Opera on iPhone, Shows Why Safari Is Better

[Jeff Campbell]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://smokingapples.com/iphone/app-store-iphone/opera-mini-review/' target='_blank'>http://smokingapples.com/iphone/app...ra-mini-review/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Let's back up here a minute. Apple has earned its reputation as the evil gatekeeper of the App Store. You know, rejects apps for no reason, keeps competition at bay, and more or less acts like a total jerk to developers. And I was fine with that-it gave us something to whine about."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1271348468.usr105634.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>He's not at all happy with Opera for the iPhone, and I think our own Vincent has a thing or two to say about this browser on the iPhone too, and it isn't good. I suspect we will find a lot more with the same opinion since it was one of the top downloaded apps shortly after it was released (<a href="http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/04/opera-mini-for-the-iphone.ars?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=rssamp;comments=1" target="_blank">over a million per Ars Technica today</a>) in the App Store.&nbsp;</p>

[Dyvim]

Yes, it doesn't render web content as well as Safari, but:

(1) it's faster when you're on a slow connection (Edge, or heaven forbid, GPRS)

(2) it uses less data, which can be important if you don't have an unlimited data plan (esp. for international roaming)

Those 2 features are enough that Opera will be a good choice for some folks in the right circumstances.

It's always good to have choices.

Anyway, Opera probably never really believed that Apple would let it into the App Store, so probably tried not to spend too much time on it. Now that they're in, they can devote more resources to improve the app.

[doogald]

Yes, it doesn't render web content as well as Safari, but:

(1) it's faster when you're on a slow connection (Edge, or heaven forbid, GPRS)


On this week's MacBreak Weekly podcast, Andy Inahtko reported that it was only slightly faster, if it was faster at all, than Safari with 3G turned off on his iPhone on tests that he did.

From what I understand, it does allow you to search content on a page. I think it shows a desktop version of most sites, as opposed to an iPhone version of a site, if you wish to see those. I always hated using Opera Mini on WM for sites that you had to log in for, as everything is server side. Also, I suspect that Opera will work on improving the apparent speed as time goes on.