U-turn-tastic: Opera announced for Windows Mobile

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

They said they weren't going to do it... but here's the official press release :)

Opera Software Announces

The Opera Browser for Windows Mobile

Oslo, Norway - August 31, 2004

Opera Software today announced that its revolutionary Opera smartphone browser will soon become available for Microsoft Windows Mobile software. Windows Mobile is a completely new platform for Opera, offering operators, handset vendors, enterprises and end users more choice of platforms that provide outstanding Web browsing on small, restricted smartphone screens.

Opera's range of smartphone browsers includes Small-Screen Rendering (SSR) technology, an Opera innovation that enables users to browse regular Web pages for the first time on small mobile screens by reformatting the page and thus eliminating the need for horizontal scrolling.

"Operators want to offer their subscribers the same Internet and brand experience on all the different handsets coming from the various manufacturers, necessitating a fully integrated cross-platform browser," says Rolf Assev, Executive Vice President Business Development, Marketing and Strategic Alliances, Opera Software ASA. "We've heard the market's call, and we're responding. Opera will soon offer a new Internet experience with Windows Mobile-based Smartphones."

"Microsoft is excited to see the increased level of innovation and opportunity generated by the broad adoption of Windows Mobile-based devices," said Mark Spain, director of the Mobile and Embedded Devices Group at Microsoft Corp. "Opera's support of the Windows Mobile platform delivers more choice to mobile operators and customers and demonstrates the openness of the platform."

Bring it on :P

P

[Guest Pagemakers]

Does it support frames :)

[Guest Palindrome]

Fantastic. I've been hoping for ages! :)

[Guest Vector]

Does it support frames :)

Good q, i'd like to know this to...?

[Guest djfuego]

It's about time Opera hit smartphone. good stuff

[Guest Shaks]

Excellent news this, now we have more choice on Smartphone too. I don't use IE on my PC, use mozilla firefox instead.

Shaks

P.S what's that phone in the picture? Is it a real phone or just some kind of a mockup?

[Guest Jakob]

Opera for Symbian supports frames..

/J

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

It's the emulator from the development kit.

P

[Guest Pagemakers]

But can it do frames?

[Guest RickDawson]

But can it do frames?

I'd love it if it could :)

[Guest Disco Stu]

Quick summary of Opera benefits over IE, please ?

:)

[Guest pierre]

Yeah!

[Guest Simon Desser]

If it doesn't support frames (I'd like to think it does), then I can't really see any massive advantage over PIE, as the main other advantage of Opera is Small Screen Rendering, which PIE on 2003 does perfectly well.

Oh, and it will probably do "full screen" browsing which would be nice :)

[Guest Pagemakers]

When I owned a 6600/P900 Opera was far worse than PIE in my opinion.

[Guest maxh2003]

Here's hoping for:

* customisable User Agents, so all those websites that detect my phone as having a rubbish browser, can be tricked;

* tabbed (or multiple-window) browsing, AKA "Open in New Window" - we badly need this IMO...

* at least *some kind of attempt* to handle frames

* java applets in-line (well, it *could* happen)

* "Save Target As" - text *and* pictures

* zoom in / zoom out - as distinct from Text Size options - so one can see the page in its entirety (albeit unreadable)

* a GPRS usage counter

* registered version and a chicken dinner for less than £10 (while noting that Opera for PC is currently 39USD)

:edit:

When I owned a 6600/P900 Opera was far worse than PIE in my opinion.

Oh dear God, can this be true?! In what ways would you say it was worse? I'm struggling to conceive of a browser that could be substantially worse than PIE. Was it unable to format text, or something? :)

[Guest chucky.egg]

* customisable User Agents, so all those websites that detect my phone as having a rubbish browser, can be tricked;

I think Opera for Symbian does this

* tabbed (or multiple-window) browsing, AKA "Open in New Window" - we badly need this IMO...

Opera for Symbian DOES do this

* a GPRS usage counter

I doubt it will do this, and even if it does it will only monitor GPRS usage for surfing - not your emails - so not much use

* registered version and a chicken dinner for less than £10 (while noting that Opera for PC is currently 39USD)

Opera for Symbian UIQ is free (subsidised by Sony Ericsson)

In my experience Opera was far superior to the UIQ built in browser, how it might compare to PIE is anyone's guess

[Guest maxh2003]

Opera for Symbian UIQ is free (subsidised by Sony Ericsson)

LOL, hands up all those who reckon Orange or HTC will subsidise Opera for Smartphone? ... thought so!

even if it does it will only monitor GPRS usage for surfing

OK, I admit I was getting a little over-optimistic at that point!! :-D

WONDERFUL news about the tabbed browsing, though... assuming that MS Opera >= Symbian Opera...

[Guest ultimasnake]

hmmm well That will mean that Smart browser will become imintent soon :S but ok grand news never the less

[Guest maxh2003]

hmmm well...

Smart Browser won't be obsolete if Opera is paid-for, and I guess we wait-and-see on that one...

[Guest ultimasnake]

true true :) thanks :0true true :P thanks :0

[Guest efjay]

hmmm well That will mean that Smart browser will become imintent soon :S but ok grand news never the less

Even if Opera is free, choices are always good, i'd like to see Smart Browser continue

[Guest Cybertronic]

Opera took way too much memory space, which causes to slow down my entire phone which was a Nokia 3650 :P

Good thing is that the E200 has more memory than these Symbian Series 60 phones :)

[Guest chucky.egg]

Oh, yeah, I'd forgotten about that!

On my P900 Opera takes *ALL* of the memory - it closes just about everything you have open in order to load a simple page, and it also still gives you "out of memory" messages.

It does work, and I quite like it, but the "out of memory" messages were a pain.

[Guest dearsina]

Let us recap, so far we have the possibilty of frames, which is cool, but how the hell do you navigate? The reason frames aren't supported already is that you can't "lift" your cursor, any movement will move the page, now if there are two pages (ie. frames) present simultaniously, which one should the cursor move? And how on earth is it going to fit into the window? A framless site barely fits in. Frames is a nice idea, but practially useless (on the SPV that is).

There was also a mention of tabbed browsing, because the GPRS download speed is so great that one page at a time simply isn't enough... Actually, this could be nice, if you can preload a page while reading another.

And finally a mention of Java, which even brings my desktop IE to a grinding halt + I have yet to see a single web-java app that does something Flash or javascript can't do much better/faster (no thank you Sun).

I for one will not be running Opera simply becuase I have a grudge against Bills empire.

sina

london

/doesn't think Bill is the devil respawned

[Guest Ravis]

If it doesn't support frames (I'd like to think it does), then I can't really see any massive advantage over PIE, as the main other advantage of Opera is Small Screen Rendering, which PIE on 2003 does perfectly well.

Remember that not all of us are blessed with 2003 devices though. For those of us stuck with the original OS, ANYTHING to replace PIE would be welcome. Do you remember the original PIE? Would you wish that upon even your worst enemy? ;-)