Opera Mini Blog

Opera Mini turns one

By MarianneManneS. Thursday, January 25, 2007 5:59:01 PM

Opera Mini just had it's first birthday and we're celebrating. party

Opera Mini was introduced to the world one year ago. Since that time, Mini has changed the way people and companies think about the mobile Web. And it's all down to you.

We're saying thanks 10 million times tomorrow to celebrate the 10 million of you who use Opera Mini. This day is more about you than us. We make a product, but that product only matters when someone uses it. It's amazing to be part of it.

So tomorrow we'll have a little celebration here, a little "ask the developers session" (feel free to post your questions as comments to this blog post and we'll answer them here), and maybe a few chances to win some Opera goodies along the way. It's our way of saying we appreciate you.

We've had a tremendous ride along the way with all of you and look forward to all the great things to come.

PS - Be on the lookout for the Opera Ninja tomorrow. smile

Edit: First batch of answers here

Yahoo! Search in your MiniDeveloper answers, part 1

Comments

RamūnasRamunas Thursday, January 25, 2007 6:08:03 PM

Happy birthday! smile
And thanks for making such a great peace of software.

Remco Lantingremcolanting Thursday, January 25, 2007 6:10:04 PM

Happy birthday!

tinhoy Thursday, January 25, 2007 6:26:55 PM

Wow, it's only been one year?? OM's been such an integral part of my phone, it feels much longer than a year.

Dan Alexandrudantesoft Thursday, January 25, 2007 6:28:53 PM

party

WaelWael Ch Thursday, January 25, 2007 8:30:05 PM

party happy birthday!
confused only one year!!

MarianneManneS Thursday, January 25, 2007 8:34:49 PM

It's only been a year since Opera Mini was launched globally.
http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2006/01/24/

Niels ChristiansenNiller Thursday, January 25, 2007 8:40:18 PM

Congratulations to Opera ASA for supporting and developing a great little product. It is certainly good to be a part of what a user would feel is a synergy. :-) Twelve months, just like that. I don't have Champaigne in my home, but I'll drink to this all the same.

Eddie LopezEddie_Lopez Thursday, January 25, 2007 8:47:33 PM

Opera (question in bold):

Congrats!

I think when it comes to Mini, this application above the rest requires some form of bridge to backup stuff for the following reasons:

1) Clearly it's not fun creating bookmarks on your phone UI.

2) When updating Mini, you lose it all. You can't back up your bookmarks and "remember me" information. You start over at every upgrade.

3) There's millions (ten!) of Mini users that could potentially be getting involved in the community.

4) Your CTO and CEO wants it smile

What thought has gone into backing up our Mini settings?(beyond the casual mentions I've seen from the CEO and CTO, which I've read)

My suggestions? Glad you asked! Use the Community! Since the compressed page is coming from Opera anyway...*AND* you have such a great community, you could have the users:

1) Download mini

2) on the page with the EULA agreement include some text asking: "if you'd like to backup/sync your mini data..." along with the standard "login/create account" prompt that would allow the user to create a my.opera.com/ profile (or login for all of us that have one already)

3) That will establish a link up so that any bookmarks created on the handset will also be copied to the users profile.

4) The user can manage the bookmarks (at least), and some mini settings (like: **-fullscreen on startup!) from this page. It's defaulted to private viewing, but able to be viewed public. So Opera profiles created via Mini would have an "About" page and a hidden "Mini" page that could be made viewable.

Oh man, that sounds cool... Opera gets community members, users get to keep data that gets lost everytime we update Mini, we get an easier UI to manage, we can share our mobile bookmarks with the community... sounds cool to me! Give the millions of Mini users more than just that "my Opera" bookmark that many of them probably wouldn't know what to do with- but now they have an account and can easily get right to community involvement.


Georgekiwi47 Thursday, January 25, 2007 9:13:35 PM

Happy Birthday Opera Mini! I'm another user whose internet experience has been expanded and enriched by this wonderful little browser. Here in NZ we pay outrageous prices for mobile data, so Mini's compression has made mobile browsing affordable for me.

My congratulations to all involved at Opera, and I'll look forward to watching Mini evolve in the future!

sonyx Thursday, January 25, 2007 9:48:12 PM

I understand u can't say when Yahoo search will be replaced with the onesearch engine, but as it is already being implemented in Yahoo2Go it hopefully shouldn't take too long? I'm looking forward to trying it out:cool:

And congratulations with the 1 yr anniversary, Opera Mini really brings my mobile to life like no other app. drunk

Tamil Thursday, January 25, 2007 10:08:51 PM

Congratulations! party

theoddbod Thursday, January 25, 2007 10:27:53 PM

Congratulations. Thanks for making me want my train journeys to last longer now so I can catch up on all my RSS Feeds.
O2 would probably like to thank you as well for adding £30+ to my monthly bill since Mini was released! :-(

.edDotEd Thursday, January 25, 2007 10:40:07 PM

I can't believe it's been one year! Opera Mini means so much to me, it's a daily, sometimes hourly, tool that i am eternally grateful for.

opera ninja kicks my neck out! (my fav so far: http://my.opera.com/Nplus/blog/opera-browser-trial-12-22-full )

also, i think eddie lopez is on the right track. yes

Words Thursday, January 25, 2007 10:59:39 PM

Happy Birthday party party party

Bencalai_benc Thursday, January 25, 2007 11:40:48 PM

Happy Birthday to Opera Mini and a big congrats and thanx to the Opera Mini Team for producing such an excellent piece of software!

MarianneManneS Thursday, January 25, 2007 11:44:44 PM

Don't you guys have any questions to our developers? I would have guessed you had several (even I do!)! bigsmile

Allanricewood Thursday, January 25, 2007 11:49:44 PM

I originally got involved with the OC because of Opera Mini.

The only backdraw I´ve ever experienced with Mini was when I bought myself a new mobile. When I wanted to download a new browser via a direct link, I was told that the link couldn´t be sent to my phone - since a link had already been sent to that number once.

Otherwise I´ve been more than pleased with it.

Happy Birthday, Opera Mini!

Eddie LopezEddie_Lopez Friday, January 26, 2007 12:21:12 AM

Question 2:
Even though your rendering removes horizontal scrolling, are you looking at ways to better utilize trackballs in some mobiles? BB Pearl, Sidekick, several others take a step to move beyond the D-Pad in most mobile phones, it would be nice if Opera can keep up with them.

Question 3:
You've gotten a lot of flack for the Yahoo! Deal... can you shed some more light on the "OneSearch" functionality and how it will work with the Opera UI. (which contrary to popular belief is not in the current Mini- that's just the normal Yahoo! search)

Question 4:
What's the word with Verizon/Brew?

Question 5:
What is the makeup of the development team? How many "core" developers to you have and how many other teams contribute.. ie- how large is the project?

Question 6:
The first keys I hit everytime I start Mini is: "**" Can we get that be a part of the Tools->settings menu?

Question 7:
Generally speaking...are vendors coming to you guys? Or are you shopping Mini out to all the vendors?

Question 8:
Invariably the biggest downside to Mini compared to some built-in browsers is the integration with the rest of the features of the phone (look up a webpage from withing my address book for example, or having a space insert a "." in URLs). I understand the fact that since Mini is built to run on just about *anything* that it's difficult if not impossible to address these issues, but with vendors getting on board with pre-installing Mini, can we expect more "OS hooks" with Mini? Or is this as far as we can go?

Statement 1:
I'd leave you Mini guys all alone if you could get Opera Mobile working on BB Pearl. I'll pay for it! and I do love Mini too!

Khadra Warsame Penh Neangkhadwar_neang_666 Friday, January 26, 2007 12:48:51 AM

smile Well Done smile Well Done smile Very Happy Birthday and Alot of Congratulations with Opera Mini's year Birthday Anniversary smile I'm Glad - Happy and Pleased that You are Around smile May Opera Mini have alot of bright future ahead with alot of new ideas and innovative features further more with alot of satisfied users too smile Once Again Happy Happy Birthday smile

tinhoy Friday, January 26, 2007 1:32:09 AM

Questions:

1) Will there ever be support for a 90-degrees rotated mode?

2) The fraud sitechecker of desktop gives good peace of mind. Can Opera Mini also enjoy this benefit?

3) Is it possible to have Wand support? Preferably with a password check just in case we lose our mobile. To further that thought on security, how about a simple login check when OM starts up? Need to pass that to login with cookies/wand, or else you can login without anything remembered.

4) I remember an earlier version having the possibility to zoom in on different areas of photos, or view photos at different aspect ratios (stretched fullscreen, to-width, etc). Currently only "download photo" is possible. Will the zoom features ever make a comeback?

AntonCaptainSeagull Friday, January 26, 2007 2:01:46 AM

opera ninja. that lil guy could have his own "collection of" book.

Ryan McCabermccabe916 Friday, January 26, 2007 2:06:04 AM

Congrats! Now if I could only get a data plan to use it....

chanthet_kh Friday, January 26, 2007 3:11:23 AM

Happy birthday To Opera Mini from Angkor Cambodia smile!Thanks

JENNIEVR¡T¥.423 Friday, January 26, 2007 3:44:33 AM

1st things 1st.... Congrats on making it a yr. bigsmile Happy Anniversary drunk and Happy Birthday party Opera Mini is the best thing that ever happened to my phone even though I still have some glitches.... 1. My phone crashes/freezes every so often, 2. Losing all my bm's when downloading newest version, 3. I'm fairly new to all this and for the most part I'm very patient and learn to do things by figuring them out on my own but I'm @ my wits end and frustrated w/.... a. I've tried everything to upload a photo to my profile and for that little box above whatever a person writes, from my phone, (Sanyo MM-8300/Sprint), and would like for anyone to please help; is the only way to do this from a pc? and b. I have a Myspace account and would like my friends from there to know about Opera and Opera Mini, how would I go about posting a link? What do I write/do? Any help will be truly and greatly appreciated. Thank you and again, CONGRATULATIONS! wizard Wishing you the best in '07

Ahsan Iqbalahsaniqbal93 Friday, January 26, 2007 4:51:13 AM

Happy Birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday our Opera Mini! Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

Congratulations Opera Software ASA on the one year of your product Opera Mini! Why only yours? It is ours too. So Happy Birthday our Opera Mini!

CoNgRaTs AgAiN

Sergey Rasichsergo_grind_core Friday, January 26, 2007 7:30:28 AM

Happy Birthday!!!! party

Investor Friday, January 26, 2007 7:31:04 AM

Congrats OPERA... party

To core developers, server staff... and all those being part of the OM success story of delivering the Web, fast and fine, to 10 million users worldwide... 24 x 7... Well done cheers


Question to devs :

New feature. Introduce *SecuriKey* ... for camera phones...???
A button that automatically triggers taking a photo and uploading it to a pre chosen Web site...
Purpose being crime prevention, the *Web weapon* against attacks... As speed is vital, only that feature of OM, not the rest, will be launched, when *SecuriKey* is pressed...






sirnh1 Friday, January 26, 2007 7:50:27 AM

Thanks for the Great opera mini! The program is the best ever!

My mobile is more old mobile. The build in browses doesn't really do anything... so I'm happy that I have opera mini that allows me to browse the web in a more 'normal' way. Thank you!

vasco da gamblanorias Friday, January 26, 2007 9:40:17 AM

Been using opera mini for a year, great stuff. Thanks opera.

Maverickmav1976 Friday, January 26, 2007 11:53:07 AM

Happy Birthday.

Today I've downloaded Opera Mini on my mobile phone. Just a quick download and installation. Thanks for that. up party

Nexus009 Friday, January 26, 2007 1:05:28 PM

Buon Compleanno/Happy Birthday yes

Niels ChristiansenNiller Friday, January 26, 2007 1:22:39 PM

A bit feedback then: Opera Mini times out a bit too often for my liking. Opera Software recieves many feature requests from users, so it is beneficial for Opera ASA to maintain communication with the powers behind the JVM standard. Perhaps a bit ethereal and intangible, but there you have it. :-)

LaliLali19871014 Friday, January 26, 2007 1:36:55 PM

Happy Birthday and congrats
Question: With opera mini 4 can i(when will)e-mail send? Now the mini 3, make nothing with "mailto"

briareus Friday, January 26, 2007 2:41:28 PM

Will Opera Mini for the non-trackball Blackberries ever be designed to properly support the trackwheel? Right now we have to press keys on the keyboard to access the menu rather than pressing the trackwheel. The escape key doesn't exit the application.

Also, will we be able to directly enter text into fields? It's extremely tedious to have to open a field editor, type in the data, open the menu and accept the data when it seems like we should be able to just type in the field on the page and go.

These are mostly just nagging issues but they're annoying enough that I never bother to use Opera Mini.

It would be nice if OM also inserted periods in URL's when the space bar is pressed.

K a Y L apurelight Friday, January 26, 2007 3:53:41 PM

party happy birthday opera mini.. party happy universary.. Thanx for making my day more fun than before.. No need sitting infront of my desktop for a long time to wrote on my blog again up I heart Opera Mini star

Miamiamaus78 Friday, January 26, 2007 3:55:32 PM

Happy birthday! Opera Mini is such a great product!

Eddie LopezEddie_Lopez Friday, January 26, 2007 5:13:45 PM

Developer Question:

Can you say anything about possibility Widgets on Mini? ...Or at least Mobile?

Apple announced it, and I just read this from AllTel:
http://www.frogdesign.com/?p=349

I was hoping Opera would be first in this area.

Ice ArdorIceArdor Friday, January 26, 2007 5:49:47 PM

Happy happy birthday to Opera Mini, the mini Opera in my phone.

VSLjackschitt Friday, January 26, 2007 7:28:43 PM

Greatest J2ME app ever! Happy birthday Opera Mini!
What we expect next is the feature to browse with OM in landscape mode too!

FataL Friday, January 26, 2007 8:52:14 PM

Suggestion:
I would like to see some statistics along with Opera Mini emulator:
  • original size of the page (with all images, scripts, etc.)
  • original size of the HTML (disabled images, plugins, JS)
  • compressed size of the page that Opera Mini gets[/quote] That feature will promote Opera Mini to people by showing how much they can save on traffic.

Marcus Sundmanmsundman Friday, January 26, 2007 10:24:15 PM

Question 1:
Will we see a "load only the selected image"-function anytime soon?
This'd be useful on those sites that have a gazillion buttons and arrows and whatnot, all made of images, but you want to see just one or two of them.

Question 2:
Will there be support for displaying alt tags of images not loaded?
The usefulness of this should be obvious.

Question 3:
Will it be possible to reload a selected image in higher resolution(s)?
This'd be really useful with online maps.

NConOM Saturday, January 27, 2007 12:33:54 AM

Here's my creative post to mark this occasion -- a 3 part haiku:

Opera Mini:
My MAIN mobile web browser!
I surf easily!
happy

Happy Birthday, too!
Continued success to you.
Thanks for the hard work!
up

Congratulations!
(I almost take for granted
that OM is there!)
party

My 3 item mini wish list:
1) Bookmark backup (and folders option)
2) 90 degree rotation option for images
3) Zooming for ALL images (with slight overlapping)

Bobdiyvip403 Saturday, January 27, 2007 7:53:06 AM

I'm Chinese, I love Opera Mini, Happy Birthday to You!
生日快乐！

Sebhelyesfarku Saturday, January 27, 2007 1:00:40 PM

How to backup or export/import the bookmarks on an S60 phone?

Soumitrasoumitram4u Saturday, January 27, 2007 1:03:29 PM

;-)Happy Birthday and congrats Opera Mini for completing one year. Thanks to all Opera Mini Team members for creating such a great software.

Soumitrasoumitram4u Saturday, January 27, 2007 1:03:29 PM

Happy Birthday and congrats Opera Mini for completing one year. Thanks to all Opera Mini Team members for creating such a great software.

FB xxfluffybunny Saturday, January 27, 2007 1:54:52 PM

Happy Birthday Opera Mini... May you have many years ahead of you wink cheers

antipasta Saturday, January 27, 2007 4:27:26 PM

Would you mind explaining what the issue was concerning the esmertec jvm on the dash that made opera hifi incompatible? It would be helpful for other java developers, and would be an interesting look at how opera tackles a showstopper bug.

Thanks

wadefatladysings Sunday, January 28, 2007 6:40:40 AM

i'd like to know the difference between the http and socket connections, and why the socket is so much faster and why i on occasion get through using socket and not http

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