I really like the small twist tech blogs and websites recently gave to a quote from an interview of Opera’s CEO Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner. This is the quote: “Opera’s engineers have developed a version of Opera Mini that can run on an Apple iPhone, but Apple won’t let the company release it because it competes with Apple’s own Safari browser.”
Ok did he say that Opera approached Apple for their Opera Mini browser? I think not. Everyone knows Apple’s authoritarian stance and their policy of not allowing apps that competes with theirs, so going to them just for a formal denial doesn’t make sense. Even Mozilla cited it as one of the reasons for not developing Fennec for iPhone.
Now let’s scrutinize “engineers developed a version of Opera Mini for iPhone”. Opera’s sole product is an internet browser. Being the ace in the mobile browser market, it was their responsibility (not mandatory though) to test the compatibility of their browser on different phones. Actually this shouldn’t be surprising if their engineers checked how their product fared on the so-called Jesus phone.
I am sure there many iPhone users who would want Opera (and Fennec) to come on iPhone but that’s not possible for the time being. Jailbroken app is the solution but don’t you think such a move would spoil Opera’s relationship with Apple?
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