T
he iPhone is set to witness its own browser war, with Opera Mini just getting clearance to be made available for download in the App Store. With over fifty million users worldwide on a variety of platforms ranging from Java to Android, Opera Mini is easily the most popular third party browser in the mobile world. It had demoed a version for the iPhone at the Mobile World Congress at Barcelona, but most people had not been too convinced that Apple would allow the application on the App Store, which was notorious for keeping foremost browsers out of download territory. All that, however, has changed with the news that Opera Mini has been approved for iPhone and iPod touch on the App Store and will be available as a free download within 24 hours, depending on market.
“We are delighted to offer iPhone and iPod touch users a great browsing experience with the Opera Mini App,” said Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software. “This app is another step toward Opera’s goal of bringing the Web to more people in more places.”
Opera Mini is likely to pose one of the biggest challenge to Safari’s domination of the iPhone, especially in areas with poor mobile Internet connectivity, as its strength is the fact that it speeds up browsing by compressing Web pages on a server before pushing it on to a handset. It is an approach that makes some security experts blanch, but has so far served the browser extremely well indeed. We could therefore see a number of users in countries with poor connectivity opting for Opera Mini, given its reputation for speed, although the speed burst sometimes comes at the cost of poorly rendered graphics. Of course, Opera Mini has other strings to its bow too, most notably that of extraordinarily pleasant tabbed browsing, but will it be able to really out-perform Safari on its own platform? We will know in a few hours.
Right now, it is time to celebrate for all those who love choice when it comes to browsers.
Update: We spent a few mins playing around with the Opera Mini 5 on our old iPhone 2G and its really impressive. The URL inputting, tab switching and site loading is very smooth, but the best part perhaps is the fact that once we move to another tab, the other table keep loading on the background and do not stop. While you have bandwidth concerns, this will make any power surfer very happy! Though we still await Google to recognize Opera Mini 5 and load the iPhone versions of its apps instead of regular mobile version that I am seeing. (Speed tests here)
