First impressions:<p>1. it's very responsive. Much snappier than Safari; the difference is very noticeable.<p>2. pages download much quicker<p>3. zooming in and out is faster, but you only have two zoom levels. If you "pinch to zoom" it immediately zooms in all the way.<p>4. the home screen with 9 favorites works great<p>5. it's a little buggy (clicks don't always register)<p>6. killer feature #1: it automatically stores the entire app state, so you can open a few tabs, switch apps, go back and have everything the way you left it. This is a big deal, because Safari forgets your pages eventually, which is so frustrating when you have your travel plans in a safari tab and 3G is not exactly reliable.<p>7. killer feature #2: you can save pages<p>8. In full screen mode it makes for a pretty decent reader.<p>9. It doesn't suffer from "too small font" syndrome.<p>10. It has this "Snap to column" thing where your view automatically snaps to the column edges. This makes reading more like reading on Instapaper and less like safari.<p>11. It loads instantly, even when I have 3 tabs open. It's really that fast.<p>The only real downsides I know of so far are that it has trouble rendering more complex web pages, invades my privacy and doesn't do Javascript. Flash content simply doesn't appear (so you don't even know it should be there) and YouTube links don't link to the YouTube app. Still very impressive.
I look at this as kind of amusing; my previous phone could <i>only</i> run Opera Mini, and the prospect of having a real web browser was one of the things which drove me to the iPhone. Mobile Safari's UI and its actual support for decently rendering pages (coupled with the privacy concerns Opera Mini's proxy system naturally raises) are so far ahead that I'm a bit surprised anyone would actually <i>choose</i> to use Opera Mini -- it's like I've stumbled into a bizarre parallel world where people are clamoring for the right to install and use IE6 as a replacement for Firefox or Chrome.
Does anyone know how Opera makes money from this version? Surely the bandwidth and computational costs of processing, compressing and sending out webpages would exceed revenue from Google search, right?
Link to the AppStore <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/uk/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id363729560?mt=8" rel="nofollow">http://itunes.apple.com/uk/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id3637...</a> — It's not as fast as I expected, but still<p>For now: "un-zommed" content is unreadable, for instance, nytimes.com in Opera <a href="http://cl.ly/JIP" rel="nofollow">http://cl.ly/JIP</a> vs Safari Mobile: <a href="http://cl.ly/J9i" rel="nofollow">http://cl.ly/J9i</a> (which is also unreadable, but well, I can distinct letters)
Does the Opera browser app itself not interpret javascript? Is it offloaded to the iPhone's WebKit/rendering engine? Otherwise this would seem to fly in the face of the recent change to 3.3.1.
Just did a 20 minutes test: I'm loving it.<p>It's amazing how I'm happy to trade features for speed. Also the UI is so much... like Fast Tracker :) That 2D interface that is clearly primitive but reacts like a videogame, instantaneously.<p>Saving pages and fast access to favorites is also very cool, but speed is the real killer feature here IMHO.
I wrote up my initial impressions here:<p><a href="http://thedailyt.com/2010/04/opera-mini-for-the-iphone-initial-impressions/" rel="nofollow">http://thedailyt.com/2010/04/opera-mini-for-the-iphone-initi...</a><p>I have to agree with most posters here. It's a nice start and I think it's a very good thing there's now a competing browser engine in the App Store. It has quite a few non-native feeling elements to it, so if they iron out the kinks and give it a bit more of an iPhone feel it'll be a good contender.<p>The usual Opera instant back function (no reloading of pages on clicking the back button) is killer!
Downloaded it for the Find in Page feature and uninstalled pretty much immediately - I thought it would be serious competition for my Find In Page plugin for Safari and finally deliver this functionality in a native way. <p>Instead, over 60% of the screen is permanently covered by the toolbar at the top and the keypad at the bottom. No way to scroll either while in the Find in Page mode. No way to step backwards throught search results either - next button only. What were you guys thinking?! Find in Page could have been a killer feature for you over Safari, and it falls way short. <p>In addition, the app does not feel Cocoa Touch-like - UI elements look faked and the feel is different. Sorry, I had much higher expectations for days waiting for the release, and it just did not deliver iPhone-like experience. Better luck in the next version, I guess. BTW, love Opera on the desktop!<p>PS: almost forgot - PDF is not supported at all and is delegated to Safari instead!
I'm shocked.<p>The app is still somewhat crippled though, all links from other Apps can only be opened in Safari. So, not the same as switching a browser on your desktop or laptop. Nonetheless it seems like a step in the right direction.
The counter is still counting...
<a href="http://my.opera.com/community/countup/" rel="nofollow">http://my.opera.com/community/countup/</a><p><i>edit: They've added a message, although the counter is still going</i>
Scrolling requires repeated swipes. Links and buttons require multiple taps to activate, and some cannot be activate at all.
(stay signed in checkbox on myOpenID). Initial zoom levep is useless with unreadable text. Zoomed in level feels too zoomed in without ability to adjust.<p>But worst of all, the text area editor is custom--no autocorrection. This comment has takem far too long to edit.<p>In short, a really poorly executed app that should not have been approved, save for the crapstorm banning it would have caused.
For those that want to test for Opera Mini without the iphone: <a href="http://www.opera.com/mobile/demo/" rel="nofollow">http://www.opera.com/mobile/demo/</a><p>Also, don't forget to add the user agents: <a href="http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/designing-with-opera-mini-in-mind/" rel="nofollow">http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/designing-with-opera-mini...</a>
USA: it's in the app store: <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id363729560?mt=8" rel="nofollow">http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id3637...</a>
Opera: Irrelevant on yet another platform.<p>Opera mini is great on a normal phone, but silly and pointless on a platform with with a real browser like the iPhone OS and Android.