Mar 23

Opera Mini Submitted to App Store

Posted in: iPhone, Opera, Phones, Today's Chili

Opera submitted its Mini browser for the iPhone to Apple for approval early Tuesday. The superfast browser doesn’t technically break any of Apple’s rules, but Opera is laying on the hype to make any refusal as high-profile as possible.

This sets the stage for a showdown, because Apple has refused Opera before. In 2008, the Cupertino company rejected the upstart Norwegian browser maker because Opera competes with Apple’s own browser, Safari.

Opera Mini, which we got some hands-on time with at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, this February, is merely an application for displaying web content that has been pre-rendered and compressed by Opera’s servers. To the user, it behaves like a regular browser — the text is selectable, for example — with one exception: speed. Opera Mini is so fast it makes Mobile Safari look like wheezing old man.

Having been rejected at least once before, Opera’s not pulling any punches this time. The company says that its new app is “100% compliant” with Apple’s App Store rules. And to make the approval or rejection process that much more public, Opera has put a timer on its website that ticks off the seconds since the app was submitted to Apple. You can even sign up to guess when it is approved and win an iPhone.

In theory, Opera Mini should be admitted through Apple’s velvet rope, but it’s hard to see a rival browser being admitted to the store, especially one that makes Safari look so bad. If Apple is willing to say no to Google Voice, then it’ll have no problem turning down Opera.

I hope Opera does make it in. For the kind of text and picture-heavy browsing I do on my iPod Touch, Opera would be ideal. Depending on how it turns out, the video above will be either a teaser, or something to taunt you with an app you’ll never use. And yes, I’m going to say it: Opera Mini on the iPhone could finally make Opera relevant again.

Opera Mini submitted to Apple’s App Store [Opera]

Opera Mini [Opera]

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