While people may be complaining about the iPhone’s keyboard and lack of expandability, not many are displeased with its Safari browser. Well, Opera isn’t too happy about it, causing it to create a “Get a Mac”-type ad.
Yes, Opera, the multi-platform browser, has released a “Get A Mac”-style ad comparing the new beta of its Opera Mini browser to the iPhone’s Safari. The ad, featuring an “Opera Mini guy” and an “iPhone guy,” points out some of the flaws of the iPhone’s browser, including only being able to run on a $600 phone, resulting in iPhone guy not having enough money to get some drinks with the Opera Mini guy.
Not only do I find the ad very entertaining, I also understand Opera’s perspective, as their browser does allow one to view full, non-WAP websites (on a plethora of J2ME, Palm, and Windows Mobile devices) for free. But it is also true that Safari on the iPhone is like no other web browser, as, combined with multi-touch, it revolutionizes mobile web browsing.
You wrote: "iPhone guy, points out some of the flaws of the iPhone's browser, including only being able to run on a $600 phone"
Do you really mean that Safari will only work on the 600 dollar iPhone and not the 500 dollar model? If so, that's absolutely outrageous.
Thanks
(some info about Opera, yes they are the emperor in Mobile market)
Opera Mini has 15 million users and that is what Opera ASA can count. The bundles (e.g. entire T-Mobile in Germany) and people manually downloading to computer, some other JAR (Java) download sites not even included.
Opera "Mini" is barely what Opera can do on 98 kilobyte (yes, you read right, KB) over server/client, the real deal is "opera mobile" which supports Flash since early 2000s, in generation 9 and a pure C application.
I forgot a very important detail. If you see Europeans and Asians go nuts about no 3rd party application support, they generally think about installing/using Opera, an established browser.
I was expecting some amazing resolution data (it already is) but if you don't have SSR (small screen rendering,invention of Opera), you can really go mad on some sites. Funny is, especially banks can't just give up their 3 frame layout for ages, in 2007.