Saul Hansell from New York Times who had interviewed Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, co-founder and CEO of Opera had quoted him saying that the iPhone version of the App Store was rejected by Apple has got some clarifications from Mr. von Tetzchner on the issue.
Therefore, if you were an Opera fan and were hoping for their iPhone app to make it to the App Store, then there is some bad news as Opera has halted the development of their app due to iPhone's SDK agreement.
Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, co-founder and CEO of Opera said that:
"the development of the iPhone browser was more an “internal project” of some engineers than a product that management was committed to introducing. Indeed, development was halted after the company looked at the details of the license agreement in Apple’s software development kit and realized that it would not be permitted."
He also wrote in the email:
“We stopped the work because of the prohibitive license,”
Apple has previously rejected iPhone Apps like Podcaster because it duplicated the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.
Since Opera Mini for other mobile platforms is developed using Java which is not supported on the iPhone, there were speculations that Opera would have to port Opera Mini to C and Objective-C APIs to be able to submit their iPhone app to the App Store. Mr. von Tetzchner has clarified that Opera has a version that runs “native” which does not need a Java environment.
So this should resolve the controversy once and for all. Unfortunately, for all the Opera fans out there, the iPhone version of Opera Mini will not be coming to the App Store anytime soon.
What do you think about Opera's decision? Tell us in the comments below.
[via New York Times]
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I really like the opera browser and this news is very disappointing. I think it would have been so much better than the safari browser.
My safari browser on my iPhone keeps crashing and this was going to be a lifeline. Oh Well have to stick with the rubbish apple browser
I would rather have IE5 than Opera, but I do think it's time apple pulled their fingers out of their corporate arses and allowed some competition.
why can't we have tomtom? Firefox and or Opera? how about an office (compatible) suite, java, flash, a home page, landscape for all apps…..
Ya, this news is very disappointing.
personally I would like to see firefox for the iphone, but that is pure preferance, it just runs smoother and faster for me, but i might be biased. But they should at least release opera for the jailbroken iphone i loved it when i used it on my RAZR.
I think we should get OPERA MINI BROWSER to work with Jailbroken iPhones. Since so called Apple "Policy" doesn't work. We should do it our way. Apple Engineers are so stupid that they have disabled so many good features like MMS, Video Recording & Bluetooth sharing on the iPhone. So studpid. Where all the Jailbroken iPhones have all the features.
Haha.. Stupid Steve Jobs..
One thing that has not been mentioned is that as Opera mini compresses the web page significantly (in my experience up to 75%), download costs will be reduced. This mean reduced income for Apple's exclusive partners which they won't like! So I suspect Opera Mini may be be rejected if and when it is submitted.
why has there not been a anti trust lawsuit from any of these companies Microsoft got just for putting there browser in windows yet nothing is being said about apple being 100% anti competitive about software on the iPhone some companies need to step up to the plate and sue them in order for this type of thing to change
3 words:
"Opera Proxy Client"
"Desc: This is an thin client application for connecting to the proprietary Opera Proxy Service. The Opera Proxy Service is currently available by signing up free of charge at http://www.opera.com."
problem solved
woww.. really good one .. i like it