Downloader: The fate of Opera Mini for iPhone is in Apple's hands now

Friday, April 30, 2010

The fate of Opera Mini for iPhone is in Apple's hands now

Well, it's finally happened: a major browser that could give Apple's Safari a run for its money has been submitted to the iTunes App Store. Opera Mini has performed well in demos, and looks pretty nice, to boot -- check out the video after the jump to see it in action on an iPhone -- but I don't know if it's enough of a threat to Safari for Apple to reject. At any rate, Opera has posted an official count-up, showing how long it's been since the iPhone app was submitted.

Even if Opera is faster than Safari, Apple probably won't lose a lot of market share on its own phone. It's not as if the "open link in Safari" option offered by oodles of third-party apps will suddenly change to "open in Opera." You might call me an Apple fanboy, and even I hope Opera gets approved: when browsers compete, users win. If Opera Mini forces Apple to make Safari better, and opens the floodgates for other browsers, I'm not complaining.

Whatever happens, I'm enjoying the drama. You can tell by the countup clock that Opera is prepared to spin a rejection for all the free PR it's worth.