Apple Rejects iPhone version of Opera Mini from the App Store; Maybe Not Yet [Updated]

November 2009

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Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, co-founder and CEO of Opera told New York Times in an interview that a version of Opera Mini developed for the iPhone was rejected by Apple from the App Store.

The iPhone version of Opera Mini would have been a direct competitor to iPhone's Safari browser.

It has been a while since we have last heard of an iPhone App getting rejected from the App Store.

Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, co-founder and CEO of Opera told New York Times in an interview that:

"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."

It is still not clear why their app was rejected by Apple. John Gruber of Daring Fireball speculates that the app could have got rejected either because Opera Mini was using its own Javascript interpreter which is not permitted by iPhone SDK's agreement or because it is a direct competition to iPhone's Safari browser.

I am guessing that it is the later as Opera would be aware that iPhone SDK's agreement forbids them from writing their own Javascript interpreter.

I am not that disappointed as iPhone's Safari browser is easily the best mobile browser I have used. But the point is competition is always healthy as it encourages innovation especially since Opera's mobile browser is also a full-featured browser like Safari and is getting increasingly popular on smartphones.

Opera Mini joins the ever growing list of iPhone Apps rejected from the App Store.

What do you think about this latest App Store Rejection?

Update (Nov 2nd, 2008):

John Gruber of Daring Fireball has done some more digging and is reporting that though the news that Opera had developed an iPhone version of Opera Mini was true, they haven't submitted the iPhone app to Apple for it be rejected based on information from some informed sources.

For more details continue reading iPhone version of Opera Mini is Not Rejected from the App Store?

[via Daring Fireball]

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