Mini 5 and phones
Wednesday, 16. September 2009, 20:40:02
Since my move to Android, Opera Mini 5 beta has been released. Unfortunately for me, there is no beta for Android. I have not yet tried the Mini 5 beta, but I will blog about it anyway.
Opera Mini has always been a fantastic product. Opera Mini was not the first browser to use servers to transcode the content into something that a simple phone could handle, but it did it very well. Stable servers, very good phone compatibility, nice rendering with the help of Opera's SSR technology, easy to use, and delivered as an easy to install Java application.
Opera Mini kept adding useful features, and in Opera 4, a big change happened. SSR was no longer the default view, now Opera Zoom was added, to make it easier for users to recognize the pages they usually visit. However, the rest of the user interface was pretty much the same.
With Mini 5, Opera Zoom is still there, but so is also a new user interface. The user interface in Opera Mini 5 is more like the user interface in Opera Desktop. There is a graphical speed dial, a password manager, graphical buttons for back and forward, tabs, etc. I think a lot of users will like this change.
Mini 5 is interesting in other ways too, it now supports touch devices, and works better with bigger screens. (I read on the forum that there was some issues with extremely big screens, but iPhone sized screens works well I think)
Opera Mini is a product that always stays fresh. It is there to optimize the web experience for the most popular phones, and that changes over time. One example is the touch devices, another is that screens are getting bigger. Mini 1 was built for the popular phones that existed in 2005. Some of the features in Mini 5 would not make sense on one of the low end phones in 2005, but they do in 2009.
Mini brings the mobile web to anyone, and I think that is a fantastic thing. And still I want to use a native browser. At least in theory. But, the extra speed and the great user experience that Mini brings makes me want to wait another year.
Opera Mini has always been a fantastic product. Opera Mini was not the first browser to use servers to transcode the content into something that a simple phone could handle, but it did it very well. Stable servers, very good phone compatibility, nice rendering with the help of Opera's SSR technology, easy to use, and delivered as an easy to install Java application.
Opera Mini kept adding useful features, and in Opera 4, a big change happened. SSR was no longer the default view, now Opera Zoom was added, to make it easier for users to recognize the pages they usually visit. However, the rest of the user interface was pretty much the same.
With Mini 5, Opera Zoom is still there, but so is also a new user interface. The user interface in Opera Mini 5 is more like the user interface in Opera Desktop. There is a graphical speed dial, a password manager, graphical buttons for back and forward, tabs, etc. I think a lot of users will like this change.
Mini 5 is interesting in other ways too, it now supports touch devices, and works better with bigger screens. (I read on the forum that there was some issues with extremely big screens, but iPhone sized screens works well I think)
Opera Mini is a product that always stays fresh. It is there to optimize the web experience for the most popular phones, and that changes over time. One example is the touch devices, another is that screens are getting bigger. Mini 1 was built for the popular phones that existed in 2005. Some of the features in Mini 5 would not make sense on one of the low end phones in 2005, but they do in 2009.
Mini brings the mobile web to anyone, and I think that is a fantastic thing. And still I want to use a native browser. At least in theory. But, the extra speed and the great user experience that Mini brings makes me want to wait another year.
WIDGETIZE
Charles Schloss # 17. September 2009, 03:56