Last week we had some contradicting reports regarding Opera Software and its Opera Mini web browser. The New York Times’ Bits weblog and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber contradicted one another concerning a possible iPhone version of Opera Mini – or more specifically, about whether or not Opera had actually submitted Opera Mini to Apple. The Bits weblog has now settled the issue.
After the apparent confusion, the Bits weblog went back to Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, Opera’s CEO, to clear up the misunderstandings. As it turns out, Opera never submitted Opera Mini to Apple. Opera Mini for the iPhone was an internal project at Opera Software, and not something they were seriously planning on bringing to market – due to the license restrictions. “We stopped the work because of the prohibitive license,” Opera’s CEO told the Bits weblog.
Another point – which is now moot seeing Opera Mini will not find its way to the iPhone anyway – is whether or not the browser would require Java in order to work. Stephenson von Tetzchner assured that the company has created a version of Opera Mini that was fully native, and didn’t require Java.
If this little episode tells us anything, it’s that Apple’s policies towards the iPhone and its developers is a hot iron, and it most likely will be for the foreseeable future.
That mess is the kind of crap that can damage reputations. He said she said he said. People should exercise a little more care, dig a little deeper before posting articles.
to make matters worse, people instantly discredited Gruber’s research and accused him of being a troll too.
i guess we know who the real trolls are.
Well it does tell us that Gruber did not go back to the source or the reporter. This does not make him a troll but does mean he did not do much in the way of research.
There is a difference between being a troll and a blogger who looks for the side of the story he wants to report on.
Thom, you disappoint me when you write things like this:
If this little episode tells us anything, it’s that Apple’s policies towards the iPhone and its developers is a hot iron, and it most likely will be for the foreseeable future.
This little episode by itself tells us nothing of the sort.
Had Opera consulted Apple on the subject of releasing Opera Mini at all then one could infer such a conclusion. They did not.
It has been made clear that Opera did not submit their app to Apple. From the blog article it would seem that they did not communicate with Apple and consult with them on the possibility of releasing Opera Mini in any way. They merely read the license agreement.
The license was clear, and this was a license condition that has been widely known for quite some time.
All we can conclude from this is that some Opera developers experimented on the iPhone, and they have a version of the Opera Mini codebase that is not dependant on Java. That is all.
If this little episode tells us anything, it’s that Apple’s policies towards the iPhone and its developers is a hot iron, and it most likely will be for the foreseeable future.
Really? Instead of trying to hide the fact that you got it wrong all along why don’t you just admit that relating informations without some care is not a good thing. And this is what this story tells us not the non-sense that you wrote. The fact remains that everybody was getting aggressive to anyone trying to defend Apple on this one and at the end it tuned out that those people were completely foolish and wrong (where are they by the way, now that the truth is out, why this forum is so quite?) and editors on osnews are responsible on how the story is exposed to those people.
Back to when the news was published on osnews, here is what David Adams was saying:
“But back to the iPhone. As tempted as I am to just shrug it off, since Apple is free to run its App Store any way it pleases, as an enthusiastic iPhone user, I think Apple is shooting itself in the foot here, as it is with all the “competitive” apps being rejected. Apple does stand to lose some Google revenue by letting people use other browsers, but they have much more to gain by unleashing the creativity of the developer community and giving them the freedom to improve or replace core iPhone functionality. Hopefully competition from Android forces them to wake up.”
This kind of opinion based on nothing, based on unverified informations is also responsible on how people react, as some of them think that they can call trolls other people having a different approach to the story, a different opinion, feeling that they can do that on behalf of the common thinking.
And the fact remains that you fail to blame Opera (besides yourself for poor journalism) for its incredible lack of communication on what was simply disinformation. Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner from Opera made a lie, pure and simple. This is what he was saying first and reported on the NYT:
Mr. von Tetzchner said that Opera’s engineers have developed a version of Opera Mini that can run on an Apple iPhone, but Apple won’t let the company release it because it competes with Apple’s own Safari browser.
We know now it was a lie as Opera never submitted Opera Mini to Apple neither Apple has had any knowledge of Opera plans and therefore Apple never had an anti-competitive behavior against Opera as most of people naively assumed. And moreover than this lie, shame on Opera not to have corrected the information more quickly and to have let it go so big so that it was reported by many medias. Opera did this for its own benefit, trying to let people think that its product are necessarily better than the one of the big bad Apple.
Opera is responsible of this story, not Apple, their browser being not very popular on Mac, they really did not help themselves on this one. And really they can keep their crappy browser for them, i don’t want to use the product of a compagny which tries to advertise its products by using lies against another one. Because the real one who behaved in an anti-competitive way is Opera not Apple.
And finally, even though we know now that Opera Mini is written in native code, Opera still fails to say us what exactly then in the SDK agreement is stopping their development. Why don’t they make full transparency on what they wanted to do and what prevented them to do it in the SDK agreement?
Edited 2008-11-06 04:25 UTC
We know now it was a lie as Opera never submitted Opera Mini to Apple neither Apple has had any knowledge of Opera plans and therefore Apple never had an anti-competitive behavior against Opera as most of people naively assumed.
Read the SDK terms, its not naive to read those terms and come to the conclusion that your application will not pass the process! The thing is draconian at best. The terms of the license are anti-competitive, and many potential iPhone developers have been vocal about it.
And the fact remains that you fail to blame Opera (besides yourself for poor journalism) for its incredible lack of communication on what was simply disinformation. Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner from Opera made a lie, pure and simple.
How did he lie exactly? He read the terms of the SDK and concluded that Opera would be denied on the iPhone. That is not a lie, that is an evaluation of the licensing terms. That he did not contact Apple means nothing, in fact, if he needs to contact Apple just to be sure, then its a further sign that Apple’s SDK terms are really f*cked as they obviously are not very clear on top of being draconian and absurd.
The lengths people go to defend this company and the screwball sh(t they pull floors me at times.
My God this is one of the leading retard company which still exist. I only used their shitpile ADWARE/NAGWARE (thanks to wikipedia for this excellent definition) browser when konqueror was the best for linux and you hardly heard anything from mozilla.
These lowlifes who keeping up companies from advertisements are not better than those idiots who buy 500 “paid clicks” domain to pollute the internet by indexing them into search engines in order to make profit.
Edited 2008-11-06 06:13 UTC