The Opera Mini browser no longer has a home in GetJar’s app store. Following Opera’s announcement on Tuesday that it will now offer an app store accessible through its mobile browser software on Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Java-enabled handsets, GetJar has pulled Opera’s Opera Mini mobile Web browser from its catalog. In a strikingly candid note to users, GetJar’s chief marketing officer Patrick Mork cites a fear of competition as the cause for the removal. “The simple problem is that Opera mini decided to include a competing app store in its browser,” Mork wrote in a note to GetJar users. “Although we don’t have any issue with this in principle, in practice it means that consumers might start using this app store instead of visiting GetJar to get their favourite apps. This robs GetJar of traffic and therefore of the advertising necessary to keep our service free for the more than 25 million consumers that use GetJar. It also jeopardizes an ecosystem that has generated over 1.6 billion downloads for tens of thousands of developers who depend on us to make money from their apps.” Opera Mini was one the most popular apps in GetJar’s catalog. Hit the break for the full letter.

Dear GetJar Users,

This week we had to take a very drastic and unusual step at GetJar: to remove one of our long-time favourite apps. This is something that we don’t take lightly and is nearly unprecedented in the 5+ years we’ve been distributing apps to consumers in more than 190 countries. The app in question, Opera Mini browser, had racked up more the 30 million downloads on GetJar over the last several years and was one of the most popular apps in the browser category. It was also the winner of the prestigious Gettie Award last year for best mobile app in the Windows Mobile category.

So why did we do this?

Apps on Getjar are free to download. This has always allowed us to provide quick, unrestricted and worldwide access to apps for all our users. It’s a central part of our business and philosophy and one that we find fundamental to allowing consumers to try great content no matter where they live and how they want to consume apps. However, to keep our service running GetJar needs to make money ;)

Therefore, we allow app developers to promote their applications on GetJar using advertising. Developers can obtain extra visibility to promote their apps and pay for this on a per-download-basis. This keeps your content free, keeps us running and allows developers to get extra visibility.

The simple problem is that Opera mini decided to include a competing app store in its browser. Although we don’t have any issue with this in principle, in practice it means that consumers might start using this app store instead of visiting GetJar to get their favourite apps. This robs GetJar of traffic and therefore of the advertising necessary to keep our service free for the more than 25 million consumers that use GetJar. It also jeopardizes an ecosystem that has generated over 1.6 billion downloads for tens of thousands of developers who depend on us to make money from their apps.

Don’t get me wrong: we’re happy to go head-to-head with any other app store and are certain that once you’ve tried the Opera App store you’ll find the depth of content, discovery and download from GetJar more compelling than ever. But it’s an another thing entirely to help competitors grow their business at our expense or that of our community.

We spent many months negotiating with Opera to avoid this scenario and are disappointed that GetJar consumers will no longer have access to Opera Mini. Fortunately, there are a number of excellent options on GetJar for our users including Bitstream Bolt, UC Web browser and Squace. All are excellent products.

In the meantime, we hope to resolve this solution with Opera in the future and want to thank you all for being such dedicated GetJar fans ;)

Thanks,

Patrick Mork, CMO GetJar

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Opera Mini launched on the iPhone a mere few weeks ago and the Apple handset has already has taken the top spot as the device with the most Opera Mini users, as measured by number of installs, in the US. The iPhone ousted BlackBerry, the previous reigning champ in the US, and is reportedly well ahead of its mobile competitor from Canada. Globally, the iPhone is in third place and is surrounded by Nokia and Sony Ericsson handsets which occupy 19 of the remaining top 20 slots. Not only a US-based phenomena, the iPhone is also top dog in the UK and has a strong presence in Australia, Korea, Canada, Germany, and Japan. Though impressive, these initial numbers may be boosted artificially by iPhone owners who download the app merely because it is new and noteworthy. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues as the novelty wears off.

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It can’t be a good thing when you have to send out a press release stating that your probably-going-to-be-rejected application has been submitted to probably-be-rejected. Nevertheless, this is exactly what Opera did this morning as it waits for Apple’s approval team to do their thing and check over the code for Opera Mini for iPhone. Naturally there’s a feeling Apple might deny the app since it’s a duplication of a native iPhone function, but from what Opera feels, it should meet Apple’s erratic standards. As we all wait to find out if this will turn into yet another App Store fiasco, hit up the jump to check out the app in actions. It’s quite impressive.

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Listen: It took six months of the App Store’s existence for Apple to approve the first batch of third-party browsers for the iPhone and iPod touch. It was a pretty damn exciting event because it was the sort of app everyone was used to being rejected because it replicates native features of the iPhone OS. Well, since then Apple rejected some pretty prolific apps for the same asinine reason to the point that even the flippin’ government took notice and started asking questions. And now, today, we have a new potential app disaster on our hands because Opera, the third-party mobile browser powerhouse, announced it will be previewing Opera Mini for iPhone next week at Mobile World Congress. Opera seems to think its app will be able to slide through the approval processes without issue, but we’re not going to get our hopes up just yet.

Totally random thought we’re just going to throw out there: Anyone think AT&T might be keen on seeing Opera Mini approved? Just think of the Draino of a job Opera’s data compression technology might do to unclog the long, hippie hair stuck in AT&T’s data pipes.

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As Opera continues to chip away at its competition and gain mobile market share, you can bet it’s not resting on any laurels. The software company has just released its 9.7 Beta version for Windows Mobile and promises to render pages faster and with better compression. The new version also includes Opera Widgets manager. Do note that this is still in beta and will have some issues:

• Opera Turbo in Opera Mobile is still a preview-feature;
  • Downloads don’t work while Opera Turbo is enabled.
  • Some settings (such as toggle on/off images) do not apply when Opera Turbo is enabled.
• On older WM 5.0 Devices with 480×800 resolution, switching between portrait and landscape may cause display errors. This is due to lack of support for this resolution in early versions of Microsoft’s driver.
• Some input method editors are known not to work well with Opera because they do not comply with Microsoft’s SIP and/or IME standard. When such an editor is detected by Opera, Opera will use a known (default) input method instead. An exception is EzInput v1.5, where the phone keypad and compact QUERTY, ABC mode doesn’t work, but the rest of the modes work fine. We recommend upgrading to EzInput v2.0 to avoid this.
• Only support for FlashLite 3.x. No Flash plugin included.

Still, it looks like a fine upgrade and a great direction for Opera mobile, especially with the new widgets manager. Check it out and let us know what you think.

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Today Nokia announced three new devices that it hopes will makes serious inroads in emerging markets. While they certainly aren’t much to write home about from a phoneaholic’s perspective, they are definitely interesting in that they place particular emphasis on entertainment and social media. Nokia seemingly feels the time is right to thrust mobile internet and social networking upon the up and coming masses and we’re more than eager to see how it works out. Provided data costs are reasonable, Nokia’s effort could certainly provide a means of low-cost entertainment that is well placed in emerging markets. Hit the jump for more details on the 2720 fold, 2730 classic and 7020.

2720 fold – It’s shiny, it flips, has access to email in three-easy steps (Billy Mays style) via Ovi Mail and might even come pre-loaded with Nokia Life Tools if you’re lucky enough to live in one of the “selected territories” that have yet to be disclosed. Other than that, there’s an FM tuner, MP3 ringtones and Bluetooth. Look for it sometime in Q3 for 55€ ($74 USD).

2730 classic - Touted as the most affordable 3G phone in the Nokia catalog at 80€ ($108 USD), the candybar 2730 classic is equipped with a 2-inch QVGA display, 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, FM tuner and comes pre-loaded with Ovi Mail while select markets will also receive Nokia Life Tools. Expect to see the 2730 classic ship in Q3 for 80€ ($107 USD).

7020 – A phone that is sure to prove itself popular in emerging markets, the 7020 is a clam shell device that has a monochrome external display, 2.2-inch internal color display, 2 megapixel camera, FM tuner, support for microSD cards up to 16GB and MP3 playback. What makes the 7020 the most interesting of the three new handsets however, is its focus on social media — the device comes pre-loaded with Nokia Life Tools, Ovi Share, Ovi Store, Nokia Messaging, Opera Mini and Nokia Maps in addition to Facebook, MySpace and YouTube bookmarks. The 7020 will run for about 90€ ($121 USD) in Q4.

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Ask, and ask, and ask….and ye shall receive. Mozilla has finally unleashed a functional “Milestone Release” version of its Fennec mobile Firefox browser. Available immediately for anyone with an HTC Touch Pro. The release version is limited in several ways, most notably without support for soft keyboards, automatic version updating, and plugins, but everything else should work more or less as promised. This is exciting news for anyone that has been eagerly anticipating Mozilla’s official move into the mobile space, and hopefully marks the beginning of significant product development for something that will hopefully do to Pocket Internet Explorer/Opera Mini what the desktop version of Firefox has done to its Internet Explorer equivalent, i.e. render it obsolete. Anyone interested in taking the release for a test drive should hit the Read link for access to the CAB file, though we definitely recommend making a complete backup of your handset before proceeding too eagerly.

[Via WMExperts]

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The mobile browser wars are on. The competition is between Opera, Mobile IE, Safari, Chrome, and the Blackberry Browser. So far, even iPhone haters would agree, Safari has yet to be touched. It only makes sense that one of the most popular browsers out there, Firefox, and their creator, Mozilla, would want to jump in on the mobile browser battle. A few weeks ago, Fennec, Mozilla’s upcoming mobile browser, was released to some beta testers but was only available for the Nokia N810 Internet tablet. While the programmers testing it out found a lot of bugs, they also felt there is a lot of promise for Mozilla’s latest browser offering. Jay Sullivan, vice president of the mobile division at Mozilla, says the reports from testers were positive and that JavaScript performance was on par with the browsers on Android and the iPhone’s Safari.

If anyone knows how to make a browser powerful, but user-friendly, it’s Mozilla. Fennec is going to be no different in terms of their end goal for the mobile browser. First, they intend to use every last bit of screen real-estate to the browser, removing all controls, tabs, and buttons that would take away from the body of the page. Sullivan says they want to “give over the entire screen of the device to the Web content, removing all user-interface controls entirely.” How will a user navigate, you ask? Certain screen controls and finger swipes (for touchscreens) will activate the UI controls in a snap. If that isn’t cool enough for you, future versions may also include support for haptic feedback. While this is all cool and snazzy, Fennec has its work cut out because the others (Safari, Opera, Blackberry, Symbian) have established themselves and are still making progress. For more info on Fennec and what its future holds, hit the link!

Thanks, Chris!

[Via UnwiredView]

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Nokia adds another device to their plain standard affair phone lineup (as compared to the flurry of E and N series devices out). Called the 7100s, or perhaps 7100 Supernova, Nokia’s little slider looks interesting enough, but geared more towards those who want to avoid all the flash, buttons, and complexity of smartphones. The details and pricing on this device are limited, but here we have a couple specs on what the Supernova will offer:

• Symbian S40 UI
• Tri-band GSM/EDGE (900 / 1800 / 1900) connectivity
• QVGA TFT display with 262K colors
• Music player
• FM radio
• Bluetooth 2.0 & USB 2.0
• Opera Mini browser, email
• Flash Lite 2.1.1 support
• 1.3 MP camera
• MicroSD card slot

Not sure if/when this will come to the States, but the unlocked market has fared well for most folks. Looking at the tri-band GSM/EDGE, however, it seems this phone would work best on T-Mobile’s network if you plan on snagging one unlocked. Otherwise, the feature department on this thing seems pretty lacking.

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