Opera, makers of fine cross-platform browsing software, are so proud of their new Opera Mini beta that they’ve made a (not very funny, unfortunately) Apple-baiting “PC and Mac” style video ad.
The idea, it seems, is to point out how much more widely available Opera is, and how free it is (disingenuous, I’d suggest, since all handsets cost money, not just iPhone; and all handsets come with built-in software, just like iPhone).
(And that goes for “free” handsets, too, which you still pay for via your fixed-term contract fees.)
The new features look pretty good, and I particularly like this note from the developers:
Opera Mini 4 beta installs beside your current Opera Mini version without overwriting any of your existing files or settings.
How nice to see a dev team that’s thoughtful enough to tell users a little thing like that before they go ahead and start downloading…
I found the video pretty funny, and not baiting. If Steve Jobs' little pokes at Microsoft about Leopard's pricing at WWDC is baiting then I will agree with you. Also, is the iPhone open enough to allow iPhone users to use Opera Mini? Since Opera Software is considered a third-party developer, my assumption would be that Opera Mini won't even work on the iPhone, and that, IMO, would make this rant disingenuous. I wish Firefox and Safari could work like Opera right out of the box. Unfortunately they don't, unless you find all the right browser plug-ins - and some plug-ins for Safari aren't free.
I found the video to be funny, not the script but the fact that Apple now has to face music for overpriced and potentially buggy stuff, the same thing they used to accuse Microsoft of.
I still don't get it.
Basically funny is the idea of throwing in so many similarities to the Apple ads. The slender guys, the music, the spoken parts sounding a little bored / boring sometimes....
But have you ever seen...uh...for example...uh....oh yes, now here a fitting one: Adobe attacking Dell with an ad comparing their latest cheapest software with a Dell notebook?
Weird...