Opera’s newly Opera Mini software created history since the first day of its launch. Designed for iPhone, the app has been downloaded 1,023,380 times worldwide. It was mentioned as the number one free application in the 22 international iTunes App Stores (including the U.S., Japan, Spain, Indonesia, and Germany) featured on Apple.com.
The browser differs from the iPhone’s built-in Safari and it draws compressed pages from Opera’s servers to speed up delivery. It was passed by Apple for the iPhone’s and iPod Touch’s App Store on Monday, three weeks after it was submitted. Three days after its late Monday launch, Opera revealed that its Opera Mini browser for the iPhone managed over a million downloads the first day of its widespread availability, which was Tuesday. “We were at the top of the charts of every 22 App Stores,” said Dag Olav Norem, Opera’s vice president of mobile products. Opera Mini is in the No. 1 spot on 14 of the 22 charts for free applications currently and is no lower than No. 3 in any while being No. 2 in U.S.
But now the point is that how long will this figure survive? Commenting on this, Opera Software CEO Lars Boilesen said in a statement, “Today iPhone users have a choice, and, as the numbers show, they are eager to explore new and faster ways to surf the Web on the iPhone especially during heavy Web traffic. But how much of a choice do iPhone users really have? A key component of any browser is the ability for a user to designate it as the default browser for basic things like opening links to Web pages. But on the iPhone a user’s only choice for default functionality is Safari. As it stands right now, there is no way to change the default browser on the iPhone from Safari to Opera or any other browsers that might come to the iPhone at a later date.”
Though Opera happens to be a popular iPhone download right now but lets wait for it figures that would appear around mid-May. The high figures then would indicate its true popularity and demand or its low figures would prove that interest in Opera for iPhone is hard to sustain for a browser that cannot be integrated into its operating system.
Tags: default browser, default functionality, free application, free applications, Iphone, ipod touch, mini browser, norem, olav, opera software, popularity, safari