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In a NY Times article, Opera has announced different releases of their browser on mobile devices. Opera, is a lesser known web browser that some critics praise.

In the article it claims that Apple is keeping Opera from being released in their App Store. Here’s a quote from Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, “Mr. von Tetzchner said that Opera’s engineers have developed a version of Opera Mini that can run on an Apple iPhone, but Apple won’t let the company release it because it competes with Apple’s own Safari browser.”

Some people have come out in defense of Apple stating that Opera won’t work because of Javascript issues.

You be the judge.

MacRumors is reporting that Apple has released their numbers for their Q4 of the fiscal year.

Those figures are just the actual iPhone itself. The 39% doesn’t include the subscription based revenue. Steve Jobs would later go on to provide interesting facts about the Q4 2008 iPhone stats:

- In Q4 2008, more iPhones were sold than RIM Blackberries

- Based on revenue, Apple is the #3 cell phone vendor.

Thanks to MacRumors for the news on the iPhone’s newest update.

The first update is mostly only useful to our friends over in Japan. In an effort to boost popularity in Japan, Apple will be including emoji icons in this Firmware update.

For those in the US, the major upgrade will be adding Google Street View. So after the update, when you open up Google Maps, there will be an option for Google Street View.

One of the minor changes, or major depending on how much it annoys you is the Auto-correction change. It will now be optional, so you will be able to turn it off if it annoys you.

One of the major critiques of the 3G iPhone, is the hullabaloo involved with the initial signup. When the phone launched, the lines were backed up to epic levels. The reason for the long lines, of course was demand, but also the time it took to have people sign up for service and activate their phones.

Activations, unlike the previous iPhone all had to be done in store. These could take anywhere from 5-10 minutes, which of course didn’t help the problem with long lines.

It might be too late to help with launch, but Apple is allowing customers to sign up with 3G iPhone service online, before going to make their purchase. Activating your 3G iPhone will still have to be done at the store though.

Apple is moving its’ retail space into China starting tomorrow. It will the first official Apple store in the country, and looks quite impressive so far. The build will be situated in Beijing, at the Sanlitun entertainment district. The store will open at 10 AM.

Apple is looking to expand into China even further, saying they will be adding more stores in Beijing, Shanghai and beyond. The store will have almost the exact same features of other Apple stores. One big highlight missing when the store opens will be the iPhone. Apple is still in talks with China’s primary wireless provider to lay out plans for the introduction of the iPhone. The largest obstacle will be implementing the 3G iPhone as China has no standard 3G network as of now.

The 32 GB iPod Touch will be available when the store opens, which will retail for 4,488 Chinese yuan (USD $647.33). This will be a story to keep an eye on going into next week, to see how successful Apple is with their first official foray into the Chinese market.

For those of you who are still teetering on the fence about whether or not to pick up the 3G iPhone are in luck. The first reviews for the phone are in, and so far everything looks to be peachy keen. Here is a few key quotes from the reviews, and what the consensus is.

Walter Mossberg’s Review Synopsis - “If you’ve been waiting to buy an iPhone until it dropped in price, or ran on faster cell networks, you might want to take the plunge, if you can live with the higher service costs and the weaker battery life. The same goes for those with existing iPhones who love the device but crave faster cellular data speeds. But if you already own an iPhone, and can usually use Wi-Fi for data, you probably should hold off and get the free software upgrade before deciding whether it’s worth getting the new hardware.”

Edward Baig’s USA Today Review - “Apple’s claims that 3G speeds are twice as fast as Edge were confirmed by my own download tests. It generally took 10 to 30 seconds to load popular websites through 3G, a lot zippier than when I accessed the sites on Edge. Oddly, parts of the pages sometimes showed up first on the older iPhone screen”

“The physical size and shape of the new iPhone hasn’t changed much. There’s the same lovely 3 1/2-inch multi-touch display. The new device is a bit curvier on the back than the first one.”

“Apple has improved overall audio quality of the device. The speaker phone sounded better, as did music played directly through the phone’s speaker.”

“As with its predecessor, iPhone 3G doesn’t support popular Web browsing standards such as Adobe Flash, Windows Media Video or Java. And there’s still no removable battery.”

David Pogue’s New York Time Review - “So the iPhone 3G is a nice upgrade. It more than keeps pace with advancing technology, and new buyers will generally be delighted.”

“Above all, the iPhone is about to become a dazzling hand-held game machine. The games revealed so far feature smooth 3-D graphics and tilt control; in one driving simulator, you turn the iPhone itself like a steering wheel, and your 3-D car on the screen banks accordingly. Other games exploit the multitouch screen, so you and a buddy can sit at opposite ends of the screen and fire at each other.”

“Unfortunately, most of the standard cellphone features that were missing from the first iPhone are still missing. There’s still no voice dialing, video recording, copy-and-paste, memory-card slot, Bluetooth stereo audio or phone-to-phone photo sending (MMS). And when the battery needs replacement after a couple of years, you’ll still have to pay Apple $86 for a replacement.”

As I’m typing away at this article, there’s no doubt a iPhone dev company working away at the next killer app. At the WWDC, there were some iPhone applications announced that sounded very intriguing. Here are a few apps being release; via the Software Development Kit (SDK).

Super Monkey Ball - This game was announced when the SDK was first launched. Now Sega released even more details at the WWDC. Apparently there will be 100 levels to playthrough. To navigate the character, Sega has utilized the iPhone’s accelerometer.

Loopt -  This app sounds like something that might potentially be used by a stalker. Basically it’s a social networking app that can let your friends know where you’re at, by way of a push-pin map. Your profile shows places you’ve been, along with blogging, texting, and other social networking devices.

(via: MacRumors)

It was reported by FreeMacBlog, that it looked like it would be awhile before Flash support would reach the iPhone. It looks as though this report could turn out to be wrong. In our defense, even Jobs said he didn’t know when Flash support would be available.

It looks as though, the wait wont be as long as originally anticipated. Anyone who has been anxiously waiting for Flash support, can thank the SDK for the good news. Adobe has announced that it plans to use the SDK to make a Flash client for the iPhone.

Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe explains the reasoning behind the decision, “We believe Flash is synonymous with the Internet experience, and we are committed to bringing Flash to the iPhone,” the Adobe head noted. “We have evaluated [the SDK] and we think we can develop an iPhone Flash player ourselves.”

One minor glitch with this setup, is that Flash had to run as an independent program. Apple doesn’t allow third-part programs to run as plug-ins, so Flash is going to have to run separate from the browser.

Yesterday was the shareholders meeting for Apple. Many different strategies, and ideas were presented by Jobs and other key figures for Apple. One interesting piece of information was about the iPhone and Flash support for it.

According to Steve Jobs there is no time frame for Flash Support on the iPhone, so anxious iPhone users shouldn’t start holding their breath. Jobs explains that the current Flash application used by cell phones isn’t powerful enough for what the iPhone is capable of. What he wants is Flash that is on par with the likes of what you see on notebooks and desktops.

Jobs explains about the current Flash problem with cell phones, “There’s this missing product in the middle…It just doesn’t exist”

It looks as though Jobs’ strategy is to hold out and hope that Flash will release a specific application for the iPhone. As of now, Adobe hasn’t made any announcements as it pertains to a special iPhone Flash application.

The two companies have butted heads in the past, with Adobe showing Apple the shaft for some of its’ products. While Apple changed some of its’ products to slow down Adobe applications. Let’s hope for the consumer’s sake that they can get past this bitter past and do what’s best for the iPhone users.