Opera just released a version of their Mini browser for Treo. Here’s what the download and install process looks like.
- point your existing Blazer browser at http://mini.opera.com
- the page detects your device (a Treo 650 in this case) and offers a download link
- clicking the link starts a 100k download
- the phone offers to store the download in the “applications” area
- hunt through the ultra-confusing menu system that Palm has inflicted on users. Categories are “All”, “Games”, “Good”, “Main”, “Multimedia”, “System”, “Utilities”, Wireless Apps”, and “Unfiled”.
- finally I find it under “Unfiled”. Click.
- Error message “Missing IBM Java VM”: “Please ensure that IBM’s WebSphere Micro Environment Java WM is installed.”
In summary: Opera is great software, judging by the glowing reports all over the web. But installing mobile apps is a major pain spot. See also Daniel Raffel’s take on the confusing state of mobile development.
Hard to develop. Hard to install. We need to fix this asap. -m