Opera uncloaks browser for Apple fondleslabs
The old no-interpreted-code trick
Opera has developed a version of its Opera Mini browser for the Apple iPad, and it intends to show the thing off next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The company alluded to the browser with a press release on Thursday morning, saying it will also demonstrate new versions of Opera Mini for Android, iPhone, J2ME, BlackBerry, and Symbian. A company spokesman told us the company will not be officially introducing the browser in Barcelona, but merely "previewing" it. No date for its official release has been set.
Apple still bars third-party applications from interpreting code on iOS devices, so Opera can't put its full-fledged Opera for Tablets browser on the iPad. But with Opera Mini, all webpages are sent through proxy servers and compressed before they're sent down to the browser, so no code is interpreted on the device. Apple allowed an iPhone incarnation of Opera Mini into the Apple App Store last year.
Unveiled this fall, Opera for Tablets is designed for Android, and it's based on the company's Opera Mobile browser, which can use Opera's proxy servers but doesn't by default. In Barcelona, Opera will also introduce new versions of Opera Mobile for Android and Symbian.
Opera also announced today that more 100 million people now use an Opera browser on their mobile phones. According to the company, 90.4 million people use Opera Mini every month and roughly 15 million people use Opera Mobile. Opera Mini is ideal for phones with low-bandwidth connections, including feature phones, because it taps into those proxy servers. ®
COMMENTS
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I believe you can still only intrepret code that's in the ipa package. Many modern games have engines written in C++, but a lot of components are chained together in scripts (like Lua). These games would have been barred from the iOS until the restriction was eased. It was good that that let in emulators, but you can't download new programs for your C64 emulator independently of app updates.
India Pale Ale or iPhone App, you decide!
@Steve Sims
The restriction has been eased to permit the interpretation of code that ships with the app (e.g., to allow apps to use scripting code such as Lua). Apple also appear to permit interpretation of user-created data, hence why the C64 app can include its BASIC interpreter again.
However, apps are still not allowed to interpret code which is downloaded from the Internet AFAIK. This rules out apps which use non-Apple JavaScript engines such as Opera's full-fat browsers.
Restriction eased
The restriction on code interpreters had since been eased. This is why the C64 emulator app had to remove/disable BASIC, but have since been permitted to re-enable it. IIRC this change happened 6 months back.
Re: Very useful....
Yes, as in "Chocolate Teapot".
If it were used for this on any scale, said countries would merely bar the Opera servers.....
Very useful...
...for bypassing individual countries barred sites list. Whoohoo!!!
