Opera for the iPhone is now the #1 most downloaded free app in all 22 app stores.  This pretty well showcases Apple users’ desperation for third party replacement for the stock apps on the iPhone.  It’s also amazing, considering it’s currently not a very good browser.

Now, I’m a fan of Opera on the desktop.  It’s always been the enthusiast browser of choice - chock full of cool features and settings.  But it does feel a little rough around the edges, with a design and polish that looks fine on a PC, but a little out of place on the iPhone.

So far, most of the reviews I’ve read have focused on the speed.  Here are my informal benchmarks:

• Somemotivationrequired.com - Opera: 10s Safari: 10s
• Nytimes.com - Opera: 10s Safari: 1:28m
• Bensbargains.net - Opera: 24s Safari: 24s
• Kotaku.com (mobile) - Opera: 13s Safari: 9s
• Reddit.com - Opera: 14s  Safari: 12s

This wasn’t conducted in any kind of scientific capacity (I did clear my browser cache first), but it looks like they’re pretty evenly matched, excusing the Times website.  So what don’t I actually like about it?  Well…I’ve only read one review that really sums it up nicely, and it wasn’t even from a major website - it was by some dude in the comments on Gizmodo.  Yes it’s a wall of text, but it’s a good wall of text.

Personally, I’m happy to have a second browser, because sometimes Safari just can’t load a page properly, and maybe Opera will be able to.

Now I want Chrome on my iPad.

This is in Opera.

Chrome, Safari, and Firefox were able to load it, but the “3D” feature isn’t supported.  I masked Opera as Internet Explorer and tried again, just to see what would happen.  It wanted to download an .exe to install the plugin.  I guess it’s not so much my browser that’s not supported as my OS.

Also, the mapping program itself doesn’t appear to handle scrolling while loading imagery very well (or at all, in some cases).

Google Maps is aging, poorly, and has a bunch of UI and functionality issues I’m really tired of dealing with.  Please try harder to be a relevant competitor, Microsoft.  Please?