New iPad browser from Opera | Hacker News Reader

New iPad browser from Opera

coastbyopera.com

137 pointspgsandstrom91 comments

It's important to note that, like all browsers on iOS, this is just a UI skin and added functionality over the Mobile Safari core (the slower one 3rd parties get access to). This isn't a true Opera browser based on the Blink core (Chrome/Chromium's now-forked WebKit core) that is/will be used by Opera on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.

It's worthwhile to note that Chrome (on iOS) uses its own network stack; I suspect Coast just uses the entire stock web stack (this is from having worked at Opera until recently — it shouldn't be that hard to verify through testing for presence of known bugs).

> like all browsers on iOS, this is just a UI skin and added functionality over the Mobile Safari core

Not true, for example Opera Mini[1], perhaps others. I wouldn't jump to conclusions that fast.

1. http://www.opera.com/mobile/iphone

Opera Mini represents the ONLY way to get around Apple's onerous restrictions: render the content entirely on servers and push it to the browser. It's inefficient and messy and makes for a less than stellar user experience. It also sets the barrier to entry very high. This is why you won't see Firefox on iOS. Mozilla would be happy to build it, but they won't live the lie of having a Firefox name on the Mobile Safari engine (in slower 3rd party mode).

No one is jumping to conclusions here. This is the specific result Apple wants and is by design of their policies. It's well known and there's no debate over it. You can have your own browser on iOS, but it can't interpret JavaScript (no interpreted code on iOS), meaning it's completely useless on the modern internet. It's the perfect way to enforce a one-browser-to-rule-them-all rule, locking out all competitors, while couching it in a 'security' guideline.

Just because you don't have a JIT doesn't mean it's "completely useless on the modern internet." On the contrary, I rarely (ever?) have run into this as an actual bottleneck.

There are two separate issues:

1) You can't ship your own browser engine 2) If you use the built in engine, you don't get JIT on (but Mobile Safari does)

You're confusing two different things here:

1. Not being able to use JIT is just the anti-competitive part that Apple does to people who ship UIs/skins over Mobile Safari.

2. The more insidious bit is that you can't run interpreted code in your own app AT ALL, which prevents Google, Mozilla, Opera, etc from being able to ship their own full browser engine because it wouldn't be able to implement JavaScript AT ALL, making it completely useless on the modern internet.

So, you're left with Chrome on iOS which is just a fancy skin/UI over Mobile Safari (sans JIT so it's forced to be slower so Safari looks better by comparison). Compare that to Chrome for Android which is the full Blink-based browser stack tweaked to be as fast and smooth as possible. Or Firefox on Android which is the full Gecko engine with a custom Android native UI running over the top. You can't have the Gecko or Blink engines at all on iOS because Apple says so.

How is this any different from what MS was doing in the 90's?

The same MS that tried (and failed) to disrupt and dislodge Netscape's JavaScript?

And your point is? It was wrong, anti-competitive, and anti-consumer then. It's the same now. It's just being done by a different company that doesn't have a monopoly (thanks to Android).

Apple isn't preventing the use of JIT in a UIWebView to make safari look better, they're doing it because if the JIT has to break the sandbox and that screws up their whole app model.

I'm sure it can be done, but that's the biggest reason it hasn't been done.

Yep, don't disagree with any of that stuff, just the fact that no JIT is a dealbreaker. It's not.

Which is odd, since I never claimed it was a dealbreaker. I just said that's why all the browsers on iOS are slower than Safari. It artificially keeps Safari's performance high relative to competing browsers (well, Safari skins).

The only thing that's a dealbreaker for me is that Apple prevents all other real browsers from shipping for iOS. One browser only is a dealbreaker for me on any OS.

Ah, appears I misread your original comment -- you were talking about third party browser implementors. My bad.

It is to be regretted that Linux has been canceled from Opera's list.

Opera will ship it for Linux in the future, they're focusing on Windows and Mac first, though. On Sept 6th, they posted the Opera 17 preview builds and stated "Thanks in advance for your bug reports and comments. To save some of you a little trouble, there is no Linux release of Opera 17, but there will be Opera for Linux."

> there is no Linux release of Opera 17, but there will be Opera for Linux

Yes, that's what they said for Opera 16, too, and 15. Last version of Opera to be released for Linux was the (pre-blink) 12.

I'm sure they will get around to it eventually, but I've personally given up waiting and switched to Firefox (mourning the loss of my beloved spatial navigation, which was why I'd stayed with Opera until now). (Being able to access all my bookmarks from Firefox for Android is a nice side-effect, AFAIK Opera still haven't gotten around to implementing Opera Link for Android version).

They haven't done it since the rewrite. And it's disingenuous to state it as flat version numbers without context. 12.x was the old Opera-specific engine. Now, they're running on Chromium/Blink. Since the switch at version 15 (skipping 13 and 14), they've got Mac and Windows out (since they're the biggest). They're working on Linux behind the scenes but it's not ready yet. And they're now doing fast releases, so basically a new version every month or so. So, it's not like the Linux version is forever out of date. They just switched to the new engine in the last few months and haven't done the Linux build yet. That's all.

As a bit of history, in case you're interested: Opera releases often used to be staggered, with Windows out first (since, as you say, they're the biggest), MacOS following, and Linux several weeks behind. Around Opera 10ish (I think, can't remember the exact one), they made a thing of changing that, promising that MacOS and Linux releases would from then on be simultaneous with Windows, as equal-first-class platforms. And with the switch to blink, they've quietly dropped that. Obviously I see the economic logic of releasing for the most popular platforms first, but that doesn't much blunt the emotional disappointment (from me and other Opera for Linux users) of seeing them drop their commitment.

(On a more practical note, for why I switched to FF - the latest Presto may not be much more than a year old, but you'd be surprised how fast the web changes when you're using an unmaintained rendering engine. New website functionality often doesn't work - html5 file uploading on most sites is broken, can't get the new google maps, g+ and fb are slow, etc. Web devs don't test on presto now that opera for windows/mac doesn't use it, and opera have stopped packaging website shims).

10.50 was Windows-only too (the day after the brower ballot screen went live, 2 March 2010); Mac/Linux not catching up till 10.60 (1 July 2010).

(Note also that there had been large delays in Presto reaching Desktop before — most notably with Opera 10 (2.2.115) and 10.10 (identical but with Unite enabled), Mobile shipped a beta of Mobile 10 with Presto 2.3.something before 10.10's release, and a second beta with 2.4.15 shortly after. Note from late 2.3 Presto releases, the final digit is the most significant one.)

total waste of time, you cannot circumvent safari, you either use safari with your own UX on top of it, and without JIT support, or you do off-ipad rendering and send interactive jpgs, which is also pointless. Unless and until Apple relax their stranglehold on the iOS browser all these browser alternatives are a waste of space, and run web apps more slowly than just using safari.

A little bit off topic but I really don't like this new trend of breaking the scrolling of a site.

I agree. I intuitively started scrolling and the iPad frame started spinning while the content moved sidewards. Very disorientating.

Yeah, makes me physically ill. It feels like they caged me by disabling the default action of the scroll wheel.

Also if you scroll around you can break it on chrome so there are multiple iPads. I cannot read this.

The site doesn't even work right on Coast!

It doesn't make me want try their tablet browsing experience when they screw up the UI on my desktop.

At least override the scrolling in the right direction (i.e. horizontally)

How about css paged media?

Spot on.

It's like the Flash/ActionScript developers of the early 00's have crawled out of their graves one night and worked out how to do splash screens again.

Ugh. Do they think everyone has 50" monitors?!

I can only see the top 1/4 of the initial iPad image on my screen... and when I try to scroll down to see the rest of the image, it moves on to the next one. Useless.

Are there really people who just never use laptops?

I tried viewing it on my phone (iOS 7) with little success too. I am not a fan of the change to Safari where going full screen is no longer a manual option. The pseudo swipe and resulting animation seem to be javascript animated too, which is extremely slow and jenky. Considering the intended audience, this experience is piss poor.

Their website for a new browser is ironically aggravating.

I notice a lot of premium sites that are poorly executed.

Either they look off if you dare increase the minimum font size a little (everything will overlap in a mad chaos, menus no longer work, etc. - this happens to the majority of websites out there today), or are unusable on mobile devices because they float large logos and menus on top of page content, obstructing it from view.

It's amazing how despite an abundance of web professionals, there is still room for such poor experiences, on premium websites no less.

I don't think you're really supposed to scroll down on this site. There's nothing interesting down there.

Considering the next image when you scroll down is the picture of the iPad rotated so that it does fit onto the screen, I suspect that it hangs off the screen intentionally at first (perhaps to encourage the user to scroll?)

On my screen (1366x768), part of the rotated iPad is still below the fold. There are also bugs when scrolling through the "presentation" on this resolution that cause the iPad content to overflow:

http://i.imgur.com/GhsDyzN.png

Uhhh... I can see almost the whole thing on my 11" screen. I'm not sure I follow. :/

How does it counteract GP's point? The site copes poorly with resolution, scaling, etc. The fact that it works fine for you could be irrelevant...

That wasn't GP's point. GP went on a very hyberbolic rant about 50" screens and how no one uses laptops. I agree the site's design sucks even when it works as intended and could scale better, but it works just fine on several small screens I've tried, it just doesn't appear to work on GP's resolution, which has nothing to do with 50" screens nor people never using laptops.

Alright, it wasn't clear you were nitpicking the size (not the resolution) or I would have left it alone. Quite fair. :-)

I have a 7 year old 1680x1050 laptop at work (which is, unfortunately, still a better display than most people have). It doesn't fit completely on my screen either. This site doesn't seem to have been tested on sub-FHD resolutions...

This is a bit off-topic, but these marketing efforts seem to take away from what the product is doing or trying to do. The first 50s of the video contains urban scenes with some dramatic music. It doesn't really explain what the product is, how it's useful or even how it's unique from the current competition.

The product itself could be really really good, but I wouldn't know it from their video or website.

Nice clean interface. And despite the iOS limitations, seems pretty fast.

Like how the search shows a preview of the query being typed in Google. Like how the element you have clicked on glows as the page is loaded. Like the swipe interface and how smooth it is. Very nicely done Opera!

But where is Opera Link??? I am not using one more browser that won't sync my existing bookmarks and speed dial.

This browser is a web security joke.

1. Unless you prefix URLs with http or https, you are relying on Opera and/or Google's algorithms to point you to the correct page. Some might say that's a feature, except...

2. You cannot see the URL of recommended pages before you select them or while you are browsing them.

3. There no indication whether you accessed a page via HTTP or HTTPS.

This browser teaches users to ignore security. It assumes that no one ever enters a typo, that Google's search results can never be gamed, and that any anti-phishing functionality they have included (one would hope) is fully up to date.

All the respect that I had for Opera as a company just vanished.

It's there, just not out in the open.

1. Go to a web page 2. Click the "tabs" button in the bottom right corner 3. Press the "i" icon on the tab 4. Press the security circle for even more info

I know. You can tap on a button to reveal a button to show three more buttons to get some details. But there's a reason I didn't bother to mention that in my post: No one will ever do this.

Edit: changed 'click' to 'tap' (old habits die hard)

The underlying problem is that nobody checks security indicators anyway.

True, but hiding them will only make it worse.

That’s one heavy-handed promo video for a web browser.

Sounds like an ad for a Dior perfume or something. Very strange.

The browser is actually kind cool to use!

I don't like it at all.

Web sites like this are better for a designer's portfolio than the product they are pushing.

This promo site is a bit blurry on what it actually does. A browser with a focus on gestures sounds like it could be very useful, if done right. I haven't seen that many apps or platforms get gestures "right" though.

I wonder what this browser is built from (Blink? What JS runtime?)

WebKit. Or else it wouldn't have been approved by Apple (or it's using a server-side engine, which I doubt).

Let's keep in mind that opera purchased Skyfire a while ago, which is a lot about server-side engine browsers.

And Opera has years of experience with server-side rendering, even on iOS.

Apple's app store doesn't allow apps that execute downloaded JavaScript without using the system WebKit library.

And it doesn't run the JIT compiler. Which means all 3rd party browsers in non-jailbroken iOS are slower than Safari and Phonegap apps are a lot slower than native apps.

I had heard about the JS runtime restriction (which is why I was interested if Opera had avoided it somehow), but never heard about the JIT restriction. Is the JIT disabled for all third party apps?

I was going to make a joke about Soviet app stores, but realized this isn't the place.

The JIT restriction is because the OS won't let you mark data pages as executable for security reasons (Safari, as a trusted app, is the only exception).

EDIT: changed wording for clarity

Thanks for clarifying. I learned something new today.

Just noting that a "Nitrous", available on Cydia for jailbroken iPads, enables Nitro (JIT compiler for Safari) on all browsers.

It means javascript execution is slower in 3rd-party browsers. They can make up for that by e.g. using better networking libraries: http://www.guypo.com/mobile/ios-browsers-speed-bakeoff/

That still means it's a very asymmetric competition: by default, Apple has a significant head start because of the JIT.

If others have to do some crazy engineering on networking libraries, nothing stops Apple from reusing the concepts the competition implements.

The competition does not have this possibility with javascript engine improvements.

No argument here. Just saying that performance is about more than js performance.

It is Webkit powered. And perhaps the TechCrunch article can help you get a sense of what Opera is going for: http://www.techcrunch.com/2013/09/09/opera-launches-coast-it...

That TechCrunch article includes this quote:

> Kleinhout also noted that the team looked at how to keep users safe without having them evaluate lots of icons in the browser’s URL bar (which Coast doesn’t have). Instead of having to know what HTTPS is and how certificates work, Coast puts a very clear safety warning on the screen when it recognizes that the user is trying to access an unsafe site.

I'm very curious to know how that works. I sure hope they don't simply show certificate errors but otherwise treat pages the same whether they are secure or not.

Wow, the website design is so bad that I can only see half of it and there's no scrollbar.

I am posting it from Coast right now. I have to admit hands down to opera, there are some rough edges but I can see where they are going with this and it's awesome.

For haters give them a chance they are the ones who gave the ideas for what lots of modern browsers are doing and you will see them doing some innovative stuff again (no fan talk history proves it)

Haven't tried it yet, but this looks related to Firefox Junior[1] and the reason over which the product designer behind the initial idea got sued by Opera (since he came up with it while consulting on and off for Opera independently[2].) An interesting story and one that further tainted my respect for Opera.

[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5HPjhZeLYE

[2]: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/29/opera-claims-former...

Here's the user-agent for those curious:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 6_1_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Coast/1.0.2.62956 Mobile/10B146 Safari/7534.48.3

Interestingly, no 'tablet' token specified.

Too bad it can't compete with Safari on performance, because the UI is interesting.

As others have pointed out, it uses the same core as Safari, so the performance should be nearly identical. So feel free to give it a shot!

Actually, not quite - it uses UIWebView, which doesn't have some of Mobile Safari's JavaScript improvements, so no matter how hard it tries it won't quite be able to keep up.

you don't actually need insanely fast JS to load most web sites. i agree you'd need it for something highly interactive and intensive, but again not most websites.

I actually find the difference noticeable when using Chrome on iOS. Only Safari can JIT Javascript for instance. At least with Chrome it also seems to run out of memory faster (it has access to less?).

Another poorly designed web-site. Why the product is different? Because it's site is black and white and has video with boys and girls? Why tiny crumbs of valuable information are _written_? Is this information not _visual_ in nature? Can you show me how the thing operates? Screenshots? Animated gifs? Fancy CSS3 demos (animated gifs are better)? Schematically shown workflow?

Using Coast now.. I really want to like it. Trouble is it is slow.. you click a link and sometimes nothing happens.

Also, i like tabs. I find a story on HN and just leave it on a tab for later and open HN in a new tab. Not sure how to do this with coast. Maybe create a bookmark? It is less simple than having tabs.

The gloss baked into the screen of the iPad not moving in relation to the imaginary light source as it rotated really annoyed me. Well, as much as that could possibly annoy someone.

It's a major minor thing...

The site is horribly broken for me in Firefox even after multiple reloads and after disabling AdBlock, cannot even read some text because scrolling stops at wrong places, some elements remains from previous pages...

can't navigate with arrow keys, spacebar, pageup/down. have to roll mouse? or click the little arrows on edge of page. umm, wtf? no thx? bad website.

Use a touch device, that is the whole point.

There is no mouse. There is no keyboard.

Google search results show the Google search bar over the results. At least the first time.

It's pretty fast though!

I gotta say, I wish I knew more cool websites. Like truly awesome. There are a few in the link groupings.

"The requested URL /ru/frontpage was not found on this server."

Funny. This website works fine in the old Presto-based opera.

I'm getting 502 and 404 errors...

Here's a direct app store link https://itunes.apple.com/app/coast/id674024845

Aaaaannd it's gone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com