Opera's iPad Coast browser debuts, packaging websites as apps
Opera has released Coast, its new browser just for the iPad that borrows from the native app experience on the tablet and applies it to web browsing.
Coast, released on the App Store on Monday, does away with familiar mainstays of the browser interface such as the URL field, back and forward icons, tabs and bookmarks.
Instead, like Apple's iOS homescreen, navigation is controlled by swipe gestures, such as a left swipe to go back, dragging on a site's icon for Opera's speed dial, or drag down to reload a page.
"Websites and apps today invite you to interact in new ways, but browser design for tablets has not pushed to liberate itself from the influence it has experienced from its computer and mobile phone cousins," Huib Kleinhout, head of the Coast project at Opera Software, said in a statement. "On a tablet, browsers felt outdated, and that bothered me."
There are also only two buttons on the interface: one that takes users back to the home page and another that shows recently-visited sites. So, while running multiple tabs won't be possible, visited websites are compiled at the bottom of the screen in stacks based on a single continuous session.
Users can also pin their most visited sites as icons to the browser's home page beneath the search bar.
Another focus of Opera's new WebKit-based browser was to utilise the screen's entire real estate to display pages. And despite the lack of an address bar, Opera claims there are 'can't miss' warnings when a person opens site that sets off site-reputation alarms.
Opera hasn't said whether Coast will be rolled out to the iPhone and other platforms yet, which Opera currently supports on Android with its Opera Mini and Opera Mobile browsers.