Opera finally approved on iPhone

Block reversed

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13 April 2010 9:15 GMT / By Duncan Geere

Rewind your brain back to October 2008. Opera had just been blocked from running on the iPhone, with CEO Jon Setephenson von Tetzchner telling the New York Times that Apple thought that it would compete with Safari, the handset's native browser.

But slowly, almost imperceptibly, the tide has been changing. In February, at Mobile World Congress, the company demonstrated a new version that it claimed ticked all the boxes on Apple's list of demands. We were skeptical, but the company submitted the app to Apple's labyrinthine approvals process nonetheless, and lo and behold - it's come through unscathed.

You can now download Opera for iPhone from the App Store. It's free, and features a large amount of the compression technology that the desktop version of the browser features. That means that you'll likely notice the most difference when you're on a flaky 2G EDGE connection - pages should load rather more swiftly.

If you've downloaded and tried it already, how does it compare to Safari? Tell us in the comments box below.

Full tags

Software, Browsers, iPhone apps, Opera, App Store