[deleted]
Opera Mini approved for iPhone
31–40 of 100 posts
Re: Opera Mini approved for iPhone
#32Firefox mobile next?
Unlikely. Opera Mini works by doing all the rendering on the server-side, and then sending the pre-rendered website to the client. It's not actually a browser, so much as an app that gets screenshots from a server-side browser.
Firefox, on the other hand, would be a real browser, running Javascript rendering and Gecko on the phone itself, which would not be allowed.
That said, I don't understand why anyone would want Firefox anyway. The iPhone's limited memory and CPU would likely make Firefox nearly unusable, while extensions would eat away at what little free space was left. Firefox isn't optimized for the mobile space, and I can't think of any features it would provide that would make it a better choice than Safari (or, on Android, the built-in WebKit browser).
Re: Opera Mini approved for iPhone
#33They must've planned this as a way to placate pissed off app developers.
They don't give a crap about the developers or what the developers think about them.
Then why would they invest millions, if not billions, in creating, enhancing, and supporting developer tools?
Obviously they only do so to benefit themselves, but it's quite clear from their actions that Apple does care about developers.
Re: Opera Mini approved for iPhone
#34I wonder if Apple keeps ambiguous apps like this on hold for when they really need a PR win. Maybe we'll see Google Voice next?
20 days isn't that long though. Just think about the time it takes to get anything approved by the government...
Re: Opera Mini approved for iPhone
#35First impressions:
1. it's very responsive. Much snappier than Safari; the difference is very noticeable.
2. pages download much quicker
3. zooming in and out is faster, but you only have two zoom levels. If you "pinch to zoom" it immediately zooms in all the way.
4. the home screen with 9 favorites works great
5. it's a little buggy (clicks don't always register)
6. killer feature #1: it automatically stores the entire app state, so you can open a few tabs, switch apps, go back and have everything the way you left it. This is a big deal, because Safari forgets your pages eventually, which is so frustrating when you have your travel plans in a safari tab and 3G is not exactly reliable.
7. killer feature #2: you can save pages
8. In full screen mode it makes for a pretty decent reader.
9. It doesn't suffer from "too small font" syndrome.
10. It has this "Snap to column" thing where your view automatically snaps to the column edges. This makes reading more like reading on Instapaper and less like safari.
11. It loads instantly, even when I have 3 tabs open. It's really that fast.
The only real downsides I know of so far are that it has trouble rendering more complex web pages, invades my privacy and doesn't do Javascript. Flash content simply doesn't appear (so you don't even know it should be there) and YouTube links don't link to the YouTube app. Still very impressive.
Re: Opera Mini approved for iPhone
#36Firefox mobile next?
Unlikely. Opera Mini works by doing all the rendering on the server-side, and then sending the pre-rendered website to the client. It's not actually a browser, so much as an app that gets screenshots from a server-side browser. Firefox, on the other hand, would be a real browser, running Javascript rendering and Gecko on the phone itself, which would not be allowed. That said, I don't understand why anyone would want…
The Firefox Mobile runs ok on N900 which has RAM- and CPUwise very similar hardware to iPhones, but 2x more pixels to render.
Why would someone want it instead of Safari? I'm sure lots of people use Firefox on their Macs too. Competition usually benefits us consumers.
Do I think we will see it on iPhone? Definitely not (I'm pretty sure both Apple and folks at Mozilla agree).
Re: Opera Mini approved for iPhone
#37I wonder if Apple keeps ambiguous apps like this on hold for when they really need a PR win. Maybe we'll see Google Voice next?
20 days isn't that long though. Just think about the time it takes to get anything approved by the government...
The iPad + OS 4.0 backed up the approval process. We submitted before Opera, took about 14 days. Previously it's been about 5-7 days for new apps as Apple has been making a lot of improvements.
Re: Opera Mini approved for iPhone
#38I'm shocked. The app is still somewhat crippled though, all links from other Apps can only be opened in Safari. So, not the same as switching a browser on your desktop or laptop. Nonetheless it seems like a step in the right direction.
I'm not sure it's surprising, I suspect Opera-mini's nature of preprocessing and compression might have helped it get approved because of the bandwidth saving promise for AT&T.
Nothing to do with AT&T or bandwidth; the preprocessing and compression are what make it abide by Apple's TOS.
Re: Opera Mini approved for iPhone
#39Link to the AppStore http://itunes.apple.com/uk/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id3637... — It's not as fast as I expected, but still For now: "un-zommed" content is unreadable, for instance, nytimes.com in Opera http://cl.ly/JIP vs Safari Mobile: http://cl.ly/J9i (which is also unreadable, but well, I can distinct letters)
Frustratingly, it's not available on the Canadian App Store. I wonder if there's a reason for that, or if it just hasn't propagated yet.
A lot of the apps don't trickle down from the US store to local stores :-/
Re: Opera Mini approved for iPhone
#40Now its time for Chrome!
Opera complements Safari in a sense. It's an app to browse with on the ancient networks with bad reception. Chrome might conflict too much with MobileSafari's core functionality, so it would really be a miracle if it was approved.
+ Does Google even want to compete there? Chrome on the desktop may have some strategic value beyond spreading the Google brand, but is there anything exceptional made 'the Google way' in the Android browser?