Opera Mini Not Rejected From iPhone (Yet) 202
danaris writes in to inform us that John Gruber has done some digging on the reported rejection from the App Store of Opera Mini, and has written up his findings. Some choice excerpts: "My understanding, based on information from informed sources who do not wish to be identified because they were not authorized by their employers, is that Opera has developed an iPhone version of Opera Mini — but they haven't even submitted it to Apple, let alone had it be rejected. ... If what they've done for the iPhone is [to get] a Java ME runtime running on the iPhone — it's clearly outside the bounds of the iPhone SDK Agreement. ... What Opera would need to do to have a version of Opera Mini they could submit to the App Store would be to port the entire client software to the C and Objective-C APIs officially supported on the iPhone. It could well be that even then, Apple would reject it from the App Store on anti-competitive grounds — but contrary to this week's speculation, that has not happened."
Re:first post (Score:0, Insightful)
Android > iPhone
FUCK APPLE!
Re:Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
...would they port the JavaME version? Doesn't that seem a bit circuitous when Apple provides a sophisticated toolkit to compile their Mac codebase down? It's not like the iPhone is underpowered.
Something doesn't quite seem right here.
I know little about Opera, but:
it works like this: You request a URL in Opera Mini. Opera Mini makes the request to a proxy server run by Opera. Operaâ(TM)s proxy server connects to the web server hosting the requested URL, and renders the page into an image. This image is then transmitted (in a proprietary format called OBML â" Opera Binary Markup Language) to the Opera Mini client. Opera Mini displays the rendered image on screen. This may sound convoluted, but apparently the result is very effective â" itâ(TM)s faster to transmit, because only OBML (a compressed binary format) is transmitted to the mobile device over the phone network, and far faster to render on slow mobile processors.
Opera Mini is probably a Java app, so it can run on the most number of phones. Porting a JVM that only needs to support a few select bits is vastly easier than porting a full-blown rendering engine from c/cpp to obj c.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anti-Competitive Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because Opera / VLC provides a different user experience than Safari / iTunes.
And Apple cares about apps attempting to allow the user to change their usage experience.
This isn't about what the end user wants, it's about what Apple wants.
If VLC users have to get used to iTunes, and Opera users have to get used to Safari to use the iPhone...
They will be more likely to get rid of their PCs, get Macs, get iPods, and buy all their music from the iTunes store.
Apple is selling a package, and they want all their users to buy into that package.
Anyone pushing a different media player, browser, or alternative to a base Apple product (even a free Apple product) is a threat to the Apple vision and... sales in the future.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why exactly is Apple worried about people making different browsers/media players for the iPhone/iPod touch? They already paid the ~$250 for Safari/iPod player so why does it matter if they want to use VLC instead and use Opera to browse? They bought the hardware. I could understand them rejecting such projects as an Amazon MP3 store or something, but media players and browsers? Come on Apple, we already gave you our $$$ for that.
The point of the article is that we don't know whether Opera will be accepted or not. I'm inclined to think that Opera will be accepted (or at least the concept has been previously approved by Apple), so this is probably a pointless conversation.
What I mean is, I hope the Opera people aren't stupid enough to put resources toward developing an iPhone version of their browser without getting pre-approval from Apple that such a thing would be accepted. To my knowledge, nobody has yet tried to submit a browser to Apple, so it seems premature to thrown Apple under the bus until we really have a clue.
Re:Why... (Score:2, Insightful)
There's certainly a lot of speculation, and I'll grant that your idea seems at least vaguely reasonable. (Although I don't really see why Apple would care about the bandwidth bills of podcasters they aren't even affiliated with.)
But it's all just speculation. Apple doesn't believe in communication outside of official events, and true to form they have not commented on their reasons in any way. Maybe it's bandwidth duplication, maybe it's because it does something iTunes does, maybe it's because Steve was having a bad day, we don't know and never will.
In the absence of a firm policy from Apple, it's reasonable to think that other apps which imitate Apple's apps may also be subjected to refusal on similar grounds.
Re:Anti-Competitive Apple (Score:2, Insightful)
There's no question that Apple's iPhone/iPod touch behavior is anti-competitive.
Educate me, please. I question that - in fact, I'm not sure what you're referring to. I'm not baiting you, I am assuming that you know what you're referring to - so please help by way of explanation.
I'm trying to decide if it's the patented (not sure if that went through or not) side of their touch interface or not.
Apple never promised a netbook - they promised what they promised and they delivered on it. They are very competitive w.r.t. Blackberries, et al.
Stretching my imagination further, iPods are anti-competitive in that they don't run Zune software (so far as I know) and vice versa. My Ocean is anti-competitive because they'll do nothing to support Safari - by my imagination of your use of the term anti-competitive.
I'd rather admit my ignorance and remove all doubt - I'm really confused. What are you talking about?
Re:FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot is getting more FUD and hate-articles lately, might that be? First announcing something bad about a company, practically begging for hating/dissociating posts, then clearing it with articles like this? At least we discussed ... very insightful. I used to like posts that point out the FUD about companies and poke at flaws and inaccuracy in articles, evidence and arguments.
This topic earlier
In between: Have we discussed how awesome the new Ubuntu is often enough?
Mod this troll.
Granted, he did ask that his post be modded troll, but it really isn't. Perhaps he picked a poor example. Here's another [slashdot.org].
From the summary:
The folks at O'Reilly Media aren't immune, so they set out to discover just what is it about iPhones that makes them such bad RF citizens.
Cute. Lots of phones are 'bad RF citizens', but gee, this sounds like the iPhone is special in this regard, right?
More from the summary:
The iPhones aren't the only bad apples in the cell phone basket and there's not much you can do about the problem.
So... lots of cell phones create RF interference in some devices. Did that make article make it to Slashdot because of the interesting topic of RF interferrence, or did the line about the iPhone not being a good RF citizen cause it to be approved? Did both of the Opera stories make it without the words "Apple rejected..."?
It's fashionable to smack Apple around, but seriously, it's not like the AC was wrong.
He never said it was "rejected" ! ! ! (Score:5, Insightful)
The article says...
That's totally different from saying it was rejected. It may well be the case that they read Apple's agreement and understood that Apple would not allow them to release it... and thus they didn't need to submit it.
In the same way, I already know that the US Government will not allow me to sell marijuana-laced brownies. I don't need to apply to the FDA to find that out, since it's already well understood from the law.
I'm surprised nobody pointed this out earlier.
Re:Vapor (Score:5, Insightful)
if it's FUD it's all based on Apple's already accrued bad reputation.
first, they lock down the iPhone and prevent 3rd-party apps from being run on it. then when they finally open it up they require all applications to be approved by them and distributed through the App Store. then they reject 3rd-party applications that might compete with their own software. and finally, then they make all developers sign an NDA that prevents developers from speaking about App Store rejections.
but if you want to assume that this is all an elaborate Opera PR stunt designed to spread FUD about Apple then go right on ahead. it's not like this so-called FUD isn't based on what people already think about Apple as a result of their own recent actions.
Re:Why... (Score:1, Insightful)
Dont get me wrong that I m too critical, but this is words of a developer who also got his app rejected. Apple, you SUCK!
Re:Why... (Score:2, Insightful)
When you have a fully featured browser already in the phone,
When you have a full featured browser (I.E.) already in windows.....
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
If current trends continue then more and more developers will develop apps to run on a browser instead of directly on the Operating System.
If Apple don't ban a browser like Opera or Chrome, then opera or google could keep adding features to their browsers until any app could be developed to run within the browser thereby bypassing the need to get "permission" to run apps on the phone through the app store.
To ensure they can keep making money from the app store and maintain their agreements with the phone companies apple could always ban the browser later. But if the browser was already very popular people might consider it was unfair or anti-competitive to ban it, therefore it's much easier to ban it up front.
Re:Why... (Score:3, Insightful)
And that's just it. Safari is a great browser, and it is probably the best mobile browser in terms of usability, but it's not the best browser in terms of capability. If the iPhone platform was more open, Opera could port their browsers over, and people who wanted to use features that Safari for a number of reasons (some of which are good) don't support, like Java and Flash, could just use those browsers instead.
I don't blame Apple right now for not supporting Java and Flash in Safari, because with a scalable UI, a relatively slow CPU and battery considerations, supporting these things might not be a good trade-off for many people. I do blame Apple for blocking other applications like that from being implemented under the pretense of quality applications (many of them aren't) and a secure device.
Re:guys, *please* study John Gruber's history (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, is he right? Has Opera even been submitted yet? What does anything else he has written matter? Oh noes, do we believe the first unconfirmed blog posting, or the second? Slashdot, please tell us what to think!