The official Opera Mini Blog has an item by Lunkwill, one of the Opera Mini developers, announcing that the latest version of the awesome Java ME based web browser is officially supported on recent iDEN (Nextel, Telus Mike, etc.) phones. The article includes complete instructions on the, as Lunkwill puts it, “hacky” process of installing Java apps on these phones. You have to use a free Motorola developer tool and a data cable as well as renaming the install files and even modifying the .jad file with a text editor.

I’m hoping that Opera can convince Sprint/Nextel and the other iDEN carriers to host Opera Mini on their carrier download portals as these phones block OTA downloading from third party sites. In the meantime, maybe Opera can put a zip file containing the modified and renamed .jar and .jad files as well as instructions to make the process a little more user friendly.

Opera Mini really is worth the effort it takes to loaded it on an iDEN phone. This little app totally transforms these handsets. Unlike the built in browser, Opera Mini will load almost any site, including all images, whether it’s a mobile site or not. Pages also load much faster than they do in the phone’s browser and look better too. On top of that, Opera Mini’s UI is extremely well designed and efficient with dedicated page up and down keys as well as short cuts to common menus and to individual bookmarks. Mini’s Javascript support lets you vote in online polls and create bookmarklets that do neat things like post the current page to del.icio.us. Opera Mini is the killer app for mobile web browsing.