Submitted by Opera released a mini/lite version of their 8.0.1 browser for all Java-enabled phones. On a similar note, the current leader of mobile phone browsers with 52% of market share, Openwave Systems, shipped one billion handsets with their browser in it.
Opera released a mini/lite version of their 8.0.1 browser for all Java-enabled phones. On a similar note, the current leader of mobile phone browsers with 52% of market share, Openwave Systems, shipped one billion handsets with their browser in it.
I have just added better “Opera Mini” recognition on osnews’ user agent matching code so most phones should now get served the mobile version of osnews when they use this browser.
I just checked our mobile stats and we already had 4 different phones visiting osnews with opera mini earlier today. For web masters, here is one of the user agents (search and match the words “Opera Mini”):
Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/1.0.1479/HiFi; Nokia 6230i; no; U; ssr)
If someone could take a picture or a screenshot of his/her phone with Opera Mini rendering OSNews please upload it and post a link here, because in USA I can’t test this browser yet. Many thanks!
ok, no need to send a picture, a helpful Opera engineer sent me few screenshots and the result is really nice.
I uploaded the shot here for everyone to see: http://www.osnews.com/img/opera-mini.jpg
“The browser must be supported by the user’s carrier because much of the rendering and its simplification happens on the server side.”
It’s not true that the carrier must support the browser. The carrier only need to do what carriers usually do – provide a network with gprs or 3g.
This is pretty confusing. According to this http://help.opera.com/operamini/1.0/en/install.html “Opera Mini is offered to operators and mobile content providers worldwide, and not as a download from opera.com“.
Yes, that’s true. But thats the business side of it. Technically it runs with any carrier.
Bad idea? The providers I know usually ship their own (crappy) browsers, I doubt they’ll use opera, so I won’t be able to use it.
BTW Eugenia, why the Opera image links to mozilla.php? (here, on OSNews’ reply).
Because originally it was just for mozilla’s sidebar, but the exact same code can be used for opera’s sidebar, which was added later. And to not break filename compatibility with users that already had that installed, both browsers share the same file that happens to use the old filename. No conspiracy theories needed, and a bit off topic if I might add.
Would it work on Psion NetBook which runs the old version of Symbian (Epoc) which has Opera 5??
It does have a Java VM.
I would like to try it out, but it doesn’t seem available for download.
Probably not. However, Opera 5 runs OSNews.com very well, as you probably just witnessed (just 10 minutes ago someone with an EPOC visited osnews 😉
Mozilla/4.1 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; EPOC) Opera v5.14 [en]
I have Java on my cellphone, I also have Opera already on it however… and NetFront beats it there, and Openwave on my older phone… doubt this version will be much better, as it can’t share much of the codebase if its a Java app
Opera Mini is to be used with low-end java-capable phones that might come with a WAP browser or not, or they only come with the crappy SonyEricsson or AU/Teleca or the native Motorola browser.
Many phones come with the capable Openwave 6.2/7.x or NetFront browsers, however it’s always nice to have a fallback, and so Opera Mini is a good choice for these phones too.
If you already have a smartphone though (Symbian, WinMobile or PalmOS based), chances are that you already have a better browser installed for you, including maybe the Smartphone version of Opera (which differs from Opera Mini as it’s more feature-rich).
BTW, the first browser to feel the heat from Opera Mini is RequirelessWeb WebViewer which is also a J2ME browser for low-end phones. However, it ain’t free, and it seems that the company went already busted (their products web pages are not available anymore as they used to be).
It is much better and beats the crap of any other browsers on handsets. It’s based on Opera 8 even thought the actual parsing and rendering is not done on the phone.
As I said above, depends on which handset. SonyEricsson, AU/Teleca, WebViewer, WAP-only and Motorola browsers are not that good, and so Opera Mini is a good alternative. Nokia’s native browser is on par with Opera Mini from what I understand. But when it comes to Openwave’s 6.2.x/7.x+, Netfront, IE and smartphone Opera, Opera Mini can’t compete (for example, I noticed that centering does not work with Opera Mini yet, neither table borders). So, depending on what browser you are using atm, Opera Mini can be seen as a good upgrade, a mere fallback, or not as good. It all depends on what kind of cellphone you got right now.
> I also have Opera already on it however… and
> NetFront beats it there
NetFront beats Opera Mobile (not Opera Mini)? Would you mind explaining how it beats Opera on mobiles?
The app looks nice (anti-aliased fonts and all), and loads most pages ok. I have a k500i, and it sure beats the built-in browser when it comes to browsing regular pages. The only problem I’ve noticed is that it easily runs out of memory when accessing large pages (comment section on slashdot, for instance), and I still got to use the SE-browser to access my bank.
> only problem I’ve noticed is that it easily runs out of memory when accessing large pages (comment section on slashdot, for instance)
Any non-smartphone phone (and even MOST smartphones) would run out of memory on such a huge page. This is normal.
BTW, Slashdot has a mobile version here: http://slashdot.org/palm
Well, it seems the dumb terminal has been reinvented in the form of a cell phone! <snickers> And all this time, all the past internet appliances have been dedicated machines with a fair amount of local processing, and then *this* comes about, which fulfills Sun’s thoughts of Java everywhere on systems, though not quite in the manner they had expected. Maybe if Be, Inc. had decided to focus shift onto the cell phone market and merely run their servers at their headquarters (thus having a BeIA SuperServer Farm, SMP, of course!) so no expensive development was required for customized hardware configurations, they might have made a bigger dent into the world where money flows, instead of chasing the market for appliances that were castrated computers tied too tightly to providers. Oh well, until the next focus shift…
>Maybe if Be, Inc. had decided to focus shift onto the cell phone market
With “ifs and buts Paris would fit in a bottle” as my husband says.
What you suggest is not possible btw. BeOS could NOT run on ARM (many technical difficulties), and also at the time (2000) ARM barely had nothing above 206 Mhz, which was something too much for a cellphone anyway. Even today some smartphones run in 125 Mhz.
You say something about “having servers”, but this does not make sense, a cellphone needs to have an OS in the first place.
Be would have to create a brand new OS for cellphones, and that would take lots of time, time that would literally throwing them out of the market, as Be only had money for a few months to survive at the time.
So, nothing of the things you say could be done. You are off topic too.
Ah, you misunderstood what I was saying: there’s almost nothing in terms of what’s required to display preprocessed data like is being done with these java-enabled phones. Thus, if they’d have used a pre-existing OS system for displaying the data on the local phones, they could have focused their real energies on improving the OS on the *servers* and worked on a total user experience, as I was fully aware before you “enlightened” me that a cell phone simply isn’t as powerful as an Internet Appliance, but is more powerful than the dumb terminals of yore. And when you consider BeIA used Opera on their systems (for better and/or worse) this would have been a logical pairing: use BeOS as application servers for the phones, with the phones (which need very little customized software on top of an existing OS, whatever OS it is) and Opera being a major application served out this way.
I’d suggest you ask for clarifications of what is meant before jumping to confusions next time: as wild as it may seem, a few of us who develop software for a living read OSNews (for some reason we may have a hard time grokking) and post comments with knowledge of what’s involved to do things. I haven’t quite put my finger on it, but OSNews is a tech version of a weird cross between the highway accident scene which causes rubbernecking of people passing by to see the carnage, mixed with some occasionally useful comments strewn in that get you back on the highway towards something more fruitful, or at least might be somewhat educational. Sometimes the most entertaining posters are those that are on the staff!
I just downloaded the Opera mini browser !
I live in Norway, had to send an sms to the television company TV2 in Norway. Recieved an sms with download link. The download server found the mini version that is best for my phone.
This program works very good. I can surf the web via wap settings. Other web readers on my phone needed to use the internet settings, here in Norway the internet traffic via phone is much more expensive than wap traffic!
So now I can navigate the web in a very fast way (since there is a server that does all the compressing work).
My operator takes maximum kr 1,50 for each day on wap, and since Opera mini uses only wap traffic ( because i deleted internett traffic settings), i save a lot of money. Now i can surf the web for only kr 1,50,- a day (= 0,25 € or 0,15 GBP !!).
Yes, i believe the wap traffic price here in Norway is very good. Most comanies here do have an upper limit for how much they charge wap traffic each day, that does the wap much more attractive than before, when people could get a big wap bill surprise.