Opera Mini For iPhone Approved By Apple

Many people including us never thought we’d see the day when a third-party web browser would hit the App Store, especially considering Apple’s previous app rejections due to “duplicating functionality” already on the phone. However, Apple finally approved the app today, and it seems to be a big hit in the UK and US app stores.

The Opera Mini browser for the iPhone has been anticipated for quite a whie now, and for a good reason too: in terms of speed, Opera is the clear-cut winner. When you request to go to a site with Opera on your phone, Opera’s very own servers get the request to go to the site, download it, compress it, then send it to your iPhone, both lessening the bandwidth used as well as making the site load faster (upto 5x faster.) However the browser does not ship with some well-known Apple established flourishes, such as pinch-to-zoom, and it also appears that Opera hand-coded their very own UI view, as there is no rubberbanding, and the scroll bar on the side acts differently. Also, the iPhone formatted (mobile) sites render slightly differently than they should, but considering its only day 1, some of these things are bound to be worked out. You can check out a video of the features and the official press release below:

 

Full Press Release:

Opera Mini App approved for the App Store

Oslo, Norway - April 13, 2010 - Opera today announced its popular mobile browser, Opera Mini has been approved for iPhone and iPod touch on the App Store. Opera Mini will be available as a free download within 24 hours, depending on market.

Opera Mini, with more than 50 million users worldwide, enables fast mobile Web browsing by compressing data by up to 90 percent before sending content to the device, resulting in significantly improved page loading. Users of the app will notice an uptake in speed, especially on slower networks such as the 2G Edge network. Surfing the Web with the Opera Mini App on iPhone and iPod touch will also help users save money because of its data compression capabilities. This will hold especially true while the user is incurring roaming charges.

"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."

The Opera Mini App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.

If you want to download it, click the following link which will lead you to iTunes [Opera].

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