Developers at Opera appear to be suffering iPhone envy. Today the company rolled out a public beta of its Opera Mini 4 browser, designed for Java enabled phones, which rips off features first unveiled on iPhone’s Safari browser. Opera Mini 4 sports Safari’s impressive zoom feature that enables users to see a large thumbnail image of a web page, and navigate or zoom to specific sections of the page by tapping in that location.
I’ve used Opera Mini on my Treo and frankly it stinks. So does the Treo for that matter, but that’s another topic. The browser is very poorly optimized and lacks elegance and integration of a native application environment. Opera’s mobile browser for Windows Mobile is a much better overall solution, but still lacks refinement. Keep trying, Opera. You’ll get it right – eventually.
Om Malik sees iPhone having a coercive effect on Nokia’s product strategy. The Finnish phone maker is now rethinking its decision to focus almost solely on non-touch screen devices, and plans to optimize future versions of its Symbian OS on touch interaction.
Whether iPhone becomes a huge success or a lukewarm seller remains to be seen. But it’s a safe bet the product will achieve iconic status. When you look at the current handset landscape no clear challenger emerges, and that’s going to present Verizon, Sprint, et al., with an enormous disadvantage and something to sweat over as iPhone’s launch date looms.
David Berlind asks the poignant question “Where the hell is Microsoft?”. A question I’ve often asked myself.
Where the heck is Microsoft? Earlier this year, Microsoft launched the newest version of Windows Mobile (version 6) and there’s a slew of devices built on the new mobile OS (we have video of them here) with more coming (like the new HTC touchscreen handset). But even with the new software and gear, the “if we build it, they will come” strategy is not a good one in the face of a foe like Apple. I was equally stymied by Microsoft’s inability to grasp the importance of image marketing with its Zune (see: To Win, Zune will need a Bono).
It’s true I am an Apple fanboy and I’m totally stoked over the iPhone, but I also happen to be passionate about technology…especially MOBILE technology. And truth be told I have a certain fondness for the Windows Mobile ecosystem. Needless to say I find Microsoft’s utter lack of response to iPhone both alarming and tragic.
And so it begins. Apple’s first rival rears is ugly head. Well, not ugly. Just not as well designed or well implemented. This is HTC’s answer to iPhone and its gesture-based navigation. Dubbed the “Touch” (cute), this device offers an ingenious rotating UI layered on top of Windows Mobile.
What bothers me about this device isn’t so much that it’s a blatant ripoff of iPhone, and even marketing panache ala Apple. No, I don’t like the fact it takes something good; namely HTC’s custom UI, and layers it over something that wasn’t designed to operate like the iPhone – Windows Mobile. Like lipstick on a pig, this device fails to even remotely mimic the iPhone user experience.
