Opera Mini Web browser for Phone, and now iPad, has received a big update. In addition to support iPhone and iPad, Retina Display, and Facebook and Twitter, Opera Mini has received stability improvements and is much more pleasurable to use.

• Updated design with a fresh new look and feel
• Super smooth pinch-to-zoom and panning
• Support for iPhone 4 retina display, iPad, and iPad 2 devices
• Direct share on Facebook, Twitter, and My Opera
• Open new page in background tab
• Improved international font support for Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese, and other non-latin languages

If you pick this one up, let us know what you think!

[Free - iTunes link]

So we’ve had a couple of days to play with Opera Mini for iPhone and it’s clear why the new proxy browser is so divisive — it’s got a fantastic feature set, and is fast for people on slow EDGE connections and cheap for people on roaming data, but its UI is kludgy, it doesn’t render HTML as well as Safari, and it has trouble with dynamic websites.

Whether you love it or hate it will likely depend on a couple of things:

• If you roam a lot
• If you’re on 2.5G/EDGE a lot
• If you love Opera’s features like in-page search and speed dial
• If you don’t mind weird interface behavior like popping zoom and crazy scroll
• If you’re not a typography nut whose eyes bleed at poorly rendered Helvetica
• If you’re not an HTML aficionado who notices things like missing rounded corners and imprecise box-models
• If you’re not interested in the upcoming HTML5 video support and don’t mind getting redirected to Flash videos which won’t play either

The more of the above that applies to you, the more you’ll want to keep Opera Mini handy. And hey, even if none of it applies to you, it’s free so you can stick it on a back page (or in an iPhone OS 4 folder) for emergencies.

It’s also a 1.0 release, so Opera will no doubt improve it going forward. Bottom-line, it’s nice to have the option on the iPhone.

How’s Opera Mini working for you?

Opera has just announced that their Opera Mini browser for iPhone has been approved [Free - iTunes link]. According to Engadget, it’s already popping up in some international App Stores and should/could be in your App Store any time now. Update: looks like it’s live now, go get it!

Opera Mini likely received approval because it’s not an actual web rendering, JavaScript processing engine like Safari (or Firefox, IE, Chrome, etc.) but a proxy-browser. All the rendering and processing is done on Opera’s servers and then compressed and sent to the app for display.

This also means it doesn’t use as much data, and can thus usually display web pages faster and with slower data connections than a full-on browser — especially useful for people on roaming data rates or on EDGE connections.

It breaks SSL encryption by necessity however (https sites), so while you may want to use it to traveling the outskirts, you’ll like want to avoid it when mobile banking downtown.

(You also might want to use it for it’s on-page text search feature — something even iPhone OS 4 still lacks.)

Let us know when Opera Mini appears in the App Store for you, and if you try it, what you think of it. Video of Dieter checking out the pre-release version after the break!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

YouTube link

Live from CTIA 2010, Dieter takes a look at Opera Mini for the iPhone, just now submitted to the App Store.

Watch along after the break!

YouTube link

Opera PR tells us they’ve submitted their Opera Mini browser for iPhone and iPod touch to the iTunes App Store. If that reads a tad non-plussed, there’s a reason for it. We’re posting it because it’s “big news” but it smells manufactured. No doubt tons of apps were submitted to the App Store today and there’s no way we could post about all of them, but due to Apple’s perceived reluctance to approve a “rival” browser to Mobile Safari, and Opera’s use of that for their own PR purposes, tech sites all of the internet are carrying the story. So good for Opera.

As to the app itself, I’m sure I’ll appreciate it when roaming internationally or when caught on really slow EDGE connections, because Opera’s proxy servers probably already have most popular sites pre-cooked and ready to render. I won’t be using it for banking or highly interactive sites though, because proxy browsers by their nature break SSL encryption and don’t offer real speed boosts for non-pre-rendered content.

I do like the idea of diversity and choice in the App Store, however, so hopefully it gets approved and those who want it can have it. (And Apple really needs to add a similar search-for-text-in-page feature to Mobile Safari already).

(Note: for Jailbreakers who want a proxy browser but don’t want to wait, @antonioj points us to UCWEB which he says does pretty much the same thing as Opera Mini but is already available on Cydia.)

Opera Mini video after the break…

YouTube link

We had the opportunity at Mobile World Congress to sit down with Opera co-founder Jon S. von Tetzchner Jon S. von Tetzchner and talk Opera Mini browser for iPhone. Now the good news: We’ve seen the Opera Mini browser on the iPhone, and it is wonderful. The bad news: While we can talk about it till the cows come home, we weren’t allowed to take video or even a still picture of it. Them’s the breaks.

Assuming Apple allows it in the App Store — and Opera is pretty confident that it will be — what iPhone owners would get is for all intents and purposes the same Opera experience we know from Windows Mobile and Nokia phones.

The iPhone’s lack of multitasking — erm, one-app -at-a-time feature – also isn’t a problem. You can duck out of Opera Mobile and then hop right back in without losing where you were browsing or the app having to completely reload itself.

All in all, it looked and felt like a really good browsing experience, and is a choice that iPhone owners should have. So write your congressman. Write your senator. And cross your fingers that the App Store gods give Opera Mini their blessing.

Opera, makers of mobile web browsers popular on those platforms that don’t yet have a WebKit browser (ouch, but yeah) has announced that they’re going to show off a version of their Opera Mini proxy browser at Mobile World Congress (MWC) to partners and press.

I’m not a huge fan of proxy browsers in general — where web data is rendered on Opera‘s servers, compressed, and then sent down to your phone. They remind me of those old “dial-up internet accelerators” that just cached everything locally. As broadband grew, the need for them evaporated. They also break secure connections, since they’re doing the actual web calls on their server, so things like online banking become an issue for the paranoid.

Opera makes a good point, however — for people in countries where data isn’t “unlimited” but paid-per-megabyte, or for people roaming in other countries, proxy and compression can be a big money saver.

In general, while Opera has been responsible for a lot of innovation in the web space (like tabbed browsing) they haven’t succeeded on the desktop the way Firefox has. Smartphones have been a different story, however, especially on BlackBerry and Windows Phones where the built-in browsing experience has been crippled for years and Opera Mini and the full on Opera Mobile have been alternatives of choice. With IE6 Mobile and RIM’s purchase of a WebKit browser, that might be changing, and that could be why Opera is looking to link itself with the massive hype-pipe that is the iPhone.

Of course, Opera announcing a browser for the iPhone and Apple approving it for the App Store are two very different things. Currently, you can only make a custom rapper around the built-in Mobile Safari/WebKit/Nitro rendering and JavaScript engines. With browsers being one of the primary attack vectors for malware and viruses, the prohibition against code-interpreting in the iPhone SDK, and Apple’s strong desire to control and be responsible for their own core technologies, it’s quite possible Opera Mini won’t get approved. Either way, Opera is likely to get a lot of publicity out of this, which is likely the intent.

For now, our own Dieter Bohn and Phil Nickinson will be on the ground at MWC and will bring us back their impressions of Opera Mini for iPhone.

[Thanks Christian for the tip!]

UPDATE:

The New York Times gets clarification from Opera (via Daring Fireball):

“We stopped the work because of the prohibitive license,” to Mr. von Tetzchner wrote in an e-mail.

Turns out it was an internal project.

ORIGINAL POST:

So we, along with half the interwebs, picked up a paraphrased comment by Opera’s president that pretty much indicated Apple had rejected popular mobile browser Opera Mini from the App Store.

Well, John Gruber over at Daring Fireball did some digging and found out that it just ain’t so:

My understanding, based on information from informed sources who do not wish to be identified because they were not authorized by their employers is that Opera has developed an iPhone version of Opera Mini, they haven’t even submitted it to Apple, let alone had it be rejected.

To no one’s surprise, but perhaps to a few’s disppointment, Apple may have denied entry to the iTunes App Store to Opera Mini. Says the New York Times (via Daring Fireball):

Mr. von Tetzchner said that Opera’s engineers have developed a version of Opera Mini that can run on an Apple iPhone, but Apple won’t let the company release it because it competes with Apple’s own Safari browser.

Opera doesn’t state what the terms of rejection were, be it “duplicative functionality” like PodCaster, they dared touch Steve Jobs’ sacred dock, or whether they were trying to parse JavaScript against the terms of the SDK. Whatever the reason, however, there remains uncertainty for developers and a deafening lack of justification from Apple. (Perhaps even more ironic, given Valley Wag’s assertion that Opera was once considered by Apple to be the iPhone browser!)

For those not familiar with Opera Mini, on the Windows Mobile, Palm, and even Blackberry platforms that have been woefully under-served by the likes of Blazer and Pocket IE, Opera Mini has become one of the first things installed in a desperate attempt to get at least something closer to the actual internet on their devices (though this is changing with the likes of Android, and devices such as the Blackberry Thunder). Opera has also found a niche in embedded systems (e.g. video game platforms).

However, Opera Mini pre-crunching all data on their own servers before shipping it to handsets sets off a “Gibsonian response” in my central security core, so while it wouldn’t appeal to me on the iPhone, I would prefer to reject it myself rather than have Apple do so perfunctorily on my behalf.

What about you? Anyone seriously bummed there won’t be Opera for the iPhone any time soon?