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Opera Mobile 12 and Opera Mini Next released today

Opera Software has released today its popular mobile browser for Opera Mobile 12 for Android and Symbian, Opera Mini Next for beta testers and Opera Mini for iOS. Opera browser is not very popular on the desktop but they are pretty popular on mobile devices.

Opera Mobile 12 brings several updates but you won’t notice many as these changes are underneath the browser. Most of the changes are related to HTML5 capabilities of the Opera Mobile. Below are a list of improvements to Opera Mobile.

  • Ragnarok, is a HTML5 parser, which allows developers to develop better web apps and also for increased compatibility with websites supporting HTML5.
  • ECMAScript 5.1: Similar in spirit to the HTML5 specification process, ES5 standardizes existing JavaScript implementations in conjunction with additions to the language and native ECMAScript objects. ES5 also introduces a strict variant of the language known as “strict mode”.
  • Orientation Support: This allows to add some cool functions like changing the background color based on the device orientation on your hand, changing the orientation will change the background color etc.
  • For Android only, support for camera use in the browser using the same, newer, getUserMedia syntax as Opera desktop Labs.
  • CSS3 radial gradients and the fabled -o-double-rainbow.
  • CORS (cross-origin resource sharing).
  • For Android only, hardware-accelerated WebGL for all things 3D and web. With WebGL on mobile, it’ll be even easier to make games cross platform and distribute.

Opera Mini Next and Opera Mini for iOS

Opera also released Opera Mini for iOS and a developer version Opera Next. Opera Mini 7 brings support for file uploads and more than nine speed dials. Opera Mini Next is for beta testing of new features before they are pushed for final releases. This brings improvements for the “Home Screen” for social network integration next to speed dial for feature phones, and hardware. It also brings smooth scrolling with hardware acceleration using smartphone graphic accelerators and a revamped speed dial for smartphones.

Opera Mobile for Android can be downloaded from here. Opera Mini 7 for iOS can be downloaded from here, Opera Mini next for Java, Android, Blackberyy and S60 from here. Opera announcement.

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