30th
Opera Mini 3
Opera have just released Opera Mini 3 after a successful limited beta. To get your copy, enter your mobile’s number at http://www.operamini.com/ and they’ll send you an SMS with a download link. The new features are numerous: secure sites are now supported, they’ve added content folding, but the real attention-grabber is RSS feeds.
Opera Mini is now aware of feeds, so you can easily add them when browsing. You can view all your subscribed feeds and easily see what’s new, although the interface is pretty simple (much like bloglines mobile used to be.)
There’s one small gripe I’ve found with Opera Mini 3: deleting bookmarks is slow. I’m testing this on a Nokia N70 with a 512MB memory card, and after the last software update from Nokia Java applications have been behaving strangely. So you might not run into this problem.
I’ve noticed that our logs show a lot of people who use our apps (especially Helipad) prefer Opera Mini. I use it relatively often myself, and my experiences have uncovered a few useful tips for using it effectively. Here’s a list of my favourites:
- Need to scroll down a long page quickly? Try pressing left and right on your joystick instead of up and down.
- Want to quickly access your bookmarks? Try pressing star to bring up a menu.
- Try using bookmarks as much as possible, Opera Mini adds them to your “speed dial” shortcuts so you can quickly access them. Mobile browsing usually centres around known sites, rather than finding new ones.
Meanwhile, the Opera 9 (mobile) team have got their browser to pass the ACID2 test. Here’s the evidence! And, Opera also have some commentary on Server-Sent Events. If Opera’s mobile browsers get service-side events, you’re going to see some seriously interesting mobile applications evolving.
