"App Store policy dictates that titles cannot duplicate the functions of built-in iPhone apps, in this case Safari."

If the writer had bothered to search for "browser" on the App Store, he or she would know this is completely false, at least with regards to web browsers. On the Canadian App Store, I stopped counting after finding 20 other browser apps.

Well, they can always release it for jailbroken iPhones on Cydia until Apple addresses their cranial-rectal inversion.

The other browsers you see are generally takeoffs on Safari with other features laid on top. Something like Opera is, by definition, a ground-up app that competes directly with Safari.

The majority of people are not interested in Opera on the desktop so what makes them think they would want it on the iPhone.

Most platforms (Nokia Symbian, RIM, Android, iPhone OS) are standardizing on the Webkit engine.

I kind of feel bad for Opera in a way as they were the best alternative to IE on WIndows Mobile but now most handset makers are shifting away from that platform. They may have been better than pocket IE but they are still worse than Webkit.

"The other browsers you see are generally takeoffs on Safari with other features laid on top. Something like Opera is, by definition, a ground-up app that competes directly with Safari."

To be much more precise, the other browsers are all based on the WebKit engine. As I understand it, all iPhone apps are required to use Apple's frameworks, and WebKit is the framework for the rendering engine. Therefore, all third-party browsers are required to use WebKit.

But that doesn't mean that they don't compete with Safari, which is what the article claims. I don't doubt that Apple doesn't want Opera on the iPhone, but to say that it has a policy of rejecting apps that reproduce the functionality of Safari is simply wrong. All the third-party browsers on the App Store reproduce the functionality of Safari, and many extend it in some fashion. The problem isn't competing with Safari, but not using WebKit. My complaint with the article is that it didn't make this distinction clear, and thus is misleading.

Would having a third party browser make it possible to support Flash?

It could still be WebKit based - the interesting thing about OperaMini is the way it uses server-side compression (basically the same as a lot of mobile browsers - you use their server as a proxy, which reduces the size of images, etc, and only sends the same number of pixels as are displayed) - so feasibly, they could build a WebKit front-end over the same back-end concept.

As for Flash support. No. There is one browser (Skyfire?) that renders Flash on the server, and effectively you VNC through from your mobile, but the experience is pretty poor for anything interactive (clicks and other events seem to get lost along the way).

Also, mobile Flash still isn't here (and on Android will only work with recent handsets - ones capable of running Android 2.1).

Actually, Opera has been making noises about Opera Mini on the iPhone since 2008 -- see this piece by John Gruber:

http://daringfireball.net/2008/11/opera_app_store

How many browsers does the iPhone need to see the same sites from the internet? Really?

In behalf of my curiosity, I wonder how this Google Buzz fits in with Wave? There is no way Googlebuzz or Gmailbuzz, whatever you want to call it, is going to do anything to Facebook. It's the most popular social networking site there is, unless Google can make a better site – though they probably are capable. The way Googlebuzz is supposed to work is close to Facebook and Twitter, but it's just as much a bookmarking site like Digg. I'd even get payday loans to put a big bet down that FB isn't impacted by Google's entry into the social networking arena at all.