The New York Times has published an online article called, "Opera Sings an Ode to Browsers Everywhere" in which Opera co-founder and chief executive, Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner comments on the iPhone.
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.
Daring Fireball's Joh Grubar speculates that it could be due to the JavaScript interpreter or more likely Apple not wanting any competition for Safari.
I don’t see how this is surprising at all. One can argue about whether it’s a good policy for Apple not to allow third-party web browsers on the iPhone, but unlike other rejections, this one is not arbitrary. The iPhone SDK Agreement clearly forbids writing your own JavaScript interpreter. I’m not sure what Apple would do if someone tried to publish a third-party iPhone browser based on the system’s version of WebKit, but a browser based on a third-party engine is clearly not allowed.
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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.
Daring Fireball's Joh Grubar speculates that it could be due to the JavaScript interpreter or more likely Apple not wanting any competition for Safari.
I don’t see how this is surprising at all. One can argue about whether it’s a good policy for Apple not to allow third-party web browsers on the iPhone, but unlike other rejections, this one is not arbitrary. The iPhone SDK Agreement clearly forbids writing your own JavaScript interpreter. I’m not sure what Apple would do if someone tried to publish a third-party iPhone browser based on the system’s version of WebKit, but a browser based on a third-party engine is clearly not allowed.
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