The Clock is Running: Opera Mini Submitted to Apple
If you own an iPhone or pay the slightest bit of attention to Apple, you know there's an app for that. There's an app for this. There's an app for pretty much anything you could ever want to do, unless you're browsing the web. If you're doing that on a non-jailbroken phone, you're doing it on Mobile Safari, Apple's official (and only) iPhone browser.
The thing is, Mobile Safari isn't all that great. To be fair, it's apparently leaps and bounds ahead of Mobile Internet Explorer, but Safari's performance, particularly in Javascript, is mediocre at best. Opera wants to change that—the company's Opera Mini mobile browser is unique in that it requests all data through a proxy server. Data streams are then compressed before transmission, which increases web surfing speed by 2x-3x. Opera has uploaded a video of its Mini browser running on the iPhone, check it below.
The benchmark results (they start at around 0:51) are particularly compelling; Opera Mini leaves Mobile Safari sucking wind. Opera has submitted Mini to Apple for approval for a second time (the first was back in 2008) and the company claims to have met every last requirement of the App store prior to submission. There's a count-up timer running on the site and a free iPhone to the person who guesses correctly how long it'll take Apple to approve or presumably reject the Opera browser.
In all likelihood, Apple will reject Opera Mini on the grounds that it duplicates functionality. After watching the comparison video, we'd disagree; Opera Mini provides functionality that Mobile Safari doesn't even touch. Not that we'd recommend anyone jailbreak their iPhone to use it—but if you did, we'd understand.
The thing is, Mobile Safari isn't all that great. To be fair, it's apparently leaps and bounds ahead of Mobile Internet Explorer, but Safari's performance, particularly in Javascript, is mediocre at best. Opera wants to change that—the company's Opera Mini mobile browser is unique in that it requests all data through a proxy server. Data streams are then compressed before transmission, which increases web surfing speed by 2x-3x. Opera has uploaded a video of its Mini browser running on the iPhone, check it below.
The benchmark results (they start at around 0:51) are particularly compelling; Opera Mini leaves Mobile Safari sucking wind. Opera has submitted Mini to Apple for approval for a second time (the first was back in 2008) and the company claims to have met every last requirement of the App store prior to submission. There's a count-up timer running on the site and a free iPhone to the person who guesses correctly how long it'll take Apple to approve or presumably reject the Opera browser.
In all likelihood, Apple will reject Opera Mini on the grounds that it duplicates functionality. After watching the comparison video, we'd disagree; Opera Mini provides functionality that Mobile Safari doesn't even touch. Not that we'd recommend anyone jailbreak their iPhone to use it—but if you did, we'd understand.
