Opera Mini for iPhone Ruling the App Store
Opera Mini: a better way to browse on the iPhone?
Earlier this week, Apple surprised a few of us when it approved Opera Mini for the iPhone. You see, Apple doesn't tend to like apps that replicate the functionality of something that already comes stock on the iPhone, so another browser like Opera Mini could clearly step on the toes of Safari. But with the argument that Opera Mini renders pages completely differently from Safari, the little browser made it through – and with great reception.
At one point, Opera Mini was the top selling (free) app on all 22 App Stores worldwide.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Opera today announced that its Opera Mini browser for iPhone has hit over 1 million downloads. According to Apple’s download count, Opera Mini has been added to 1,023,380 Apple devices.
"Today iPhone users have a choice, and, as the numbers show, they are eager to explore new and faster ways to surf the Web on the iPhone - especially during heavy Web traffic," said Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software. "With any widely available and frequently downloaded Opera product, we are appreciative of all the feedback we are getting, as it helps us to continually improve our product and better meet the needs of our users."
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Opera is nice and all, but it doesn't use a lot of the mobile sites that websites have out there. Like ESPN, you use Safari and it has their nice mobile site, but if you use Opera it uses their really old mobile site. I am not sure if this is something Opera needs to fix or the websites themselves need to fix. It pretty much ruins the experience for me.
Can it do flash?
Opera is nice and all, but it doesn't use a lot of the mobile sites that websites have out there. Like ESPN, you use Safari and it has their nice mobile site, but if you use Opera it uses their really old mobile site. I am not sure if this is something Opera needs to fix or the websites themselves need to fix. It pretty much ruins the experience for me.
I think this has something to do with how the site identifies the browser. ESPN has a custom portal just for iPhone users, another portal for generic mobile users, and finally the standard portal for any desktop users. A few sites I frequent are also recognizing Opera mini as just a "mobile browser" when I know they offer iPhone customized versions.
I also think there is a way to disable this, so your browser is seen as a desktop browser and all sites load like they would on your desktop.
Does anybody know where I can see all these international AppStore charts together on one page?
wow i'm surprised apple approved it.
tried it, still has a long way to go to catch up with apples native browser (as expected) - can see good things happening with this tho...
I like it alot! I'm almost considering replacing safari with this.
It doesn't work 100% in all the web sites, like watching videos or enlarging pics, etc. but it's WAY FASTER than safari.
i would like to see how mobile firefox (forgot what there calling it) performs in the wild. would be ossum if it had addon capabilities as the full fledged browser.
See Steve, SEEEE we do want choice.
Does anybody know where I can see all these international AppStore charts together on one page?
Go to engadget.com a top story yesterday
Safari replaced. Good riddance. There is no comparing the speed of these two browsers. For the websites I frequent, it meets and exceeds my expectations.
Safari replaced. Good riddance. There is no comparing the speed of these two browsers. For the websites I frequent, it meets and exceeds my expectations.
Is Safari really that bad? I have Opera on my WM6.1 phone and it is only a tiny bit better than IE, but still it is very slow and frustrating to use. If Safari is worse than this then that is really saying something. Maybe I should reconsider getting an iphone.
Lol, people replacing Safari with this? Lol, clearly you guys don't get it. With multi touch in the app, no spell correction and the text not pre rendered, forcing you to zoom to a semi rediculous level, Safari is king. If your on 3g, and have good signal ( I do 90% of the time) safari wins on speed as well, 2-3 seconds faster and on a few sites it takes more like 10-20 seconds longer. I have both browsers and I use opera that ~10% when I have bad service, but I long for the simplicity for safari
I like the speed on it, but I don't like the way it renders the web page. Opera Mini renders the page in a way that when you zoom in it fits nicely on your screen. If you're on a page that is much wider, it gets compressed or cut off. I say this because its not like Safari where you can zoom in and out at any level. Opera Mini only zoom in and zoom out at one level so its either up close or full screen as with safari you can zoom in to any level you desire.
Beyond that, it is a good alternative
I had Opera Mobile on my Dell Axim PPC and I found it better then IE (no surprise, this was also back in late 2008/early 2009 on a PPC that came out in 2004, 64mb ram, 624 mhz).
Double tap to zoom, move around screen to scroll, and hold down for "right click". Most sites loaded like it was on a desktop. IMO a good alternative to Safari.
Use what makes you happy. That's all I can say.
Safari is good enough. I've heard too many bad things about Opera mobile on the iPhone, to the point where I am not even considering downloading it. No multitouch? That's lame. You're either zoomed in, or not zoomed in. I've heard that Opera is really only faster when you're using Edge. Honestly, to me, Safari is fine and has worked just fine for me.
Safari is good enough. I've heard too many bad things about Opera mobile on the iPhone, to the point where I am not even considering downloading it. No multitouch? That's lame. You're either zoomed in, or not zoomed in. I've heard that Opera is really only faster when you're using Edge. Honestly, to me, Safari is fine and has worked just fine for me.
I keep hearing this, and I understand where you're coming from. But once you stop zooming incrementally the way safari lets you, you wonder why you ever did it in the first place.
The concept behind opera mini is to only display what you care to see. Nobody reads a webpage at the 100% zoom level in safari. Sure you *can*, but you'll go blind in about 10 minutes trying to do so. We always end up double tapping to bring a section in closer to a more readable level. Opera simply assumes you are going to do this, and doesnt bother giving you readable text until you do. Once you double tap, the page looks the same on both browsers. I mean honestly, do you ever zoom PAST the page constraints? I dont, so what do I need multi-touch for in a browser again?
One thing I really like about opera is the fact that it does such a good job at keeping text in focus. Safari tends to let you wander around the screen wherever your thumb pushes it. I'm constantly having to realign the page back to center. Opera just knows not to do this, and lets you scroll more sloppily.
Safari is a more polished, prettier browser thats for sure. The text is vector scaled to infinite dpi and scrolls very smoothely. Opera uses fixed scale text rendering, but it chooses the same scale that safari does when you double tap, so they are the same. The pages load the same whether you are 3g or wifi, so it's really best for us jailbroken edge users, probably something Apple did NOT think about before approving.
But the vastly superior tabbed browsing and homescreen portal options alone completely crush safari. You can load up 8 tabs and have them load the pages in the background while you continue to surf on tab 1, just like in firefox. This alone has already made me a convert. I'll still use safari for confidential stuff though, I dont want my bank login passwords and stuff going through operas servers, whether they are encrypted or not.
It's fast. It's UI is decent. It's data usage limited. Okay, zooming is a bit problematic, but other than that it's better than Safari in almost every way. I'm happy I made the switch...
Use what makes you happy. That's all I can say.
NO!!! You must use what I use so I feel like I belong to the winning and best side. Otherwise, you're clearly just being an "anti-what I use" fanboi!
it's so much better and faster than safari i'm sure all the issues will be sorted out very quickly
hmm, i guess the germans are going to be experts now(#7)
This puts opera in a good position if they ever tried to make a phone. call it the iOpera... lol. I should patent that.