The Opera Mini application was just approved by Apple and honestly, I’m disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it was approved and I welcome competition for Mobile Safari. I’m disappointed because it looks like no thought was put into Opera Mini’s interface.
The biggest challenge in designing for the iPhone is maximizing screen real estate and this is where my biggest problem with Opera Mini lies. One of its “features” you will notice immediately is that the title bar stays visible even as your scroll down the page. Why? It’s a waste of space. Be honest, how often do you need to look at the title of a page when viewing it? Close to never. Safari mobile does a good job of hiding the title as soon as you scroll down the page, why would Opera deviate from this behavior?
The Opera Mini browser on the iPhone
The presence of the title bar is made even more annoying by its obnoxious design. It’s almost as if Opera wanted the title bar to stay visible so that one-sixth of their logo would visible along with it. If somehow we did agree that the bar should stay visible, why would it be made red—a color that will compete (and potentially clash) with anything on the website you’re viewing. And to top it all off it’s separated by a 2-pixel black stroke and a dark drop shadow.
The only way to hide the title bar is to turn on “full-screen” mode. And in full-screen mode it simply never shows up even if you wanted to see it again. (You have to pretend to enter a new URL to get it to pop-up.) Of course, even in full-screen mode you can’t escape that ugly drop shadow.
My problems with Opera Mini’s interface don’t end with the title bar, but I’ll keep all the other points brief:
- Their logo in the top right corner is barely discernible and unnecessary.
- What does that “recommend to a friend” button recommend… and why?
- The icons in the bottom bar are too cramped.
- That page icon is unnecessary and old-looking.
- The “Cancel” button is awkward sized and placed and it blends into the bar it’s on!
- Not only does this not tell me anything at first glance, but try using it… it’s a pain.
- Those icons are tacky and could easily be simplified to reduce visual clutter.
- The active state for the menu buttons doesn’t read as an active button.
- The unnecessary icon makes another appearance.
- Apple has gone to the trouble of designing good looking on/off switches and they were replaced by this? Seriously?
- And finally… if there was one place that might have benefited from an extra icon it is right here. A small magnifying glass inside the find bar would have been extremely helpful.
All of these findings are after having only quickly used the application; I don’t understand how the Opera team let some of these things slide. I understand that Opera Mini might be faster at loading pages than Safari, and some of the options it provides are very useful, but I really wish they would step up their interface design so I wouldn’t have to cringe while using it. What do you guys think?
The Discussion
I’d been using Opera Mini for a long time on my Symbian powered phone and really enjoyed using it. Mostly because it was vastly superior to any Internet browser available on that operating system. You’ve pointed out a lot of interface flaws I didn’t pick up on because I was being offered something that was better than I got out of the box.
However I can see from the perspective of an iPhone user, which has a very “swish” interface, that it really doesn’t fit in. I’d have thought there would have been a few more tweaks for the iPhone version of the app to get it to fit in more with the iPhone. Guess not!
Ok some valid points.
My no 1 problem with the opera mini is the Zoom functionality. Well it’s either x1 or full, I don’t like that, users should be able to select their zooming.
“# Apple has gone to the trouble of designing good looking on/off switches and they were replaced by this? Seriously?”
Can’t possibly agree to that. Apple’s on/off icons are seriously underthought and they are simply awful. Lots of non tech savvy people have played from time to time with my iPhone and couldn’t tell if something was on or off the way Apple has those switches.
Some good points there.
I’ve noticed some of of my sites that work fine in iPhone’s Safari and Desktop Opera don’t display correctly in Opera Mini. Somethig to do with paragraph width or font size I think.
Otherwise it’s a fairly good start and I’m glad there’s going to be some competition.
Safari on the iPhone already set the bar too high. I’m hoping Chrome on iPhone can do much better, if there is ever an iPhone version.
My biggest gripe is the ridiculously ugly toggle switches on the settings page. What on earth was going through Opera’s mind when they decided to completely throw Apple’s UI guidelines out of the window. There is a reason for the guidelines and that isn’t because Apple knows best, it’s so all of the applications have a consistent UI. What is the point learning how to use one set of toggle switches when there is no guarantee it’s going to be the same in another application.
I’ll only use this new browser once they redesign the UI using the standard iPhone elements.
@Vassilis
Ah, you are completely correct! That is my mistake. The buttons on Opera do communicate their function much more quickly than the typical iPhone buttons. It is just another place, however, where the visuals are seemingly ignored in the app.
@Gary
I’d love to see some of those other browsers on there too. But, unless they pull an Opera and make use of the server-side, I don’t think they will ever get past Apple approval.
I see a MAJOR problem with the Opera app. It destroys my wife’s facebook fan page. If you view her site http://www.facebook.com/laurakpictures, you will notice that all of the posts with a photo gallery attached are entirely missing. But if the post has a single image attached, it’s ok. Then use Safari and everything’s fine. This must be fixed soon!!
It’s the FIRST version! Settle down, and maybe you should take the time to use the app before posting a blog about it, did you notice the FULL SCREEN option under SETTINGS? That is how you get rid of the title bar!
@Rob
I did notice the full screen mode. And if you had taken the time to read my post you would have seen that I discussed it:
Either way, as far as I’m concerned these types of interface mistakes are unacceptable even for v1.0. These are the kinds of things that shouldn’t have gotten past the alpha.
Sorry missed that… I’m sure they will work these things out, but for me the speed is worth it. And this could be a new leaf for Apple, I honestly didn’t think they would approve it to begin with, maybe opera didn’t think they would either.
I agree with you on the speed. And even though it kills me to betray my visuals, speed is definitely the most important factor on mobile platforms where you might be stuck in 3G (or even worse).
From what I’ve heard about Opera’s preparing of the browser, I read that they “did it by the book” and made sure everything kept to Apple’s rules so that it would be approved. Again, I don’t think other mobile browsers will be approved unless the follow the same path as Opera and manage things server side (which they probably won’t be keen to do). We can hope though.
Rest assured… the Opera icon is next to the Safari icon on my iPhone. But maybe at some point it can replace Safari all together… at least Apple has competition now.
@Rob Hawkes
It’s a frigging simple on/off switch. If you have to “learn” how to use it then it has failed oh my god how much has it failed.
Opera’s on/off switches, although indeed ugly, communicate their function about 1,500% better than Apple’s.
@Vassilis
Yes but in deviating from what Apple has gotten people comfortable with, they are adding unnecessary confusion to the interface just the same. And on top of that it is ugly confusion…
You might argue that Opera is voicing their annoyance with Apple’s default toggle style by ignoring them. But really by doing that they are just strengthening Apple’s arguments for enforcing a default style, because apparently people can’t design a nice looking switch. I haven’t used the other Opera Mini apps, but my guess is it’s just laziness carried over from those interfaces (but that could easily be wrong).
To those commenting on how this differs from buttons Apple has gotten people used to — there is a very good reason for this. This is not an application that was built specifically for the iPhone/iTouch. It is a Java application that runs on other devices such as the Droid. By doing that you are building your own buttons, not relying on system defaults. The JVM is also the reason why the fonts/font sizes are so limited.
Also, this isn’t a version 1, it’s version 5.
@POWRSURG
To that I would ask: is that really “a very good reason” or just a reason (or even excuse) for an incredibly poor interface? And the fact that it is in v5.0 just makes the design decisions even more unacceptable.
In short, I can see why Apple are adamant on stopping apps being developed through platforms other than Cocoa/Objective-C. The inherent freedom and laziness that these other platforms give, in regards to following consistent UI guidelines, definitely allows for substandard applications to arise.
There is absolutely no reason why Opera needed to redesign the iPhone UI elements. If the excuse is that they are using Java and that it has to run on a variety of platforms, then take the time to make each platform look and feel like that platform. If it’s on the iPhone, make it look like the iPhone UI. If it’s on Android, make it look and feel like Android.
Opera may be the best browser in the world, but if it’s ugly and in contrast to everything else I use on the iPhone then I won’t be using it. Aesthetics and consistency are just as important as performance and features.