Apple Not Accepting Opera Mini on iPhone | Hacker News Reader

Apple Not Accepting Opera Mini on iPhone

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45 pointsqhoxie61 comments

I'm always confused by this. If Dell didn't allow Opera or Firefox or Linux to be installed on the computers they sell, or Microsoft didn't allow 3rd-party applications on Windows, people would be up in arms. But Apple is allowed to block anyone from installing any application on their own personal iPhone, and there aren't lawsuits flying?

Is Apple preventing it from being installed in any way or just via Apple's app distribution mechanism? (I don't know either way, just asking.)

just via Apple's distribution mechanism. Which is the only way to install stuff on your iPhone, short of jailbreaking it.

the appstore is by no means the only way to install things on your phone. as a developer you can install whatever you want on your phone including write applications that run in the background. apple will just refuse to publish said apps to the apple store.

Can other people download those off your website and install them without using any crazy hacks?

right now you can have up to 100 beta testers for your app, but you need to generate a key for them based on their device ID.

Yes, but you have to pay apple, and be approved by them before you receive a developer key. Apple still plays the gatekeeper.

Before the SDK was released you had no way to get any apps onto your phone, or anyone else's. I see the current situation as a step forward and I believe Apple will looses restrictions for ad-hoc distribution of applications, they just need to figure things out (the same way they needed a while to figure out building a good SDK and distribution platform).

Sure there was, and there still is. It's called jailbreaking, but Apple doesn't like it (will refuse to support your iPhone should there be problems, so you'll have to revert). There were multiple apps one can still use to get jailbroken apps on one's iPhone.

It also happens to be the only way one can pirate existing app store iPhone applications, sooo...

>"[...] same way they needed a while to figure out building a good sdk distribution platform"

More likely the reason for the delay in doing the above was because they needed to figure out building a good lock-down and kill-switch mechanism.

I was under the impression that no apps on the iPhone could run in the background.

It's a SDK licensing agreement restriction, not a technical one. Plenty of Installer apps run in the background.

My understanding is that the only other way to install apps on an iPhone is to hack it, which opens up its own can of worms.

IANAL, but although the phone hardware is "yours", I think what you can do with the OS is defined by the license agreement. Prohibiting third-party software on Windows may seem crazy, but there's no reason a EULA cannot prohibit it.

But Dell offers an open platform. Blocking a particular app would require making an exception. The iPhone is closed; every time Apple approves an app it's making an exception. And Apple's already stated that they won't accept JavaScript interpreters.

It's just the same as a billion other areas - mp3 players, tvs, phones, games consoles. The PC is pretty unique in terms of its openness to 3rd party software.

But IMHO it's a moot point - the iPhone has a fantastic fast fully featured browser which can do most stuff.

I don't believe this surprised anybody, including the Opera team.

Agreed, it's not like this is the first time Apple has denied a "competing" application.

I can't wait for Android to be released on a decent handset. Then I can give my iPhone to my wife.

This isn't Podcast Listener Pro or whatever; nobody will be surprised if Apple turns down Windows Media Player or Azureus either. One expects Opera did this largely as a publicity stunt.

You're going to be the one geek in the room with the Android phone and the Nomad MP3 player, you know. =)

One expects Opera did this largely as a publicity stunt.

I think they were testing the waters to see how Apple would react to a larger and much better-known company putting a competing product into the app store. Unsurprisingly, Apple did the same thing they've always done.

You're going to be the one geek in the room with the Android phone and the Nomad MP3 player, you know. =)

That fine, as long as I have the choice to be that geek. That's what attracts me (and other geeks, I'm sure) to Android the most: I have choices. If I don't like the default media player, I can install another one (or, barring that, write my own) without fear that the Almighty Apple will lay the smackdown.

Give me a break, Derek. They weren't "testing the waters". Wired wrote a story in March about how the public SDK terms would prevent Firefox and Opera specifically from being allowed on the iPhone, and the story about Apple declining "competing" applications is months old too.

I'm sorry for ribbing you for wanting to work on Android; I'm just being snarky, although I really don't share your politics. But let's not be disingenuous. It's not news that you can't run Opera --- or Flash, or Skype --- on an iPhone.

Wired wrote a story in March about how the public SDK terms would prevent Firefox and Opera specifically from being allowed on the iPhone...

You are correct on the SDK terms, I had completely forgotten about that. IIRC, Opera would be considered an emulator since it allow you to run Javascript, yes?

...and the story about Apple declining "competing" applications is months old too.

Which is exactly why I said it's no surprise that Opera was turned down, although there is obviously much more to the story.

I'm sorry for ribbing you for wanting to work on Android; I'm just being snarky...

No need to apologize, I hadn't taken any offense.

...although I really don't share your politics.

I assume that by "politics" you mean my feelings towards openness, choice, and F/OSS (since we seem to have similar feelings towards US politics, but I digress).

All I'm saying is that options are good. Apple limits your options with the iPhone, so I'm looking forward to getting an Android phone in the future.

Openness: good. Extremely high quality: good.

Either makes a fine product as far as I'm concerned. Both is gravy.

Don't forget to vote!

You're going to be the one geek in the room with the Android phone and the Nomad MP3 player, you know. =)

Are you over the age of 13? If so, this probably shouldn't concern you.

I would use the word "amuse" in place of "concern".

"You're going to be the one geek in the room...blah, blah, blah..."

Actually real geeks are much more interested in Android than iPhone because of Apple's bullshit.

Welcome to the 90's all over again when Apple lost the desktop war to Windows.

Yeah, because I definitely see more geeks writing Android code than iPhone code.

Android has more developers in it's first year than iPhone had in it's first year.

Give it some time... As usual, Apple won't be able to offer you as much choice in hardware as will be available for Android. And, we can already see that there will be more software choices and flexibility for Android.

Why do I want lots of choice in hardware for my phone?

... are you serious?

I think the point he's making is that if the hardware is sufficient enough in the iPhone, then it doesn't matter that you can't get it in a variety of various systems. In fact, as it is with all Apple products, I'd say that's an advantage in Apple's favor. Not everybody agrees, but it suits me fine, and it suits a lot of other people pretty well, too. So I get your not liking Apple, but don't get condescending about it.

Apple's theory has always been that if they control the hardware, they don't have to compromise their software. That results in really remarkable things.

Yes, I'm serious. Now can you answer the question?

Hey, maybe you don't want to pay an extra $100 for a GPS gizmo you'd never use. Or a camera, if you have a small camera outside of your phone. Or maybe you want some extra RAM in your phone (for the upcoming days when phones may be doing some more intensive things?). Or a replaceable battery! The list goes on and on.

I can't tell whether this is a serious list. Replaceble battery sounds serious (I mean, I don't want one, but sure). GPS gizmo? Small camera? RAM?

It was quite serious. Some people may be constrained by money, and a difference between having a GPS and camera and not having them may be a deal-saver. Power-users may want a faster phone, maybe with a different processor or more memory. Like it or not, Apple can't make a phone which satisfies everyone. With different hardware, maybe you can get a phone perfect for you - or who knows, maybe a company will make them on order sometime in the future, like Dell does with computers. Honestly, I don't see what you find so funny about this list, and I don't see the need for a snarky response.

You know that the iPhone has both a GPS and a camera, right? It also has some RAM.

In some industries the ubiquitous cell-phone camera is a liability. I have friends and family with security clearances who are only allowed to bring phones without cameras into work. Finding such a phone these days is actually kind of a pain, enough so that several of these folks just don't have a cell phone.

I have a security clearance and have worked in the DefCon industry for about 3 years. Every secure room area I've had has had an area for you to lock up electronic devices you might use outside of a secure area, such as cameras, flash drives, and cell phones.

Other contractors I know in the west coast just leave their cell phone in their car when they go on base. It just sounds like your friends are using the old "I have a security clearance" excuse to not have a cell phone, which, if its the case, more power to them. :)

Why would you want stereo bluetooth headphones? Apple didn't offer that for a long time, I don't even know if they do currently.

A replaceable battery? A slide out keyboard? A normal headphone jack?

No, you're right. Choice is REALLY BAD. Let's all buy Apple stuff and be happy that the Gods have even thought of us.

Do you live in some strange country where you're not allowed to buy phones with slide-out keyboards, or has Apple fronted a California ballot initiative I'm not aware of?

He's talking about apple phones -- with slide-out keyboards

yeah, i know. Keep thinking about it, you'll get it eventually.

> A normal headphone jack?

Are you talking about the recessed one in the first generation iPhones? Because at least the iPhones had a standard 3.5mm headphone jack to begin with (albeit one that wouldn't work with some third party headphones because of their size), unlike the tmobile G1 (you know, android and all) that has no standard headphone jack at all.

Correction: Android had more downloads of its SDKs in its first year. Which isn't surprising, since anyone could download it, and it only required Java knowledge. Apple's SDK required permission to download, a signed NDA, and to really be productive, you'd need to know both Objective-C and Cocoa.

I'm guessing the number of Obj-C/Cocoa developers < Java Developers. So Android getting more downloads is no surprise there.

But real artists ship. And the Apple iPhone App Store has been up and running and selling Apps. I can't even buy the G1 in my area.

This year maybe. But in two years time most phones will be Androids. We've been down this road before, except this time around an unencumbered OS is there from the inception of the environment.

If the iphone is the jesus phone.

Is the gphone the God phone?

or is the android phone the agnostic phone?

Want to put $100 on that?

What exactly would we be betting and how are we going to judge the outcome?

new phones in the preceding month?

estimates of phones in use at time t[0] and t[1]?

iPhones are in the minority of total phones in use right now.

What geographic area do you want to restrict it to? Remember that most of the world cannot buy and operate a 2nd gen iPhone without voiding the warranty, and if you think that iPhones are going to dominate the market in asia and africa, you are being optimistic.

Stop me if I'm wrong, but Apple actually got AT&T to develop features on the backend of their network to get visual voicemail working.

Android was also a bid from Google to have the newly opened bit of spectrum be a "utility" band, where any device that gets FCC certified can plug into that network -- regardless of carrier or manufacturer. That didn't fly.

I would wager that's a more telling indication of who's going to come out on top of the scrap heap. The wireless handheld market is not beholden to perfect competition. Especially not within the US of A.

> You're going to be the one geek in the room with the Android phone.

No he won't. I'm giving my iPhone to the wife too.

I have an iPhone and have used Android on the G1 extensively... the best (if not lacking in creativity) comparison between the OS's is Android is like Ubuntu on the desktop and the iPhone is like OS X on the desktop. If you're happy using Ubuntu, you'll probably be happy using Android.

I think it's going to come down to values--easy and flashy vs. open. If the Linux vs. Windows/OS X battle of the last 10 years is any indication, my guess is that the iPhone will dominate the market and Android will only win geek cred.

Which means that I might buy an Android phone if I want a small handheld wireless computer, but I won't be using it as my actual phone.

Gruber at http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/10/30/opera-iphone:

"I don’t see how this is surprising at all. One can argue about whether it’s a good policy for Apple not to allow third-party web browsers on the iPhone, but unlike other rejections, this one is not arbitrary. The iPhone SDK Agreement clearly forbids writing your own JavaScript interpreter."

What if the only reason it forbids it is to prevent Opera, Flash, et. al. from coming to the iPhone? Then Gruber has his cause and effect wrong. Even if he doesn't, this is still sick in sort of the same way that Alumni preferences keeping blacks out of state funded schools is--sure there is technically another reason than there blackness, but the end effect is still bad.

Classic example of a business sacrificing long term gains for short term gains. Sure they gain money by doing this via google or whatever. But in the long run, well, this is why there is no Apple developer ecosystem.

This is why there is no Apple developer ecosystem.

Is this a known fact or your personal opinion?

I only develop for the web but I always thought Apple had strong support from developers which is why it has some of the best designed software.

It's fairly well known that Apple has a very small developer base and that they treat developers poorly in a number of ways. For one, they've been known to break backwards compat. like it's nobody's business.

Sure, a lot of nix people use Macs now, but ask them if they're developing software for the Mac OS. Most likely, the answer is no. They're doing nix stuff.

Compare the Apple developer "ecosystem" to that of the Windows and Linux world. Can you see any big differences?

Yeah I can see a difference--Linux breaks backwards compatibility way more than Apple =P.

It's ham-handed typical Apple, but honestly, I'm glad. One of the main reasons I enjoy developing iPhone sites is that I don't have to support a bunch of random user agents.

You should be developing mobile sites, not iPhone sites.

Or do you think that making "MSIE only" sites too is an acceptable way of dealing with web-pages and users?

Concurence déloyale

While I'm not surprised by this, it kinda sucks. If you are going to make mobile pages, being able to test on as many browsers as possible is a good thing.

With moves like this, Apple pretty much forces me to keep a Windows Mobile phone around as well.

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