Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
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.
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 something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
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.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
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).
The conspiracy theory doesn't add up.
They usually don't, except to the conspiracy theorists.
Liberal? Conservative? Compare perspectives at Left-Right
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.
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.
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
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.
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.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Anything less than a fully functioning browser would defeat the iPhone's raison d'être.
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.
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.
That's what they want you to think.
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).
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.
That's because the conspiracy theorists are still using Pentium-equipped computers.
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News