We have to say we were a little surprised to see Opera Mini for the iPhone suddenly appearing in the App Store, but it’s here and we’ve downloaded it already!
Given Apple’s frankly ridiculous rule banning any apps that compete with their own – regardless of merit – many had feared that you’d be as likely to see Opera running on an iPhone as you would be to see Steve Jobs getting jiggy around Chez Adobe, but it’s here, alright. And we like it.
The browser works much the same as it does on other platforms, with pages hurtling down substantially faster than on Safari, although we note that pinch-to zoom-only offers two levels, so you either get the squinty overall view, or the full size, blown up view.
It’s a different way of browsing compared to Safari, but it certainly gets you to the information fast.
It’s fast. Very fast.
And when we say fast we mean fast. Pages from the BBC site screamed down almost as quick as we could click on them.
The tabbed interface made it easy for us to spawn multiple pages, and jumping from site to site was a whole lot easier than using Safari.
It’s early in the morning in the UK now so we’re about to crawl off to bed, but from our brief hands-on testing, we have to say that Opera Mini completely destroys Safari for speed.
Download it now in case Apple change their minds!
It does piss all over Safari speed wise but it’s too choppy at present. I prefer slower but smooth mobile web experience to a fast and frenetic…