Although Opera’s engineers have already developed Opera Mini, a version of the browser that can work on Apple Incorporated’s iPhone, the latter company has stated they wouldn’t launch it on their gadget, since it would go head-to-head with their Safari browser. Safari was released as a public beta on January 7, 2003, first on Apple’s Mac OS X operating system, followed by the browser’s launch on the iPhone and the iPod. Over the years, its market share has increased, reaching a percentage of 6.65 this September.

Another reason behind the refusal to use Opera Mini on the iPhone is the browser’s duplicate functionality, which entails that the software can interpret downloaded content from the Web JavaScript. Still, the rules Apple has drawn for their AppStore do not allow that the core functionality of neither the iPhone nor the iPod be replicated.

Consequently, despite the Opera Mini’s features, which include faster browsing than the Safari one, enhanced security and small screen rendering technology, which better fits the web pages to handheld gadgets’ displays, iPhone users will have to make peace with the fact that they will be stuck with only the Safari browser for a while longer.

The Opera browser was developed by the Opera Software company to handle tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, IRC online chatting, downloading files via BitTorrent and reading web feeds. The browser is offered free of any charge for personal computers and mobile phones.

Currently, it is the fourth most widely used web browser for PCs, following Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.