Say whaaaat? Apple approved Opera Mini Browser for the iPhone. Why is this a huge deal?

In case you didn’t know, Apple has a tendency to reject apps from its beloved App Store on the grounds of “duplicate functionality.” So if your app does something even remotely close to a feature that’s already found on the iPhone (or a feature that may be found in the iPhone at some future date) Apple will reject it flat-out.

This has been a lousy reason for rejection because, c’mon Apple, if someone can do the same thing you do, but better, don’t whine about it and not let them on your platform. Instead, man up and give the users the best possible experience, even if that experience doesn’t come from you.

Well, that’s exactly what Apple did. It allowed a rival browser on the iPhone and…it’s fast. And good. And has more features.

Kudos to Opera for creating a great browser and kudos to Apple for actually approving it. Here’s hoping it’s the beginning of a new era.