The UIQ Evangelist

As a person who lives and breathe with Opera browsers, I welcomed the announcement about the new Opera Mobile 9 to be available in early next year. Looking at the desktop version (Opear 9.50b aka Kestrel) which uses a new rendering engine, honestly, I cant wait to see Opera Mobile 9 in action. And if the Opera Mini 4 to be used as a benchmark, then the new Opera Mobile 9 should be THE mobile browser we should be looking forward to.

The new Opera Mobile 9 will support Opera Widgets, enhanced Ajax and a new feature never seen in Opera Mobile before, the overview mode with intelligent zoom which is already being implemented in Opera Mini 4.

However, a big question arise for us UIQ 3 users. Can we use Opera Mobile 9 on our existing UIQ 3 smartphones?

My bet is on the negative. I mean, I dont think we will be able to use Opera Mobile 9 in our existing UIQ 3 smartphones because of the following :-

- Opera 8.65 is included in the ROM of current UIQ 3 smartphones and is the default browser

- In order to upgrade ROM applications, users must perform a firmware upgrade. In which is very unlikely for P990, M600 and W950 (first gen SE UIQ 3 smartphones) and Motorola Z8.

-  Installing a SIS file will not likely to happen either because if I remember correctly, SE NEVER offers SIS file to upgrade ROM applications. For example, PDF+ is included in P990 ROM but not in W950. The PDF+ developer offers a newer version on his website for W950 but that SIS file cant be installed on P990.

I might be wrong and maybe it will be available for older devices. But based on SE’s history for UIQ, we wont have the opportunity to taste Opera Mobile 9 on our beloved existing UIQ  3 smartphones… Should we write another petition to SE about this?

My wishlist would be to include Opera Link in the Opera Mobile 9. If Opera Link is not included, I will be very pissed off…

Anyway, here’s  a list of features that will be implemented in Opera Mobile 9:

- Intelligent Zoom: Zoom in directly to a selected area and continue scrolling for a closer view.
- Grab and scroll: Touch and direct the page up or down on touch-screen devices.
- Multiple Windows/Tabbed browsing: Use multiple windows for multi-task browsing.
- Opera Widgets: Small Web applications that users can easily access without having to open the Web browser.
- Web-address input auto-completion: Reduce input time with an index of address completions.
- Password manager: The password manager remembers your usernames and passwords so you don’t have to.
- Download manager: View download progress and access all your downloads from one simple transfer manager window.
- Pop-up blocker: Control whether to block all pop-ups or open only the ones that you have requested.
- Bookmarks and History: Keep quick access to your favorites and get back to your last viewed sites.
- Send link as e-mail, SMS, MMS: Send links to e-mail or as messages directly from the browser.

Categories: Apps, Comments
Tags: Apps, Coming Soon, Links