IT Professionals

Opera Mini For The iPhone

Posted by on Feb 10, 2010 | 5 Comments

I could find myself getting a lot more excited about this news about Opera browser coming to the iPhone if perhaps it was presented with some reasons why I should care. Seriously, once the news of features and things that make it better come to light, I will be vastly more interested. But unless it’s bringing Flash to the iPhone, or something else equally groundbreaking… I believe it will be as exciting as it is on the desktop.

Eclipsed forever in the shadow of Google Chrome on the desktop front, Opera is a niche favorite on the desktop these days. It’s a great browser; I use it all the time. But it is nothing to really write home about these days. Can this change for the browser company with a potential release onto the iPhone?

Perhaps. It’s completely possible that Opera could do great on the iPhone, assuming it does something that Safari is lacking. Perhaps it will load faster, provide better bookmarking options, or that Opera dial thing will be a smashing success. If, however, none of these things come true, then it sounds like we are going to watch Opera scrambling for users besides tech enthusiasts who are simply curious.

Speaking for myself, I am one who will generally cheer for the underdog. And there is little doubt that this is where Opera is these days. So here is to seeing them launch Opera Mini for the iPhone with tremendous success. With any luck, people outside of the tech community will be willing to give it a chance as relying on Safari exclusively is pretty weak, based on my experience.

[awsbullet:opera web browser]

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  • http://thirdworldcounty.us David

    “Eclipsed forever in the shadow of Google Chrome on the desktop… ”

    And that I just don’t get. Chrome is a fine browser for folks who need something super simple, dumbed down, and crippled (absent a lot of extensions), with little customization available without more work than it ever ought to be worth. Making it a really usable browser takes hours, whereas Opera is feature rich right “out of the box” as it were.

    “Features” in Chrome that make it well worth ditching?

    –Zooming is awful
    –No “fit to page”
    –“extensions” required for essential features like mouse gestures. That’s just stupid.
    No easy way to “granularize” (organize in depth) bookmarks
    Lame, poorly-implemented copying of Opera’s Speed Dial

    Why go on?

    Chrome is fine for Great Aunt Sadie, I suppose, but it’s simply far, far too klunky and dumbed down. Opera “in the shadow” of Chrome? More like Chrome simply has the kind of inexplicable hyping that attaches to some products–hardware or software. In that, Chrome is almost the iPad of browsers, without even a Steve Jobs to spout “sizzle” to hide its shortcomings.

    Even Iron, with its lessened privacy concerns, has no improvements over Chrome to recommend it… and has also been banished from my desktop after its most recent trial.

    Overall, even Firefox is a better browser than Chrome. A tad slower and still inelegant and needing to have features added to bring it up to snuff, but still not as feature-poor as Chrome.

    But what the heck. Who really cares? It’s not like I have to use the thing, just give it a fair trial now and then, hoping it’ll grow into something really useful.

  • David

    I look forward to it. If it’s like its other mobile versions.. it will be signifcantly faster than safari. If it brings flash then I would be willing to buy it. Just today I wanted to get some Cold Stone. The one I went to was closed, so I went to the website to look for other locations, and it was mostly flash. So I had to boot up my netbook and drive around to find a good wifi, because I hate iPhone tethering, and by the time I did, it was closed. Had my iPhone had flash I could have found the info in enough time to get to a Cold Stone just under the wire. /cry I want ice cream!

  • Gary Bing

    I like Bizet’s” Carmen”. Got App.?

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