Opera has been in the browser business for ages now. Although popular, they haven’t been able to make a huge mark when it comes to the desktop market where a relative newcomer like Google Chrome has managed to do pretty well. Opera however seems unperturbed. Perhaps because of its huge popularity in the mobile segment where it is arguably the most popular browser. Anyway, news is that Opera is planning to come up with a new version of its browser for tablets and smartphones soon. The new version of the browser dubbed “Ice” could make its official appearance in February, Pocket-Lint has posted a video of what seems to be a small demo session by Opera CEO Lars Boilesen that showcases some of the new features on this new browser.
Opera, the mobile version of which sports an uniform look across platforms would see a major UI change with the arrival of Ice. The changes however are not merely cosmetic. Opera will also ditch its own rendering engine “Presto” in favor of the more mainstream Webkit engine used by Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari. As for the cosmetic changes, Opera seems to be on a mission to make buttons irrelevant on the Ice with the browser working on actions based on gestures. There are no tabs either and it also gets a combines search and URL bar.
Opera also seems to be very keen on calling pages as apps and the idea seems to be making the browser a very capable interface for using web apps.
The browser would be seeing a release on both Android and iOS platforms next month. It is unclear if Opera would be making one for the Windows Phone eco system as well.
[Via Pocket-Lint]
