Opera servers, because they are much more than just compression servers for the Mini - they handle all actual HTML rendering, interpret JS scripts on pages, and so on. It couldn't work without them.

What this option does is specify how the connection to Opera servers is established. "HTTP" is just what it says - for every navigation you make, it does an HTTP request to Opera servers, and receives OBML for rendering. This has the advantage of working through even the most restrictive proxies (only port 80 opened), and some other platforms on which Mini runs (some J2ME phones, mostly) simply do not have any other connectivity options for applications. However, you get the overhead of HTTP request and response headers.

"Socket" uses Opera own proprietary protocol, which, as I understand, is generally optimized for compactness and efficiency (i.e. tight binary packing, minimal overhead). I also suspect that it tries to maintain connection alive for longer in that mode.

Overall, it's usable, but I agree that it's not very good (yet). Still hopeful that it will get better and cattleprod Mobile Safari improvements when it gets genuinely competitive.

I doubt that a browser that does all rendering and DOM manipulation server-side could possibly ever compete with Safari. Then again, it's not even intended to.

Now if we can get Opera Mobile (the real deal), that would be another matter - that thing has a full-fledged rendering engine, with the same codebase as desktop version, which is the single most conformant engine out there to date with respect to HTML5 & CSS3.

when your on a non gui server

[pgmrdlm]

LYNX was never meant to be a substitute for a full blown browser. But, you can use it for reviewing documentation that was written in HTML which is loaded on a non GUI server. What may I ask do you need a full blown graphical browser for in that case? A minimal browser, using less resources, is all you need. Which LYNX fits that description.

Opera Mini complements Safari well.

[CoffeeDog]

Personally I find Safari to be very sluggish on my iPhone 3G, even after a page shows up often it doesn't respond to my swipes or taps to start scrolling or zooming the page right away. Even worse is sometimes these missed gestures then get misinterpreted as me clicking on a link which starts the cycle of having to reload the page I was trying to view in the first place. Meanwhile Opera Mini while it is lightning fast and responsive, doesn't always render correctly especially when it comes to interactive content like scripts. The "only zoomed in or zoomed out all the way" works wonderfully on some sites and terribly on others. So I consider it to be the right tool for the right job. For quickly viewing simple websites like news or blogs Opera Mini is delightful. For more complicated and rich websites that Opera Mini can't hack, Safari gets it done slow and steady.

What? I disagree

[alchemistmuffin]

I don't know what people are thinking about Opera mini for iPhone.

It's a very good browser in multiple ways.

1. It's Faster than Safari

2. It gives access to generic mobile sites when needed, instead of Safari iPhone Version

3. It's a very good competitor.

Here's a review that someone wrote for my blog (note, the direct URL's a bit funky, it does not shrink at all) Just click on the Opera Mini Review

http://www.alchemistmuffin.com/The_Inside_Mind_of_alchemistmuffin/Amazing_Reviews.html

Re:What? I disagree

[Fnkmaster]

Agreed, it was fast as hell compared to Mobile Safari when I tested it yesterday morning. Today it seems a bit more sluggish, I'm guessing it's a load-related issue with the servers on Opera's end.

It drains my laptop's battery and crashes firefox

[bigtrike]

Any time even the simplest flash app is loaded, the fans spin up to full speed and CPU usage skyrockets. I can always tell when a very basic animation is loaded in an open tab due to the noise of the fans trying to dissipate all that extra heat. Also, it tends to cause frequent crashes in every browser on OSX.

If Adobe wants wider flash adoption, they should fix the runtime to not suck.

Oprah Mini?

[VinB]

There can never be an Oprah Mini. It's been proven that it just can't happen (not for more than a month or two anyway). End of story.

Webapps

[Midnight Thunder]

That makes no sense because they are pushing HTML5 which allows the same thing

And Apple advertises web applications for the iPhone: http://www.apple.com/webapps/

Opera on other platforms

[Jorkapp]

I don't own an Apple mobile device, but Opera Mini has always been a fixture on my Windows Mobile devices for the past couple years. When I found out Opera Mini 5 was going to have a native WM version, I was overjoyed (no more waiting for the JVM to start)

As far as my opinions of the browser: No, Opera Mini doesn't have Javascript, Flash, Java, or HTML5 support, but that's not critical. Why? Simple: when I'm browsing on the go, that content doesn't matter. I want the text, images, and a proper layout, and I want it quickly. I've used full browsers on Windows Mobile before (Opera Mobile, IE Mobile 6, Iris Browser) and none of them render fast enough. Furthermore, Flash is terrible on mobile devices - slow and battery consuming.

A quick speed test to prove my point: My favorite web comic (Air Force Blues) on a 5Mbit Wifi connection takes roughly 15 seconds to render on Iris Browser 1.1.9*, but only 2 seconds through Opera Mini 5. Sure, not having JS means I get to miss out on the comments below the comics, but that's a small price to pay.

So is Opera Mini a full browser? No. I do think that it is a good general purpose mobile browser, especially if you're in a country where the Telecom companies all have caps on mobile data (I'm looking squarely in your direction, Canada).


* Iris Browser is based on Webkit, and uses SquirrelFish Extreme for JS. It was probably one of the best full browsers for WM before RIM bought out Torch Mobile and they stopped WM development and distribution.

Tip of the Wedge

[517714]

Why would Opera spend a lot of time making it work well when the chances of Apple accepting it were not great? Now that they have the precedent, they will fix the issues.

Opera's real plan

[Anomalyx]

Apple: "LOLZ! this sux, let's approve it to show it's suckyness."
Opera: (updates to a non-sucky version after the sucky version gets approved)
Apple: O_o
Opera: "pwned"
(now if Apple yanks it, they look like even bigger d-bags)

It's very good for some things

[harlows_monkeys]

It's a pretty terrific porn browser. So I'm told.