Opera Will Unify the Fragmented Mobile Web

If Opera has its way, the combination of mobile browsers and HTML 5 will enable web-based applications to compete with native applications. By using the web as an antidote, Opera believes that HTML 5 will take web-based applications to the next level, a move that Google agrees with.

Opera co-founder Jon von Tetzchner said the combination of fragmentation and native applications on mobile devices causes problems for both end users and developers. Consumers find that it is difficult to keep their mobile apps when they switch to a new phone, and developers have to pretty much start all over when they create applications for the various mobile platforms.

The use of HTML 5 on mobile browser is still ongoing. The Opera browser supports some features of HTML 5, such as graphics, but other parts are still not supported, such as the all-important video tag and localized storage, though von Tetzchner believes that storage will likely be added before the end of this year. According to Opera, over 2.6 million people used the Opera Mini browser on their iPhones in the two weeks after the April launch.