When Apple recently lifted the NDA on iPhone application developers, it was an indication of better things to come to the popular mobile phone.

While this may hold true, Apple still have a card up their sleeve when it comes to competition and today the NY Times is reporting that Opera, the company behind the Opera web browser (seriously) and more recently Opera Mini, are being told they can't put their browser on the Apple Store.

Mac Rumours suggests Apple is within their rights to deny Opera as the 'SDK Agreement clearly forbids writing your own JavaScript interpreter', but at this stage it is unknown whether that is the case for Opera or not.

Others might think this is simply Apple denying any applications that competes with their own which we have already seen happen (interpret that how you will), and we should all note is something Apple have criticised Microsoft of (a monopoly) in the past. Apple have also said that iPhone users shouldn't expect to see any other browsers in the near future (source).

This is not so surprising though, as on the desktop Opera is far superior to Safari in just about every regard (that's just the opinion of this web developer veteran though). So the chances are the iPhone version of Opera would also beat Safari, which wouldn't sit well with Steve Jobs. As a regular user of Opera mini on the N95 I can testify to it being a great mobile browser.

Any way you want to look at it, Apple would do best to not deny potentially better applications than their own, especially as Google's Android would never turn anyone away.

I think people prefer to have a choice when it comes to what they put onto their portable devices, instead of being forced into picking only from the ones Apple dictate.