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Opera mobile gets Symbian support
And hello widgets

By Jessica Dolcourt

Published: Monday 20 October 2008

There's been a lot of activity recently in the world of mobile browsers. On Friday, Mozilla introduced an alpha build for Fennec, the mobile browser that will grow up to become Firefox for Mobile. Monday brings news of Opera Software's release of its most recent beta for the Opera Mobile browser. It'll be the second beta for Windows Mobile phones, and the first beta compatible with the Symbian UIQ platform.

Opera has also released a developer (alpha) version for Symbian Series 60 phones that is available with the updated Opera Widgets SDK.

The changes found in Opera Mobile 9.5 beta 2 are few but distinct - the addition of Opera Widgets, faster page loading, and a package of developer tools that includes the Opera Dragonfly debugger.

Of the three additions, Opera Widgets is the one that most directly affects the mobile browsing crowd. The new beta installs five widgets on Windows Mobile and UIQ phones. There's Twitter, AccuWeather, a clock, Shopping List, and Bubbles, a colourful Tetris-like game. If you have a Series 60 phone, you get all the above except Twitter.

In order to download widgets onto the phone, Opera has added a shortcut button that takes you to the Widgets web page and presents a list of widgets compatible with your platform. Selecting the widget will download it over the air.

Although Opera is the first out of the gate implementing its version of extensions, add-ons will also be at the core of Mozilla Fennec, the mobile build of Firefox that's in development for Windows Mobile and Symbian phones. The importance of add-ons, overall speed, Flash support, and general navigability cannot be overstated in the simmering contest among Opera, Firefox, and newcomer Skyfire.

The new Opera Mobile beta also hands independent widget developers a goody bag in the form of the updated Widgets SDK. This version of the SDK bundles in the Dragonfly debugger and a new widget manager. Together, these tools will help developers pick through bugs in JavaScript, CSS and DOM code on an actual mobile phone, not just on a desktop emulator. Developers for Windows Mobile and both Symbian platforms can use the updated Widget SDK.

When Opera Mobile 9.5 beta 1 came out in July for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs, Opera promised future releases would branch out to languages other than English. There was also a bug that required refreshing pages after switching between mobile and full screen modes, and difficulties typing into some phones with custom keyboards or input methods. As far as we know, this beta release has addressed at least some of these bugs.

While the beta does integrate Opera Widgets and introduces Opera Mobile 9.5 to Symbian phones, Opera has promised to add Google Gears and Opera Link support before the final release. Opera Link, a feature for synchronising bookmarks on the server-side among all Opera browsers, has been present in the Opera Mini browser for Java-based phones for more than a year.

You can download Opera Mobile 9.5 beta 1 for Symbian UIQ phones and the second beta for Windows Mobile phones here.