(keitai-l) Re: Opera Mini (was: Lengthy review of the WS003SH)

From: <tiger_at_zombiezodiac.com>
Date: 07/26/06
Message-ID: <20060726000133.pgejpl2zbh0k4wco@www.zombiezodiac.com>
Are folks on the list just using English phone UI and browsers?  I'm trying to
figure out why there were such vocal recommendations of Opera.  I went 
to their
site and thought Mini looked intriguing, then got really frustrated. 
It's useful
to remember that JA-JP as my only accept-language, incidentally using IE7B3.

1) Went to www.opera.com and had a hard time finding the Japanese 
language site.
Finally I found a tiny link at the bottom of the page.
2) Button "Get Opera Mini" (ok in English) leads to an English marketing site
(not ok).
3) Looked for a Japanese press release to make sure Mini 2.0 is really 
available
in Japan.  Found one, but it wastes a bunch of time talking about "seamless
support" for SMS.  Who in Japan cares about SMS?  Worried that this product
might not be really useable on my phone.
4) Went back to the marketing site and got the URL for download.  No QR 
Code on
the marketing site.
5) Went there on my phone.  Thankfully came up in Japanese.  Unfortunately it
somehow has mistaken the accept headers in my AU W41S for a "KDDI - SN34", and
tells me my phone isn't supported.
6) It then tells me that if they're wrong, I should go ahead and install.  How
do I know if my phone is really supported??
7) The way to find out is to *go to my PC* and view the Opera Mini help site.
8) The URL they supply points to an English page.
9) No way to get to the Japanese help, which I hacked the URL to find, and
acctually exists.
10) Help installation page wastes a bunch of time talking about 
Internet Access
Points.  How many wifi phones exist in Japan?  Remember, WZero3 users are
directed to use Mobile 8.6.
11) Help troubleshooting page has a link to a supported model list.  The URL
they point to is an English page.
12) The supported model list doesn't have my phone on it.  I couldn't tell if
they even have Japanese phones at all.

That's way too much energy for me.  I'm giving up on Opera Mini.  I'm 
left with
the impression that although Opera is translating their software, they haven't
done any work to appropriately release their software in the Japan market.

In my mind that's much worse than the WZero3 review that started this thread,
which essentially said that the device is too Japanese (keyboard, etc), and
needs different default settings.  Actually that's just what the review really
meant - what it said was that Microsoft is conspiring to ruin the life 
of every
PDA user.  Even if that's the real intention of WZero3, at least it's in
Japanese.

It's weird, because I just got the Nintendo DS browser and so far I'm really
happy with that.  I guess it must be Nintendo engineering and business folks
that did the real work of polishing it.

Rob K
Tokyo
Quoting Andrew Shuttleworth <andrew@andrewshuttleworth.com>:

> I tried Opera Mini on the W-ZERO3 but couldn't get it to work fully. 
> I think I couldn't send it an Okay/Enter command which made it
> very difficult to use.
>
> Andrew
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: keitai-l-bounce@appelsiini.net
>> [mailto:keitai-l-bounce@appelsiini.net] On Behalf Of
>> houser@kinjo-u.ac.jp
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 11:41 AM
>> To: keitai-l@appelsiini.net
>> Subject: (keitai-l) Re: Lengthy review of the WS003SH
>>
>> > Opera Mini is Java-based, so I guess it is less powerful
>> than Opera Mobile.
>>
>> My DoCoMo M1000 (= Motorola A1000) came with Opera Mobile,
>> but I installed Opera Mini, and much prefer it.
>
>
> This mail was sent to address tiger@zombiezodiac.com
> Need archives? How to unsubscribe? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/
>
>
Received on Wed Jul 26 07:02:06 2006