Ever since Opera outed Coast for iPad, its brand-new browser that re-imagined the browser as we knew it. Two questions sprang into my minds. First when they will make something similar for Android and two, when will it make appearance for iPhone. While Opera is non-committal on the first question, there is good news for iPhone users. Today Opera released the Coast for iPhone to provide an all-new browsing experience offering a very minimalistic clean interface doing away with much of the bells and whistles of traditional browsers.
Talking about the Opera Coast, Huib Kleinhout, Product Manager on the Opera Coast project at Opera Software says ” “I was never quite happy with how apps and browsers kind of got in the way of the content. With Opera Coast, we have made content the main star of the show, letting the browser app itself get out of the way when you just want to kill some time. It’s the way the web was meant to be enjoyed.”
Opera trumpets Coast as the first true made-for-touch mobile browser and I have to largely agree with it after using the Coast for iPad and now it is the turn for iPhone.
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Opera Coast for iPhone features and functionality
The homescreen of Opera coast is minimalistic with a clean look and yet functional. We have a unified search and address field on the top. Below that we have a site tile grid that can have a grid of 3×3 or 3×4 tiles where you can list your favourite websites. The tiles picks a default image from the website and list them as neat square. The tiles can be tapped and moved between the grid. Also you can swipe left and right for more entries. At the bottom, there is a tile that shows the last opened site. You can tap and drag the site to the set of site tile grid for easy access later. On the bottom right sits a small bar which shows the recent sites when pressed. Pulling down anywhere on the screen also brings the search screen active.
When on a webpage, you can long tap the picture to save it or back it as a background for the browser. Also the grid button on the bottom middle when pressed take you back to the homescreen.
Taking optimum use of touch functionality, while browsing you can go forward or backward by swiping right or left. Also pulling down at the top of a page, reloads the page.
We can also shift between recently opened sites by swiping to right or left and also can close a site by swiping it up. As a security measure, a warning appears when you access suspicious site and you can also view the site safety report.
With Coast for iPhone, Opera also has added automatic sync between iPhone and iPad the site tiles in your Coast browsers with the same iCloud account. So you can retain the site bookmarks (tile grids) across your iOS devices.
The Opera Coast browser is available today for iPhone and iPad, as a free download in the Apple App Store.]]>
