Daily Mobile - Your All In One Phone Blog

Opera has published the November statistics for Opera mini, one of the worlds most popular mobile web browser. The number of Opera Mini users more than doubled — from about 16.4 million in November 2008 to 41.7 million in November 2009. This increase shows that their prediction of accelerated growth of the mobile Web has come true. More stats after the break…

• In November 2009, Opera Mini saw increases in all three categories of growth: unique users, pages viewed, and data consumed.
• In this month’s report, we looked at countries in Africa. The top 10 countries using Opera Mini in Africa are: South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Libya, Ivory Coast, Zambia, Tanzania, and Namibia.
• Some numbers: From November 2008 to November 2009, page views in the top 10 countries of Africa increased by 374%, unique users increased by 177%, and data transferred increased by 183%.
• Since our last spotlight on Africa, Kenya jumped from #4 to #3, Ghana jumped from #11 to #5, and Ivory Coast jumped from #8 to #7.
• Growth rates in Africa: Ghana and Kenya lead the top 10 African countries in terms of page-view growth (4,348.6% and 615.4%, respectively). Ghana and Ivory Coast lead the top 10 African countries in growth of unique users (1,558.8% and 330.2%, respectively). Kenya leads the top 10 African countries in page views, with each user browsing 525 pages on average each month.
• Facebook has taken the lead in Africa; it is the most popular site visited by Opera Mini users in 6 out of 10 countries and the #2 site in three of the countries where it is not #1. Google is also very popular, and is ahead of Facebook in a few of the top 10 African countries. Yahoo and Wikipedia are also ubiquitous in the top 10 lists of the various African countries.
• Nokia and Sony Ericsson handsets are extremely popular in Africa, but Samsung is a significant exception, boasting the most popular phone used by Opera Mini users in South Africa, Zambia and Namibia.
• This month’s report compares the Opera Mini growth rates in different regions around the world.
  • Between November 2008 and November 2009, the fastest growing region in terms of Opera Mini page views was Southeast Asia, followed by Africa and Latin America.
  • Between November 2008 and November 2009, the fastest growing region in terms of Opera Mini users was Southeast Asia, followed by South Asia and Africa.
  • Between November 2008 and November 2009, the fastest growing region in terms of data transferred using Opera Mini was Southeast Asia, followed by East Asia and Latin America.

The iPhone has been the twist of action for nearly half of the Indaba Music employees. Meantime, unwilled to control changeful carriers to get an iPhone, the opposite half of the Indaba Sound unit waited for a parallel sound to be obtainable through their mating. On November 6th, Motorola Droid arrived and was now procured by umteen others of the Indaba Music squad. The body gathered, comparing and different it to the iPhone. Sides were confiscate. To fight the current (and seemed equivalent never-ending) interoffice smack scuttlebutt, they put it to their accord of 325,000. To act members were to create an newfangled ringtone using (or screening) at slightest one frequency distribution from their elite phone's audio files. The successful sound faculty be the phone whose ringtones get the most votes.. You can comprehend

Some top contenders for your listening pleasure…

Droid

http://www.indabamusic.com/submissions/show/10990

http://www.indabamusic.com/submissions/show/11000

http://www.indabamusic.com/submissions/show/11081

iPhone

http://www.indabamusic.com/submissions/show/10978

http://www.indabamusic.com/submissions/show/11139

http://www.indabamusic.com/submissions/show/11162

Opera Mobile 10 is now available to operators and OEMs on major mobile platforms including Android, BREW, Windows Mobile and Symbian/S60. Find out more about Opera Mobile 10 here, or just take a look at the promo video after the break.

Opera today launched the second beta versions of Opera Mini 5 and Opera Mobile 10, available as free downloads. In this second beta release, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile users can now enjoy popular desktop features, such as Opera Link and the Download Manager, from their mobile phones.

With Opera Link, users can synchronize personal browser settings with their Opera desktop browser, as well as all their connected devices, ensuring that their bookmarks, Speed Dial and search engines are always accessible. The Download Manager gives users a better way to control and speed up downloads to mobile phones.

Opera continues its mission to unify its browser products, and today’s beta release is no exception. Features further polished in the second beta release are the unified look and feel across Opera’s browser products, the visual bookmarks known as Speed Dial, and tabbed browsing, one of the most popular innovations in browsing history.

“For Opera, status quo is not an option. We are always improving our products, adding new functionality and features to deliver a faster and more personal Web experience,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “Also, unifying the look and feel, regardless of device, makes it easy for anyone to get online anywhere, anytime.”

The far-reaching popularity of Opera Mini continues to grow month after month. Opera reports that almost 40 million people used Opera Mini in October, saving the consumers 9.4 billion USD per year just by choosing Opera Mini.

Intuitive interface

Merging the best from our desktop browser with new innovations for phones, Opera Mobile is advanced and intuitive to use.

Faster browsing

Opera Mobile 10 beta is faster at rendering pages, zooming, panning and almost everything else you do with a browser. And pages load up to 50% faster than the previous version.

Speed Dial

Get to your favorite Web page with just one click, with a set of visual bookmarks that appear when you open a new tab. To add a new page, simply click on an empty Speed Dial slot.

Tabbed browsing

Browse several Web sites at the same time. Check your email in one window, Facebook in another, and Twitter in a third, all while easily jumping from one tab to another.

Opera Mini 5 and Opera Mobile 10 screenshots:

Another cool Motorola Droid commercial, check it out after the break.

This is getting quite frustrating. More than a month after the launch of two of the most anticipated mobile phones in the US, there is complete silence about their launches in India.

Motorola Droid photo

I am talking about the Motorola Droid and the Nokia N900. Everyone knows them both. Motorola Droid is the iPhone killer that everyone who is not an iPhone fanboy wants to try out at least once. We have been reviews from websites abroad, and generally everyone seems to like the Droid. It is approaching a sales target of 1 million, for chrissakes. That is a vote of confidence by the tech-savvy American public, certainly. So when are going to see it in India?

Photo: Nokia N900 features a 3.5" WVGA touch screen

I was once a Motorola fanboy. Those were the days of the first Motorola Razr. We spent what was a fortune in those days. Some Rs 17,000 or so. Yes, we. We bought two. Me and my brother. And for a long time, we had the snazziest phone around. I stil have it lying around somewhere. Once I got used to their atrocious user interface, and decided to do nothing more than send SMSes and take calls, it was a great mobile phone alright. The Motorola Droid, on the other hand, is the complete opposite of the Razr. This can is fast, has a touchscreen, can run multiple apps simultaneously, runs the latest version of Google Android.. (if you are looking for Google Android phones in India, click that link or this one for more info.)

And then the Nokia. My first phone ever was a Nokia 5110, and then I went through several Nokia phones temporarily ditching it for the Razr once, and then went back to Nokia again. Their current interface, the S60 Symbian, looks seriously cluttered and is a kludge to use on their latest phones. It looks like it is seriously a generation behind the interfaces on even Windows Mobile phones with a custom interface like the HTC ones!

All that has – possibly – just changed with the launch of the expensive but powerful Nokia N900. While we know that this is a brilliant phone on paper (apart from the resistive screen), we need to see this. We need to touch this, use it to know if this is the phone that will save Nokia from ignominy.

No chance. Motorola and Nokia have both been silent about the launch of their phones in India. What is it – supply issues? Is the demand so high? There is reason to believe so, I guess. 1 million Droid sales in US is no joke, and the N900 has met with much enthusiasm and probably, the company wants to focus on the biggest smartphone markets first. After all, when it comes to smartphones, India is seriously lagging.

I have even tried to see if there are any gadget shopping websites in India, which offer the N900 or the Droid. No such luck. All we can do is wait and fume, for now.