A few days ago the Opera Mini mobile web browser application was approved and released for the iPhone, and it shot to the top of the free app charts around the world, getting downloads more than one million times just on the first day of release. Paid Content estimate that as 1.36 percent of the 75 million iPhone OS devices sold so far.
That’s faster than Skype for iPhone (2 days to hit 1 million), or Paypal (3 weeks to 1 million).
But what’s really interesting is that this isn’t an app as a ‘walled garden’ in the same way as most applications (Including many of the ones I’ve worked on, before you mention it). It’ll be interesting to see how far Opera will spread in what is general a close app world to promote simplicity on Apple devices…
And will that lead to more apps opening up as platforms to the web at a time when many media companies are being tempted into closed walls with someone collecting money at the gate?