Update: Beta 2 has been released. Get it at mini.opera.com. Opera has announced that a new version of their awesome Opera Mini 4.0 will be released today. Keep an eye on mini.opera.com for the announcement and download. I’ll have a full report and review of the new release tomorrow.
Dropdown lists are very widely used on web forms. Travel sites often have month and date pickers implemented as dropdown lists using <select> and <option> tags. It works pretty well on a desktop browser. Be careful when transferring this design pattern to the mobile web, though. <select>s with too many <option>s can break a mobile page. I’m not just talking about usability either, I mean broken as in completely non-functional. Recently, I tried to use the mobile site of a … Continue reading
I like Skweezer.net‘s mobile transcoder. It’s one of the best ways to make desktop websites into something usable on a phone and it works with just about every html-capable phone on the planet. Last week Skweezer issued a press release announcing a tweak they made to the service. The tweak is that Skweezer rolled back a change they made a month and a half ago. Instead of identifying itself through it’s User Agent header as Internet Explorer, Skweezer had tried … Continue reading
I’ve had a few hours using the beta and I have to say I’m impressed with what Opera’s done. This new version of Opera Mini has the feature set and rendering quality of browsers like Nokia’s Webkit, Opera Mobile 8.65 or Safari on the iPhone and it’s faster too. Unlike those browsers which only run on $500 Smartphones, Opera Mini works on almost any phone including $30 prepaid phones and the “free” phones you get with a contract. There’s been … Continue reading
Opera Software has announced that a major new beta release of the Opera Mini Browser will be launched next Tuesday, June 19th. The new version, code named Dimension, is said to have been rewritten from the ground up and to incorporate at least one revolutionary new feature. You can sign up for the beta at www.operamini.com/beta. Opera Mini is already revolutionary. It has completely transformed the mobile browsing experience particularly on mainstream phones and slow networks. Using nothing more than … Continue reading
Mobile browsers designed to display any web page, often called “Full-Web” mobile browsers, are starting to drive a significant amount of traffic to both mobile and non-mobile sites. Smartphones usually have a full-web browser like Opera Mobile, Netfront, Palm Blazer, Mobile Internet Explorer or the Nokia Mini Map Browser. Smartphones sales have broken into double digits and it’s reasonable to expect Smartphone users to use the Web much more than those with more humble devices. Opera Mini makes a big … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
There’s a new version of Opera Mini out. The new release fixes quite a few bugs and adds support for the T-Mobile Dash and most of the Motorola iDEN handsets used on the Nextel network here in the US, Telus in Canada and a dozen or so small carriers around the world. Details on the Opera Mini Blog. For most Opera Mini users this is a minor release, but not for me. My main phone is a Motorola i855 on … Continue reading