Opera Mini
While doing some research for a recent consulting project involving distributing content to mobile devices I had the good fortune to learn about Opera Mini, a new web browser designed specifically for mobile phones.
Opera Mini was first released globally in January 2006 and Opera Mini 2.0 came out earlier this month. After spending some time with both versions of Mini I can say that my initial experience, as both a content developer and content consumer, has been a positive one. This free and easy to use browser upgrade from the standard WAP 2.0 browser that many of the latest mobile phones still for some reason come equipped with has a lot to offer.
Opera CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner describes Opera Mini this way:
“Opera Mini has kick-started real mobile Web browsing by enabling non-smartphone owners to surf the full Internet on their phones, just as they do on their PCs”
Might be a tad bit of puffery in there to suggest that the Mini experience gives you the full Internet that you get on your PC, but I do think that most mobile web users who spend some time with Opera Mini will find it to be quite a bit better than the often underwhelming mobile web browsing experience the typical non smartphone mobile phone user has unfortunately become accustomed to receiving.
The main improvement Mini provides in the user experience of browsing the web on your mobile phone is accomplished via Opera’s small screen rendering approach to the mobile web. If I understand Opera’s approach correctly, Mini accomplishes this primarily via a pre-processing pass through an intermediate server while Opera Mobile, a more robust web browser for mobile devices from Opera, does it in the browser itself. (Note: Neither Opera Mini nor Opera Mobile should be confused with Minimo, a new Windows Mobile Edition smartphone version of the Firefox web browser designed for mobile devices and small screen usability.)
Opera Mini version 2.0 adds news features like downloading images, MP3s, etc. directly to the phone, new skins, multisearch, better bookmarking and visual navigation. One additional new feature appears to be generating a lot attention — Opera Mini now supports seamless mobile commerce via SMS.
What all this really translates into for the non technical mobile web user is that mainstream web sites built without markup and layout specially designed for a mobile device, meaning web sites that a standard WAP 2.0 browser might normally choke on, can now be displayed in a readable and usable fashion by Opera Mini. This in effect opens up a lot more web content to the mobile user.
Mini’s pre-processing pass through an intermediate server might raise some concerns about conducting certain types of secure transactions via your mobile device, but for everyday mobile web browsing the preprocessing approach seems like a smart one.
For example, I brought up ContentDeveloper.com in Opera Mini and was pleasantly surprised at how well it held together seeing as how I’m not yet providing any special CSS or markup for mobile devices on this site. But since Movable Type does a good job of turning out relatively compliant code Opera Mini knew how to render it into something readable on a small screen.
Opera Mini is also different from Opera Mobile in that Opera Mini only needs less that 100KB for a full install (74KB on my device) compared to the 1.2 MB needed to install Opera Mobile, making Mini a viable browser option for many more mobile devices.
To see if your phone can use Opera Mini take a look at the list of Opera Mini compatible phones and carriers. If you find a match and want to give Mini a try, just point your phone’s current WAP 2.0 browser to mini.opera.com and follow the instructions. I’d been using Mini 1.2 for several weeks with no new hiccups in the operation of my phone and recently upgraded to version 2.0 without a hitch. It only took about two minutes to install/upgrade and was very easy.
If you’re thinking that your phone is several years old and probably won’t work with Mini, think again. I installed it on a Sanyo SCP-8100 which is now several years old and Mini works like a charm. Breathing new web life into less than state of the art mobile phones may be an area where Opera Mini really shines.
Opera also offers some good information for Content Developers on designing applications for small screen rendering and mobile devices. Worth a read.
A nod of appreciation to Opera Mini’s development team for working hard to create this quality experience for the mobile web user.
Content Developer Comments
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Great post DC. Very interesting approach to sending SMS. Is the source code for this actually available anywhere? Thanks! Comment on Open Source SMS Text Messaging Application by JustUs1776
Great post. I'm a LAMP Developer and I was wondering if anyone has been able to build their own GSM server. That is, a server that can utilize a GSM modem to send direct, local messages to cell or IP phones. I'm working for a not-for-profit health care organization and have a suite of applications that I'd like to improve communication turn around time by sending SMS messages our nurses IP phones and our Physician's cell phones. I've found a ton of services that are all cost prohibitive and was hoping for an open source solution. Comment on Open Source SMS Text Messaging Application by Roy
My son's teacher would like to be able to send short text messages to students. I'm looking for a simple solution that would allow him to broadcast to 20-40 students a "reminder" about class info. This article looks very promising, but It appears to be server based. Can this type of program be modified to run run stand-a-lone, ie flash drive, desktop...? comment feed...