In an announcement that comes as no suprise, Apple’s said no to letting Opera put its popular mobile browser on the iPhone. This is, after all, the company who can’t stand to have App Store apps that compete with anything Apple makes.

ArsTechnica had a long writeup on the announcement, concisely stating why Apple can’t bear to have competition to its Safari browser: “Opera is known for being fast and secure, as well as accessible to a wide range of users.” Anything that could possibly make Safari look underpowered? Out you go, no App Store access for you.

Which is frankly a shame and an example of Apple’s myopic view of competition. Nokia makes its own browser for its phones but it hasn’t blocked its users from downloading Opera to use on its Symbian-powered handsets. Opera even gets access to Windows Mobile platforms though presumably the licensing issues make it so that users need to pay for the Windows Mobile version. Nintendo is a fan of Opera, making it the browser of choice for its Nintendo DS and Wii gaming platforms. If it’s good enough for Nintendo, you’d think it would be good enough for Apple.

But that’s precisely it – Opera is too good for Apple. No matter what the fanboys say, Apple doesn’t always make the best software. Safari might be a fixture on the Mac, but users aren’t exactly singing the browser’s phrases. Firefox innovated quicker than both Internet Explorer and Safari, and it runs on all current PC platforms. Safari, despite Apple’s push to get the browser on non-Mac computers, hasn’t exactly set the browser world on fire.

The Times reported that Opera’s engineers have already developed a version of Opera Mini that runs fine on an Apple iPhone, but it won’t likely see the light of day. What makes Opera Mini such an interesting proposition? It’s fast, runs well on most phone operating systems, works almost like a full-fledged browser on a phone, allowing for downloads as well as rendering to fit most screens, so you can browse full webpages instead of stripped down ‘mobile versions’.

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Entry was posted on Friday, October 31st, 2008 at 7:03 pm under Free Apps, iPhone.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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