Quick review Opera Dimensions - iPhone news
OK I’ve used the Opera mobile Dimensions beta for a day now and it is certainly a very different way of viewing the web via phone. I still found the screen too small - but I did like the fact I could see the whole page and the mouse pointer worked well.
It is certainly worth checking out for anyone who does browse the web with a phone - and I think I will use it once I’m on a flat rate plan.
The navigation is great and the feel of the application is great and it shows how well companies are now understanding usability on the phone - there are certainly a few tricks in there that I will try to emulate in my software.
One thing I would change is that the default view of the page is the entire page - but it makes a guess as to which part of the page you should start on. The guesswork seems to be good so far and I would have preferred if it had just zoomed me into that area and then I could zoom out if it was wrong. This will be different for different users - so this behaviour should be given as an option.
All in all - it was a great piece of software and it is a pity it has such competition in 9 days to distract from the great software they have made. I think that when they take this out of beta I would suggest 3 months after the iPhone they should make the real launch of Dimension a well publicised affair.
iPhone Hype
Helping the iPhone hype today I came across two articles on the negative side of the phone.
True cost of the iPhone at CenterNetworks predicts that the true annual cost of the iPhone is about $2000 which seems incredibly high to me, even cutting it in half seems incredibly high to me. I am not sure how good the maths here are - but they seem reasonable to me - it certainly isn’t going to go mainstream on this basis.
Why You May Not Want An iPhone at Forbes - examines all the barriers that are likely to stop consumers from making the iPhone mainstream and points out how voracious the competition are in this market compared to the MP3 player market.
Popularity: 59% [?]
The iPhone is not $2,000. It is $500 (4GB) and $700 (8GB) which is actually really reasonable considering it’s a phone and an ipod. It also comes with other really neat features that make it worth while to spend the couple extra dollars on it! It is by far one of Apple’s greatest inventions.
Amber - the comments above refer to the “true” cost of the phone - which is more than just its retail price. When you buy an iPhone it is not the same as buying an iPod as you will have to pay for the internet connection and the phone connection will be more expensive than a standard phone. So in comparison to a phone and iPod there is more to consider than just the $500 purchase price. The article that is referred to above explains it in a bit more detail than I am here.