Opera Browser Headed to the iPhone? Not Yet, Company Says
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An Opera developer jumps the gun and tells a blogger the company is prepping a version of its browser for Apple's iPhone. Is it true? Opera says no, but the debacle underlines the anticipation surrounding the inevitable iPhone browser war to come.
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Opera Software, the Oslo-based producer of the Opera browser, has filed a complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft, alleging that the software giant is unfairly abusing its dominant market position by tying Windows to Internet Explorer. The complaint also alleges that Microsoft is hindering Web interoperability by failing to adhere to widely accepted Web standards.
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(InfoWorld) - Gartner, IDC, and 451 Group research analysts, this week warned IT administrators to keep iPhones away from their businesses. "We're telling IT executives to not support it because Apple has no intentions of supporting [iPhone use in] the enterprise," Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney said. "This is basically a cellular iPod with some other capabilities, and it's important that it be recognized as such." As if that will stop people from buying them anyway when they hit the market in the U.S. next week. The reality is that no matter how hard IT administrators try, the iPhone will be snapped up by their employees -- and not just the average Joes either. The device is a status symbol that will likely be snapped up by business leaders as the digital technorati. Try telling your CEO the iPhone doesn't play well with your IT systems. Dulaney and other researchers notwithstanding, this device can be good for the enterprise because of the business needs of smartphone users. It is an iPhone, after all, with an emphasis on phone. It offers e-mail -- currently the most popular means of business communications. There's an address/phone Book for quick access to contacts. It offers SMS, a quick way to contact other mobile phone users, and voicemail -- both useful to road warriors. There's a real Web browser -- by far the most underpowered and underappreciated part of a mobile phone. And it contains a slew of enterprise-worthy apps, including a calendar, access to maps, spreadsheets, and a document reader. All of these things are important -- and all can be done to a greater or lesser extent on most business-focused PDA phones. But in the business world, the mobile Web browser is the key to the future of business apps, and it is becoming a platform unto itself. One thing that Apple CEO Steve Jobs made abundantly clear at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is that the iPhone would include a full browser. The Symbian and Linux platforms' best browser is Opera Mini -- which isn't that bad -- but it by no means constitutes a full browser. Windows Mobile's browser isn't bad either, but it also falls well short of Internet Explorer 7. Additionally, the iPhone browser has a lot of zooming and panning tricks that make it more usable on the relatively small screen. In that crucial area, advantage: iPhone. Why is the browser crucial? Because most new business applications are being built around it. AJAX and other browser technology innovations over the past few years have turned the browser into a veritable platform. Sure, a lot of legacy applications still require browserless, platform-specific client applications. But those days are numbered. It's not just the isolated applications that are moving to a browser. All of the stalwart office applications are also moving to the Web. With Google Office (which now works with Safari -- the iPhone browser), Soho Office, and even Web-centric versions of Microsoft Office applications, the browser is truly the new business platform. The iPhone is not without its business-use flaws. It doesn't natively sync up with Lotus Notes or Exchange - and Microsoft, at least, will most likely do everything in its power to try to keep it that way to protect its Windows Mobile business. It can, however, hook up to IMAP email, LDAP address books, and WebDav for calendaring; with a bit of tweaking, that will work well for Exchange-based companies. Microsoft SharePoint can also be browsed from the Web interface, but to what extent? Time -- and the work of apps developers -- will tell. A newly anointed relationship with Cisco on all things iPhone should also let the device into the VPN and might even let an iPhone play well with Cisco VoIP solutions. And of course, don't forget the arduous task of getting your conservative IT department to accept the idea of letting loose an Apple phone -- or even MacBook Pro -- into the office. Previews of the phone haven't yet touted an instant messaging client like Apple's iChat or AOL Instant Messenger. It is likely, however, that Apple will include something with instant-messaging functionality in the near future -- there are still four slots left in the iPhone's application window. It's also true that the first-generation iPhone isn't the raw specs winner by any stretch. That honor goes to the Symbian/Windows Mobile 6 Phones coming from Toshiba (the G900), Nokia (the N95), Samsung (the F700) and HTC (the Shift). AT&T's EDGE wireless network is slow by today's standards, and while Wifi connectivity will help, there are questions about why Apple has forsaken the HSDPA/UTMS component and when an update might occur. Given that battery life is a factor -- Apple this week released updated specs that go beyond what it touted in January -- EDGE makes sense because it's more energy efficient. Also, the 8GB max on storage is seems low. At a time when you can buy an 8GB SD card for less than $80, Apple likely looked to keep costs down with an eye on upping that storage when it's economically smart. Most users would likely be happy with a micro/mini/SD card slot now standard on most smartphones. There is, of course, the price. The iPhone's hefty $499 and $599 price tags, depending on which model you buy, is a definite disadvantage in business. With relatively comparable gear (from a corporate standpoint), such as the Motorola Q, which is almost free with a service plan, buying an iPhone requires serious justification. We're talking about spending the equivalent of a budget laptop. Of course, something that you spend half your day using should justify the premium that this delicious piece of hardware demands. And then there are at least two intangibles: Usability. Apple's legendary reputation for making painful tasks easy will totally transform the mobile phone industry. And remember, companies love productivity from their workers. Until now, the big players have been Microsoft Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, and Linux. They all had successes. But it's the last 10 percent of usability that Apple always manages to squeeze out its products will be the differentiator. Apple did the same in the computer industry until Microsoft caught up. Apple has learned from this and patented every minute detail of the iPhone, making it harder for copycats to appear anytime soon. The few seconds here there that the iPhone saves users will quickly add up. It's the little things that make for big savings across an entire enterprise. Business bling, baby. Everyone knows that this is the phone to have. Just look at the buzz ahead of the June 29 launch. Apple has spent the last few years building up its brand across all channels and is reaping the rewards like no other company in the industry. As much as the enterprise IT guys will want to recite better specs for rival Windows Mobile devices, nobody wants to hear that. I can imagine any number of CEOs saying, "I don't care! Just make the iPhone work on our systems!" And if it works for the CEO, you can bet the sales folk will want in on the action, too. Think they'll want to show up to a meeting with an important client and whip out last year's "hot" phone? They might as well wear parachute pants as well.
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(InfoWorld) - Apple's iPhone is a toughÂ target for hackers, but a security researcher warned Friday that there are ways the sleek device could potentially be compromised. TheÂ iPhoneÂ has no security software, but Apple doesn't let people load third-party programs on the device, reducing the risk of infection from malicious software. But when the iPhone is connected to the Web, possibilities emerge, said Marius van Oers, a security researcher with McAfee's AVERT Labs in Amsterdam. He doesn't claim to have uncovered a specific security hole in the device, but listed several ways thatÂ determined hackersÂ could use the Web to try to find a way in. Apple is relying on developers to create rich Web-based applications that will be accessed through the mobile version of the company's Safari Web browser. Browser flaws are a proven way for hackers to get unauthorized code running on a system, van Oers said. "It's fairly easy to send someone an SMS (Short Messaging Service) or an e-mail with a Web link," he said. "And once you go to the Web link, then that server can inject code into the iPhone, and if that happens, [a hacker] can have full control." That's what happened with aÂ Safari flawÂ found by Independent Security Evaluators, a company that detailed its findings at the Black Hat security conference in August. By constructing a malicious Web site, the researchers injected code into the iPhone and pilfered recent text messages, phone numbers and e-mail. Apple has since patched the flaw. "Once you get access to the system, it's all over," van Oers said. He presented his view ofÂ iPhone securityÂ Friday at the Virus Bulletin security conference in Vienna. Although he is based in Europe, he examined an iPhone purchased in the U.S. His view of the iPhone's security is more cautionary and speculative, but rooted in the well-known ways that hackers work. Apple also allows the use of JavaScript when the iPhone interacts with Web pages, a programming language that has been used to exploit software problems, van Oers said. Further, Apple's multimedia application QuickTime has been prone to trouble, and there are several proof-of-concept exploits circulating the Web now for version 7, van Oers said. How that proof-of-concept code could affect QuickTime on the iPhone remains to be seen. Nonetheless, with the iPhone already popular in the U.S. and due toÂ go on sale in EuropeÂ in about six weeks, Apple can expect more aggressive attempts by malicious hackers to meddle with it. Hacking mobile devices is less prevalent than hacking desktop computers. But interesting malicious programs have been written for mobiles, including some that repeatedly autodial or send text messages to a premium number. The number is owned by the hackers, who collect the revenue. The chance of those kinds of malicious software affecting the iPhone today is probably low, but "that's the future. Let's hope it will not come to that," van Oers said. Â
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When it begins shipping on June 29, the revolutionary iPhone will run applications created with Web 2.0 Internet standards Apple today announced that developers can create Web 2.0 applications that look and behave just like the applications built into iPhone and that can seamlessly access iPhoneâs services. That includes making a phone call, sending an email and displaying a location in Google Maps. Third-party applications created using Web 2.0 standards can extend iPhoneâs capabilities without compromising its reliability or security.
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Apple Inc.  will allow  independent developers to write applications for its upcoming  iPhone by tapping into the device's built-in Web browser, Chief  Executive Steve Jobs said on Monday.
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(InfoWorld) - If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, then Mohammed will come to the mountain, goes the saying. Now, the high-tech version of that saying might read: If the iPhone won't come to the enterprise, then enterprise will come to the iPhone. The announcement this week that NetSuite, a Web-based-only service provider for ERP and CRM to the midmarket, runs on the iPhone without any major tweaking almost as well it runs on a desktop has a lot of people rethinking the capability of the iPhone as a business tool. To make matters even more interesting, NetSuite didn't spend one day in Cupertino to figure out how SuitePhone, as it's now called, would run on Apple's new device, though the two companies worked together in the past to ensure that NetSuite's SaaS (software as a service) solution ran well on Apple's Safari desktop browser. "For the iPhone, we didn't have to do additional development work," says Malin Huffman, senior product manager at NetSuite. Whatever improvements were made to NetSuite 07 in order to work with the latest version of Safari for the desktop "carries over to Safari on the iPhone." While most mobile solutions are limited in what they can accomplish -- dialing directly from a contact manager is typical -- Huffman claims NetSuite customers already use the iPhone and the SuitePhone solution in the field to look up customer history, process credit cards, and even do payroll. So is this a unique circumstance due in large part to the way NetSuite was built originally? After all, it does not use Flash or need Java to run, making porting to the iPhone, which lacks support for both, that much easier. Huffman says no, the NetSuite build is not that unique for a SaaS application, but it may be too early to tell. While the iPhone famously does not support Flash or Java, it does support JavaScript and all the Web standards that AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is built on. Plus, it supports PDFs and Microsoft Word documents. "The AJAX technology allows [NetSuite] to work faster over the slower network than it would otherwise," notes Huffman. Also, because AJAX allows users to drag and drop from selected environments without having to refresh the entire contents of a page, the SuitePhone version makes for a more seamless experience.Â  Of course, there are a number of limitations, as InfoWorld pointed out in its review by Tom Yager. Yager notes that the device will not upload or download files. However, in a SaaS solution like NetSuite, this limitation may not be a deal breaker for purchasing the device. The strong suit of any SaaS solution is in accessing data directly from the server. Focusing on real-time instant access rather than offline access, says Huffman, is what its users care about the most.Â  But Yager also says, "Safari does not allow a Web page to sense finger motion using standard events, so drag, slide, and drag/drop operations require special effort." True, says Huffman. "You wouldn't want to do a lot of configuration of NetSuite on the iPhone. You would do the configuration on the desktop."Â  Safari also lacks the "ability to adjust a Web page's text size," notes Yager. It is a valid criticism, says Huffman, but it doesn't affect NetSuite because users can pinch or drill down. So have too many industry reviews underestimated the iPhone's usefulness in the enterprise? While the iPhone is not perfect, there is no denying that NetSuite ports to this handheld device easily. The apparent ease with which it does that comes from a very obvious but often overlooked fact: Apple has duplicated the Safari browser almost exactly as it exists on the desktop. If you can re-create a browser for a handheld that is almost identical to the desktop version, everything that can be done on the Web on the desktop can, in theory, be carried out on the handheld browser, too. Where Apple has gone the extra mile is in creating a user interface that makes up for many of the small-screen limitations: for example, the so-called two-finger pinch that allows a user to drill down and expand what they are looking at. Huffman adds that users also can customize their views to suit the small screen by setting up dashboards in a one-column format or creating forms that are better suited to the iPhone. There is nothing really new here other than a better-thought-out, user-friendly interface. But Apple took the obvious -- what others have tried -- and put all the pieces together in a single package. Some believe it is so unique that the device may become, in essence, a wake-up call to the entire high-tech industry, especially handset manufacturer designers and software developers.Â  And what that wake-up call from Apple and NetSuite says is that if you build it right, they, the enterprise, will come to the mountain, er, the handset manufacturer.
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Opera Software and SlipStream Data announced the integration of the Opera browser with SlipStream&#39;s web and email acceleration technology.
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Opera Software has released a beta of its upcoming desktop browser, code-named Kestrel, which can synchronize bookmarks between a PC and a mobile device.The update to Opera 9.5, released Thursday, also fixes &quot;hundreds of bugs&quot; that were in the alpha version, said Huid Kleinhout, desktop team manager, in Opera&#39;s desktop blog. &quot;Web site rendering has been significantly improved, along with performance, stability and usability,&quot; he wrote.The synching feature, called Opera Link, can sychronize bookmarks between Opera&#39;s mobile and desktop browsers. When a person uses Opera Mini 4.5, a mobile browser that&#39;s also in beta, and the desktop browser, new bookmarks are copied to a server and made available in both browsers.The bookmarks can also be accessed from any other browser by logging into the Opera Link Web page.Opera Link is designed to help people who want to visit a Web site on their mobile device that they have bookmarked on their PC, but don&#39;t want to search for it again or type in the address. Or for people who are at work or a friend&#39;s house and want to find a Web page again that they bookmarked at home.The synchronization also works with Speed Dial, a feature that presents thumbnail graphics of a person&#39;s favorite Web sites in a new tab.Opera Link is available for Macintosh, Windows and Linux computers, and users will need to sign up for a free Opera account. Opera Link was also in the alpha release of Opera 9.5, but it was buggy.Opera, based in Oslo, is a distant third in browser market share behind Microsoft&#39;s Internet Explorer and Mozilla&#39;s Firefox.&#160;
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According to David Needle , customers of NetSuiteâs âon-demand, integrated business management applicationsâ are already using iPhone to take advantage of its web-based services. It was âApple putting Safari on the iPhone [that] made it a simple processâ for the company to extend service to iPhone customers, says Sean Rollings, NetSuiteâs senior director of product marketing. Using the built-in Safari browser, says Rollings, â âsalespeople will be able to get a lot of their work done on an iPhone. You have the ability to check inventory for the availability of a product and get an answer in real time.ââ
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(Article Central) Opera Software and SlipStream Data announced on Thursday that they have integrated the Opera browser with SlipStream&#39;s Web and email acceleration technology.
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The latest version of the Opera Web browser incorporates a technology that warns users when they visit a fraudulent site.
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(InfoWorld) - Some of the first Windows Mobile 6.0 phones to hit the market will include Opera Software ASA's mobile browser, in addition to Microsoft Corp.'s browser. Motorola Inc.'s Q as well as phones from High Tech Computer Corp., Asus and Toshiba Corp. will include Opera Mobile, Jon von Tetzchner, co-founder and CEO of Opera, said at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona. Microsoft launched Windows Mobile 6.0, the latest version of its mobile phone operating system, this week. Internet Explorer Mobile, Microsoft's browser, comes with the software. A number of handset makers announced this weekÂ plans to release phones running the operating system. Von Tetzchner said the handset makers decided to add the Opera browser because most of the phones come with big screens and may be relatively expensive so they want to offer customers a good browsing experience. "People do want a quality browser when on Windows Mobile," he added. Opera's browser technology renders Web sites to fit inside the area of a mobile phone screen. The browser is also designed to display sites faster than competitors', von Tetzchner said. In addition to Opera Mobile, the company also offers Opera Mini, a free browser that works on most Java-enabled phones. It communicates with a server hosted by Opera or a mobile operator that strips down Web sites for quicker, less data intensive mobile browsing. Mozilla Corp. also offers a mobile browser called Minimo that hasn't gained much traction in the market. Nokia Corp. has used Opera browsers historically but is now primarily using a browser it developed internally. Â
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Not everyone agrees Apple's plan to let developers build Web-based apps for the iPhone is 'a pretty sweet solution.'
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A beta version of Apple's Web browser is now available for Windows, and budding iPhone developers can use it to create applications.
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This just in: iPhone won't be able to do everything when it launches on June 29.
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Up to now, I&#39;ve chosen my browser based mostly on which one shows up on my desktop by default. Since Apple&#39;s Safari is preloaded in the Mac OS X Dock, that&#39;s what I&#39;ve been using.