New iPad browser from Opera

by pgsandstrom • 13 years ago

137 91 13 years ago

sspiff5• 13 years ago

This promo site is a bit blurry on what it actually does. A browser with a focus on gestures sounds like it could be very useful, if done right. I haven't seen that many apps or platforms get gestures "right" though.

I wonder what this browser is built from (Blink? What JS runtime?)

jvzr3• 13 years ago

WebKit. Or else it wouldn't have been approved by Apple (or it's using a server-side engine, which I doubt).

Facens• 13 years ago

Let's keep in mind that opera purchased Skyfire a while ago, which is a lot about server-side engine browsers.

bla23• 13 years ago

Apple's app store doesn't allow apps that execute downloaded JavaScript without using the system WebKit library.

do-it-good• 13 years ago

And it doesn't run the JIT compiler. Which means all 3rd party browsers in non-jailbroken iOS are slower than Safari and Phonegap apps are a lot slower than native apps.

Indyan• 13 years ago

It is Webkit powered. And perhaps the TechCrunch article can help you get a sense of what Opera is going for: http://www.techcrunch.com/2013/09/09/opera-launches-coast-it...

skue3• 13 years ago

That TechCrunch article includes this quote:

Kleinhout also noted that the team looked at how to keep users safe without having them evaluate lots of icons in the browser’s URL bar (which Coast doesn’t have). Instead of having to know what HTTPS is and how certificates work, Coast puts a very clear safety warning on the screen when it recognizes that the user is trying to access an unsafe site.

I'm very curious to know how that works. I sure hope they don't simply show certificate errors but otherwise treat pages the same whether they are secure or not.

chris_wot3• 13 years ago

Google search results show the Google search bar over the results. At least the first time.

It's pretty fast though!

chris_wot3• 13 years ago

I gotta say, I wish I knew more cool websites. Like truly awesome. There are a few in the link groupings.

blankenship• 13 years ago

That’s one heavy-handed promo video for a web browser.

jvzr3• 13 years ago

Sounds like an ad for a Dior perfume or something. Very strange.

chris_wot3• 13 years ago

The browser is actually kind cool to use!

AndreasFrom2• 13 years ago

Too bad it can't compete with Safari on performance, because the UI is interesting.

baskalwabbit• 13 years ago

As others have pointed out, it uses the same core as Safari, so the performance should be nearly identical. So feel free to give it a shot!

cytzol• 13 years ago

Actually, not quite - it uses UIWebView, which doesn't have some of Mobile Safari's JavaScript improvements, so no matter how hard it tries it won't quite be able to keep up.

AndreasFrom2• 13 years ago

I actually find the difference noticeable when using Chrome on iOS. Only Safari can JIT Javascript for instance. At least with Chrome it also seems to run out of memory faster (it has access to less?).

Trufa• 13 years ago

A little bit off topic but I really don't like this new trend of breaking the scrolling of a site.

glennos• 13 years ago

I agree. I intuitively started scrolling and the iPad frame started spinning while the content moved sidewards. Very disorientating.

BetaCygni• 13 years ago

Yeah, makes me physically ill. It feels like they caged me by disabling the default action of the scroll wheel.

IanCal• 13 years ago

Also if you scroll around you can break it on chrome so there are multiple iPads. I cannot read this.

manojlds2• 13 years ago

The site doesn't even work right on Coast!

deveac• 13 years ago

It doesn't make me want try their tablet browsing experience when they screw up the UI on my desktop.

bengillies• 13 years ago

At least override the scrolling in the right direction (i.e. horizontally)

Vektorweg3• 13 years ago

How about css paged media?

harrytuttle• 13 years ago

Spot on.

It's like the Flash/ActionScript developers of the early 00's have crawled out of their graves one night and worked out how to do splash screens again.

mapleoin• 13 years ago

Wow, the website design is so bad that I can only see half of it and there's no scrollbar.

manojlds2• 13 years ago

Nice clean interface. And despite the iOS limitations, seems pretty fast.

Like how the search shows a preview of the query being typed in Google. Like how the element you have clicked on glows as the page is loaded. Like the swipe interface and how smooth it is. Very nicely done Opera!

But where is Opera Link??? I am not using one more browser that won't sync my existing bookmarks and speed dial.

JohnTHaller7• 13 years ago

It's important to note that, like all browsers on iOS, this is just a UI skin and added functionality over the Mobile Safari core (the slower one 3rd parties get access to). This isn't a true Opera browser based on the Blink core (Chrome/Chromium's now-forked WebKit core) that is/will be used by Opera on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.

gsnedders2• 13 years ago

It's worthwhile to note that Chrome (on iOS) uses its own network stack; I suspect Coast just uses the entire stock web stack (this is from having worked at Opera until recently — it shouldn't be that hard to verify through testing for presence of known bugs).

rplnt3• 13 years ago

like all browsers on iOS, this is just a UI skin and added functionality over the Mobile Safari core

Not true, for example Opera Mini[1], perhaps others. I wouldn't jump to conclusions that fast.

1. http://www.opera.com/mobile/iphone

JohnTHaller7• 13 years ago

Opera Mini represents the ONLY way to get around Apple's onerous restrictions: render the content entirely on servers and push it to the browser. It's inefficient and messy and makes for a less than stellar user experience. It also sets the barrier to entry very high. This is why you won't see Firefox on iOS. Mozilla would be happy to build it, but they won't live the lie of having a Firefox name on the Mobile Safari engine (in slower 3rd party mode).

No one is jumping to conclusions here. This is the specific result Apple wants and is by design of their policies. It's well known and there's no debate over it. You can have your own browser on iOS, but it can't interpret JavaScript (no interpreted code on iOS), meaning it's completely useless on the modern internet. It's the perfect way to enforce a one-browser-to-rule-them-all rule, locking out all competitors, while couching it in a 'security' guideline.

Vektorweg3• 13 years ago

It is to be regretted that Linux has been canceled from Opera's list.

JohnTHaller7• 13 years ago

Opera will ship it for Linux in the future, they're focusing on Windows and Mac first, though. On Sept 6th, they posted the Opera 17 preview builds and stated "Thanks in advance for your bug reports and comments. To save some of you a little trouble, there is no Linux release of Opera 17, but there will be Opera for Linux."

hnriot• 13 years ago

total waste of time, you cannot circumvent safari, you either use safari with your own UX on top of it, and without JIT support, or you do off-ipad rendering and send interactive jpgs, which is also pointless. Unless and until Apple relax their stranglehold on the iOS browser all these browser alternatives are a waste of space, and run web apps more slowly than just using safari.

VeejayRampay• 13 years ago

Aaaaannd it's gone.

mholt• 13 years ago

I'm getting 502 and 404 errors...

rplnt3• 13 years ago

Here's a direct app store link https://itunes.apple.com/app/coast/id674024845

Grue3• 13 years ago

"The requested URL /ru/frontpage was not found on this server."

crazygringo• 13 years ago

Ugh. Do they think everyone has 50" monitors?!

I can only see the top 1/4 of the initial iPad image on my screen... and when I try to scroll down to see the rest of the image, it moves on to the next one. Useless.

Are there really people who just never use laptops?

geuis• 13 years ago

I tried viewing it on my phone (iOS 7) with little success too. I am not a fan of the change to Safari where going full screen is no longer a manual option. The pseudo swipe and resulting animation seem to be javascript animated too, which is extremely slow and jenky. Considering the intended audience, this experience is piss poor.

vbl• 13 years ago

Their website for a new browser is ironically aggravating.

null_ptr• 13 years ago

I notice a lot of premium sites that are poorly executed.

Either they look off if you dare increase the minimum font size a little (everything will overlap in a mad chaos, menus no longer work, etc. - this happens to the majority of websites out there today), or are unusable on mobile devices because they float large logos and menus on top of page content, obstructing it from view.

It's amazing how despite an abundance of web professionals, there is still room for such poor experiences, on premium websites no less.

sp332• 13 years ago

I don't think you're really supposed to scroll down on this site. There's nothing interesting down there.

jlgreco• 13 years ago

Considering the next image when you scroll down is the picture of the iPad rotated so that it does fit onto the screen, I suspect that it hangs off the screen intentionally at first (perhaps to encourage the user to scroll?)

rpedroso• 13 years ago

On my screen (1366x768), part of the rotated iPad is still below the fold. There are also bugs when scrolling through the "presentation" on this resolution that cause the iPad content to overflow:

http://i.imgur.com/GhsDyzN.png

tekacs• 13 years ago

Uhhh... I can see almost the whole thing on my 11" screen. I'm not sure I follow. :/

scott_karana2• 13 years ago

How does it counteract GP's point? The site copes poorly with resolution, scaling, etc. The fact that it works fine for you could be irrelevant...

sspiff5• 13 years ago

I have a 7 year old 1680x1050 laptop at work (which is, unfortunately, still a better display than most people have). It doesn't fit completely on my screen either. This site doesn't seem to have been tested on sub-FHD resolutions...

spyder• 13 years ago

The site is horribly broken for me in Firefox even after multiple reloads and after disabling AdBlock, cannot even read some text because scrolling stops at wrong places, some elements remains from previous pages...

wmeredith• 13 years ago

Web sites like this are better for a designer's portfolio than the product they are pushing.

rangibaby• 13 years ago

The gloss baked into the screen of the iPad not moving in relation to the imaginary light source as it rotated really annoyed me. Well, as much as that could possibly annoy someone.

It's a major minor thing...

umsm• 13 years ago

This is a bit off-topic, but these marketing efforts seem to take away from what the product is doing or trying to do. The first 50s of the video contains urban scenes with some dramatic music. It doesn't really explain what the product is, how it's useful or even how it's unique from the current competition.

The product itself could be really really good, but I wouldn't know it from their video or website.

bobsy• 13 years ago

Using Coast now.. I really want to like it. Trouble is it is slow.. you click a link and sometimes nothing happens.

Also, i like tabs. I find a story on HN and just leave it on a tab for later and open HN in a new tab. Not sure how to do this with coast. Maybe create a bookmark? It is less simple than having tabs.

Vektorweg3• 13 years ago

Funny. This website works fine in the old Presto-based opera.

xenophanes• 13 years ago

can't navigate with arrow keys, spacebar, pageup/down. have to roll mouse? or click the little arrows on edge of page. umm, wtf? no thx? bad website.

ratherhost• 13 years ago

Use a touch device, that is the whole point.

There is no mouse. There is no keyboard.

AaronMT• 13 years ago

Here's the user-agent for those curious:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 6_1_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Coast/1.0.2.62956 Mobile/10B146 Safari/7534.48.3

Interestingly, no 'tablet' token specified.

skue3• 13 years ago

This browser is a web security joke.

1. Unless you prefix URLs with http or https, you are relying on Opera and/or Google's algorithms to point you to the correct page. Some might say that's a feature, except...

2. You cannot see the URL of recommended pages before you select them or while you are browsing them.

3. There no indication whether you accessed a page via HTTP or HTTPS.

This browser teaches users to ignore security. It assumes that no one ever enters a typo, that Google's search results can never be gamed, and that any anti-phishing functionality they have included (one would hope) is fully up to date.

All the respect that I had for Opera as a company just vanished.

mbitca• 13 years ago

It's there, just not out in the open.

1. Go to a web page 2. Click the "tabs" button in the bottom right corner 3. Press the "i" icon on the tab 4. Press the security circle for even more info

skue3• 13 years ago

I know. You can tap on a button to reveal a button to show three more buttons to get some details. But there's a reason I didn't bother to mention that in my post: No one will ever do this.

Edit: changed 'click' to 'tap' (old habits die hard)

goldfeld• 13 years ago

Haven't tried it yet, but this looks related to Firefox Junior[1] and the reason over which the product designer behind the initial idea got sued by Opera (since he came up with it while consulting on and off for Opera independently[2].) An interesting story and one that further tainted my respect for Opera.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5HPjhZeLYE

[2] http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/29/opera-claims-former...

maxpert• 13 years ago

I am posting it from Coast right now. I have to admit hands down to opera, there are some rough edges but I can see where they are going with this and it's awesome.

For haters give them a chance they are the ones who gave the ideas for what lots of modern browsers are doing and you will see them doing some innovative stuff again (no fan talk history proves it)

beyondcompute• 13 years ago

Another poorly designed web-site. Why the product is different? Because it's site is black and white and has video with boys and girls? Why tiny crumbs of valuable information are _written_? Is this information not _visual_ in nature? Can you show me how the thing operates? Screenshots? Animated gifs? Fancy CSS3 demos (animated gifs are better)? Schematically shown workflow?

New iPad browser from Opera

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