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."
Why... (Score:3)
...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.
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.
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Hm? C++/Objective C mixing is pretty straightforward, I've never had any problems at all using pre-existing C++ libraries in iPhone projects, there are just little things like making sure you're using the right forms of standard library calls and stuff like that.
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The point of Opera Mini is that it doesn't have a "full-blown rendering engine" in it - that's why it works on pretty much any J2ME-enabled phone out there, even 5-year old models.
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"it works like this: You request a URL in Opera Mini. Opera Mini makes the request to a proxy server run by Opera. OperaÃ(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 Ã" 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 Ã" itÃ(TM)s fa
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...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.
Correct. However, seeing as Qt 4.5 with Cocoa is now in Beta, one would surmise that it makes sense to port Opera to that code base and re-use much of it for the iPhone (even if it's not an Opera Mini, but a subset of it).
Then again Opera hasn't ported Opera to Qt4, yet.
Re:Why... (Score:5, Informative)
See, that's also confusing. When you have a fully featured browser already in the phone, why compete with a substandard browser that's incapable of surfing anything more than static sites?
I can clearly see that you've never used Opera Mini. I've used Opera Mini to read and post on Slashdot. It works just fine.
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Except Opera Mini is much, much better if you pay per MB or your network connection is slow. Stuff is typically compressed 80-90% or so.
IOW, it is absolutely unneeded on the iPhone.
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Nope. You are assuming that everyone in all countries have the same data plan as yourself. You are also assuming that everyone will only be using their iPhone inside the big cities with proper network coverage.
No, I am assuming that anybody with a iPhone also has an iPhone plan (because almost everywhere that is the only way to get one), IOW unlimited data.
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When you have a fully featured browser already in the phone,
When you have a full featured browser (I.E.) already in windows.....
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To be fair to the GP, IE doesn't really qualify as 'fully featured'. I for one consider things like full support for css and compliance with well established internet standards rather important missing features, and that's not even mentioning the huge range of features IE is missing that appear as add-ons in other browsers.
If IE were actually fully featured (and if I still ran windows) I would probably use it.
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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 scalab
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For incredibly forgiving definitions of "fully featured". There was a time when IE was the absolute best web browser on the market. I was a huge fan of Netscape at the time, but I told everyone who would listen that IE5 was THE ANSWER. It was a wonderful browser in its time.
However, it hasn't budged an inch. IE7 is IE5 with tabs and a few minor fixes. Basic stuff like DOM constants, DOM2 support, CSS layout, Javascript compliance, etc, etc,
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...IE5 was THE ANSWER. It was a wonderful browser in its time.
Unless you were running the Mac version, where... well, let's just say, along with Dr. Erhardt, that to refer to it as wretched would have been an insult to the word "wretched".
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IE 5 for Mac was actually more standards-compliant than its Windows equivalent, having been largely built from the ground up. Sure, it had bugs but what software doesn't? The main problem with IE, on both Mac and Windows, is that development was abandoned - forever on Mac, but for a good long while on Windows, too. This is why Microsoft lost their competitive edge (and then some) in the browser world.
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I'm fully in favour of standards.
However, "standards-compliant" loses a bit of its lustre when encumbered with extreme lack of usability, and IE5/Mac had a nightmare instead of a UI.
IIRC, it had fairly good CSS support, but its DOM support wasn't anything to home about.
Re:Why... (Score:4, Informative)
Opera Mini is faster because it gets highly compressed data. It's also a lot cheaper if you pay per MB.
Nope. Opera Mini actually has a place on the iPhone because it offers something truly unique with its compression. That makes it cheaper and faster than Safari for a lot of people. And besides, Opera Mini was ported to C/C++ more than a year ago, and considering that Opera Software makes a living porting browsers, there's no reason to doubt that it was ported.
Re:Why... (Score:4, Interesting)
See, that's also confusing. When you have a fully featured browser already in the phone, why compete with a substandard browser that's incapable of surfing anything more than static sites?
Are you just making things up as you go along, or..?
Opera Mini supports a great deal of JavaScript / "AJAX" functionality (I frequently use it to access various Google services, including the full Gmail), and for many users might prove more favorable than the iPhone Safari due to its proxy/caching features.
If Apple still refuses Opera's app in native (non-JVM) form, this can't be called anything other than anti-competitive.
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Opera Mini supports a great deal of JavaScript / "AJAX" functionality (I frequently use it to access various Google services, including the full Gmail), and for many users might prove more favorable than the iPhone Safari due to its proxy/caching features.
This would mean that the it would violate the iPhone SDK Agreement as well - you can't have an interpreter that executes arbitrarily downloaded code other than what is already provided (being able to evaluate JavaScript using a UIWebView). Writing your own JavaScript interpreter would not be permitted and since the built in JavaScript interpreter can't be accessed except via the WebView (the javascriptcore.framework isn't exposed) you really can't make much of a web browser without violating some part of
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You do realize that you're looking at GMail Basic, right? Most of Google's services have to be downgraded because of various pieces of functionality that Opera Mini does not support. (e.g. setTimeout/setInterval are intentionally disabled.)
If you're using the "full" GMail, you're not using Opera Mini. You're using Opera Mobile.
You will excuse me if I DO know
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Safari is far from "fully featured". It lacks a ton of features that one would expect from a browser today. Opera Mini is pretty basic too, but the good thing about it is that it compresses stuff between 80-90%, which saves you a lot of money if you pay per MB. And you save time if you are on a slow network.
Opera Mini also supports JavaScript, and some Ajax.
Opera Mini was also ported to C/C++ more than a year ago, so an iPhone port would be trivial. You are clearly extremely poorly informed.
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Safari is far from "fully featured". It lacks a ton of features that one would expect from a browser today.
Care to name them? I don't know how much a feature weighs, but I'm pretty sure that it's less than a pound, so I'm expecting at least 2000 of them.
In all seriousness, I don't find myself missing browser features on my iPhone. Do tell me what I'm missing out on.
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If it is a publicity stunt then why the uproar? opera mini is a joke compared to safari mobile that the iphone has. I can tell you this more people use the iphone to browse the web than any other mobile browser. maybe because it isn't a toy browser that limits options. Safari mobile works well on regular web pages not stupid mobile ones.
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The point was, it's not much competition if it SUCKS, is it?
Re:Why... (Score:4, Interesting)
Having read the article in greater depth, I see that the author has made a few incorrect assumptions. One of them appears to be that if it's not Opera Mini, it is therefore Opera JavaME. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Not only does Opera have their Opera Mobile [wikipedia.org] product that is designed to run on a variety of non-Java smartphones, but they also have products like the Wii Internet Channel [wikipedia.org]. The Internet Channel is a stripped down version of the desktop browser running in an environment that's not too dissimilar to the iPhone.
So take the information in the article with a large grain of salt.
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Correction to myself. I misunderstood what the author was saying. He was saying that Opera Mini is a JavaME browser, not that anything other than Opera Mini is a JavaME browser. My mistake.
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Even if you view this as anti-competitive, it's perfectly ok for Apple to be anti-competitive unless they have a monopoly in the relevant market (ie: phones).
They don't, so it's fine. Microsoft did, so it was a problem.
Hope that clears things up...
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The best thing i can come up with would be the duplication factor.
People might waste bandwidth downloading podcasts in podcaster, the forthcoming 2.2 firmware that allows podcast downloads, and then also on the itunes system they manage the thing with.
Thats three downloads the podcast host sees (and therefor also the advertiser) but only one actual listener.
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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 ha
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I hadn't heard that 2.2 was going to include podcast downloads. That's fantastic. It also explains why they shut down Podcaster, because Apple doesn't allow you to compete with their apps on the iPhone.
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That's a recent modification of the original troll. Most likely some 4chan copypasta. People use it instead of saying first post. They don't realize that trolling doesn't achieve the same effect when everyone's expecting it, or that the board employs a sophisticated moderation system to deal with it.
The nice thing about it is that the poster will likely alone -- having been rejected decades earlier by friends and family for being a mouth-breathing tool -- with only his virginity to keep him company.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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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.
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It won't be accepted if the program downloads and runs code on its own. That might even apply to interpreted languages like javascript, which would seriously screw a browsers chances of being useful if it couldn't do JS.
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And that specifically is why it's plausible that it's Opera Mini, not Mobile.
Opera Mini has no support for client-side JavaScript - to do anything using JS, Opera Mini has to make a round trip to the Opera servers in Norway, and the JavaScript code runs on those servers.
On Palm OS, there's basically two legal choices for browsers (and one of them is only semi-legal.) Blazer, which sucks ass, but is a native Palm OS app, and can handle JavaScript without round trips, and Opera Mini, which requires the rather
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Well, the one that I've heard they ACTUALLY rejected (as opposed to haven't gotten a chance to reject yet) was that podcast manager. Apple had already built something similar to put in the new firmware.
Perhaps Apple remembers the flak they took when they released Dashboard and doesn't want that to happen again?
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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 co
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If current trends continue then more and more developers will develop apps to run on a browser instead of directly on the Operating System.
So why did Apple get so much flak when they released the iPhone and said "no software developer kit is required for the iPhone".
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how would a web browser brick the iPhone when none of the applications on App Store can? does Opera Mini require modifying the iPhone's firmware? just because an application duplicates the functionality of an Apple application it'll cause the iPhone to break down?
that's a rather pathetic attempt to justify anti-competitive practices, don't you think?
Vapor (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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Apple fanboys...
Anti-Competitive Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, but I'd bet they put a lot of smartphones in the hands of people who wouldn't have otherwise purchased them thanks to their marketing.
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#1 in the smart phone market still only gets you a few percent market share... they needn't worry anytime soon about anti-trust.
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Or saying that operating systems are only a small part of the entire software industry and therefore MS is not a monopolistic company.
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Not my argument at all. Symbian owns over 50% of the smart phone market share, Apple has about 3%.
Microsoft has 90% of the desktop OS market.
See the difference between 3% and 90%?
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Nope. The web ad market is a specific market, just like the smartphone market. The difference is that Google is not only the #1 player, they (combined with Yahoo) would almost completely monopolize that market. Apple might come away with a double-digit percent if they are lucky - certainly nowhere near 100%.
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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 an
Re:Anti-Competitive Apple (Score:4, Interesting)
OK. I thought this was about Opera Mini, but if it's Fair Play, boookay.
AFAIR, it wasn't the EU that busted them, it was one country that tried - and failed as the case was without foundation.
I guess as an iPod nano user - that doesn't direct connect via wifi like an iPod Touch or iPhone - I'm not on the right wavelength. To answer your question, I can copy Fair Play protected music from my computer iTunes to my iPod, but not other players.
The way I get around this is to avoid all Fair Play music. Enough codecs work just peachy on an iPod that I needed add DRM to the fray.
I've posted many times from the fossil record that Apple is clearly on the record recommending people to challenge the record companies to end DRM once and for all. I'll leave you to google that for yourself. As there is a clear historical record of Apple denouncing DRM and MS doing the opposite, my mind would boggle at the idea that MS is far less restrictive were it not so late and this not a sandwich break during the director's cut of Blade Runner on TV tonight.
You might want to research your facts. Your mind might become less boggled.
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that I needed add
that I needn't add
Hey, I'm late for more Blade Runner....
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Thanks - and by the way, I admitted my ignorance, the clueless tag was not required.
So, to smarten up over here, I went over to Apple and started to apply as an iPhone developer. However, as I could not in honesty list my company as being part of all that, and not being an out and out liar, I couldn't complete the free developer application. Neither did I want to invent one to go to all that trouble and end up with an NDA problem.
So, I can't access the free SDK nor its terms and conditions that way. Howe
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Not the original coward, but they're probably talking about the SDK agreement (supposedly still under NDA I think - pah).
The SDK agreement disallows various things, including
What it does not say is that they reserve the right to remove y
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Many thanks!
Given that .mac/.me user web pages built via their iWeb app are rife with JS, I'm now even more mystified at their barrier to Java apps. The devices (iPhone/iPod Touch) would seem to include necessary run-time stuff already, so the limitation seems arbitrary.
Anyway, while I still maintain that their practices are no more anti-competitve than FMC selling Chevies, I repeat, many thanks for helping me to understand some of these issues - for me, it's difficult to do so when hyperbole is involved.
A
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This would be the behaviour of which there is evidence? Sounds like plenty of questions to me.
Why? What exactly are they doing that is remotely close to being against the law?
Why?
Not Allowed (Score:3, Informative)
No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s).
On an unrelated note, I wish Apple would spend less time making absurd rules like that and more time making their developer site actually work. It took me nearly 20 minutes just to manage to log in to view the SDK Agreement.
Mod parent up as Informative (Score:2)
But I'm not sure how "No interpreted code may be downloaded" can become "no other rendering engines". Can someone elaborate?
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I hate that. (Score:2)
"My understanding, based on information from informed sources who do not wish to be identified because they were not authorized by their employers,
Big surprise. More cowards who are too afraid to state their names but want to talk to act like big shots even though they aren't authorized to talk to anyone. I'd love to find people like that to fire them if I was a manager at a company like that. It was probably loose lips like that which caused this rumor to get out in the first place.
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you're absolutely right. they're complete cowards for risking their jobs to share information with the public. i mean, how dare they try to preserve their anonymity, not like you of course Mr. glitch23--i assume that's your surname?
btw, why do you have your e-mail address hidden? trying to act like a big shot on /. even though you don't have the guts to let people know how to contact you?
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you're absolutely right. they're complete cowards for risking their jobs to share information with the public. i mean, how dare they try to preserve their anonymity, not like you of course Mr. glitch23--i assume that's your surname?
There are people in companies who are authorized to talk to the press about these issues. They are there for a reason. Those who are not authorized are doing almost exactly what you said, they are risking their designated job for which they were hired to do. They were not hired to leak information to the press. These same people could be responsible for leaking the incorrect information in the first place. I'm not going outside my realm of responsibility by leaking information about my company so my identif
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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.
Gruber will come up with a justification (Score:2)
Gruber will come up with a justification even if Steve Jobs urinates in his face and shits on his head. Among all fanbois, John is fanboi par excellence.
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Hmm... this would be the same Gruber who wrote that the App Store's exclusion of applications which "compete with" Apple's own offerings is "seriously wrong [daringfireball.net]"? The one who said (same link) that "[i]f this is truly Apple's policy, it's a disaster for the platform"? The same Gruber who said, of Apple's policies, "they shouldn't be doing this [daringfireball.net]"? The same Gruber who said of Apple's inscrutable rejections of
I don't want Steve Jobs in my pocket (Score:2)
Get a G1 and run android [google.com]. You get Linux, an open source implementation of Java called Dalvik [wikipedia.org], and source code to the base applications, plus access to registering your app in their application market, and freedom to publish your own app and let people download it.
And it has a keyboard.
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Get a G1 and run android [google.com]. You get Linux, an open source implementation of Java called Dalvik [wikipedia.org], and source code to the base applications, plus access to registering your app in their application market, and freedom to publish your own app and let people download it.
And it has a keyboard.
But you won't get Opera Mini - how evil is that?
It's not about Apple being silly (Score:3, Interesting)
It's about Opera having thought of a innovative way to get a browsing-experience into a phone where (apart from the screensize) the network is a bottleneck. Doing the browsing at the server-end, transferring images to a phone instead of HTML is kind of elegant and, given that you trust the provider to anonimize you, can even have nice privacy implications; you can parse text from HTML, but you can't parse text from an image easily.
guys, *please* study John Gruber's history (Score:2, Informative)
Much of John Gruber's site is an apology journal for Apple's less reasonable activity. When he doesn't have a concrete argument, he resorts to specious hand-waving; when his hands are tired out, he resorts to whispers from "sources". He's the worst sort of evangelist - he's on full warp not when he's giving praise for Apple, but when he's insulting some individual or group he disagrees with.
I am typing this from my primary workstation, an iMac. I think OS X is a fine mainstream operating system. But I don't
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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!
Not just Java, already ported (Score:2, Informative)
If what they've done for the iPhone is [to get] a Java ME runtime running on the iPhone
Opera Mini has already been ported to non-Java version(s), stated by haavard here [opera.com], referring to a Opera press release [opera.com] from as far back as 2007. Gruber speculates [daringfireball.net] that it's because a JavaScript intepreter would clearly break with the SDK Agreement, however as seen in this interview [linuxdevices.com], Opera Mini doesn't have to interpret JavaScript at all, nor render web pages - this can all be done on the servers.
Look out! (Score:2)
It's Darth Jobs all over again.
"I find your lack of Objective-C... disturbing."
Submitter doesn't understand "anti-competitive" (Score:2)
What is "anti-competitive" about allowing Opera to release their browser on Apple's phone?
This is a complete misunderstanding of the term "anti-competitive" -- or a lack of the most basic English skills, take your pick.
The action of Apple's rejection of the browser on Apple's phone would be an example of Apple behaving anti-competitively -- a
iPhone needs a simpler language (Score:2)
Maybe I'm just silly, but iPhone needs a simpler language. Objective C is freaky. We need something like Python with a simplified group of graphics and communication classes.
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.
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The only thing I can think of is that Google's browser is based on WebKit and Safari is at least partially based on WebKit.
You've got that a bit backwards. Safari relies upon Webkit for rendering. Chrome uses Webkit for some rendering and their homegrown javascript engine for javascript (instead of JavaScriptCore which is part of Webkit). If you're going to refer to one of them as partially based on Webkit, it should be Chrome.
But this fact has nothing whatsoever to do with Opera Mini.
Apple's licensing requires iPhone browsers to use the built in rendering engine in the iPhone SDK (which happens to be Webkit).
Webkit is fine and there are several fine browsers available based on Webkit in various stages of maturity and development. Opera's proprietary renderer is also very good. However, as far as being the most efficient, the most recent benchmarks show Firefox 3 clearly beating both in terms of performance.
What benchmarks are those? For javascript at least the Safari/Webkit nightli
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Jesus, you really need to try the current Firefox minefields, they're insanely fast.
They're fast compared to the current release, or were a week ago... but the Webkit nighlies have been faster yet on the benchmarks I've tried. So I say again, what benchmarks are you using?
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The only thing I can think of is that Google's browser is based on WebKit and Safari is at least partially based on WebKit.
You've got that a bit backwards. Safari relies upon Webkit for rendering. Chrome uses Webkit for some rendering and their homegrown javascript engine for javascript (instead of JavaScriptCore which is part of Webkit). If you're going to refer to one of them as partially based on Webkit, it should be Chrome.
But this fact has nothing whatsoever to do with Opera Mini.
Apple's licensing requires iPhone browsers to use the built in rendering engine in the iPhone SDK (which happens to be Webkit).
Webkit is fine and there are several fine browsers available based on Webkit in various stages of maturity and development. Opera's proprietary renderer is also very good. However, as far as being the most efficient, the most recent benchmarks show Firefox 3 clearly beating both in terms of performance.
What benchmarks are those? For javascript at least the Safari/Webkit nightlies seem to be beating the Firefox nightlies by a significant margin, or were last few times I ran them.
Or from another view:
Both Safari and Chrome use the WebKit (not to be confused with WebKitCore, JavascriptCore, JavascriptGlue).
Both use their own Javascript engines. Apple has 2 Javascript Engines (codenames SquirrelFish and SquirrelFish Extreme) which eventually fold under the JavascriptCore portion of the Webkit Project.
Chrome uses it's own Javascript Engine.
Apple uses WebKit for OS X's HTML rendering system, Safari and any piece of hardware running OS X.
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Both Safari and Chrome use the WebKit (not to be confused with WebKitCore, JavascriptCore, JavascriptGlue).
Webkit is not to be confused with the components of Webkit? By the way it's called 'WebCore' not 'WebKitCore'.
Safari is one of my biggest iPhone complaints (Score:2, Informative)
Well, suffice it to say that people have a variety of opinions on this. I bought an iPhone (mainly due to some work-related reasons).
Safari, and the lack of an Opera option, were the main reason I really wanted to go with a Blackberry and NOT buy the iPhone. IMHO, Safari is great for making iPhone commercials that look cool, but in terms of usability, it has some serious problems, mainly that you cannot change the size of the text, independent of the layout. So, if I zoom in to make the text readable, th
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Maybe it sucks on Blackberries (some problems with the Blackberry JME apparently), but it's great on other phones.
Safari actually fails on a lot of sites as well (it simply ignores some JavaScript for some reason). At least Opera Mini is extremely fast (and cheap if you pay per MB). And from my perspective, Opera Mini is perfectly capable of handling the sites I rely on.