Hands-on with Coast, the iPad browser from Opera
Everything about Coast, the new iPad-only browser that Opera released Monday, was designed for browsing on Apple’s tablet. Opera threw out a number of standard conventions, including an always-present URL/search bar, forward and back buttons, and even a comprehensive history.
And while Coast was clearly tailored to iPad strengths like gesture navigation and generous screen real estate, its quirks feel too much like shortcomings. Some will appreciate Coast’s style while others will long for a browser that behaves like a browser—such as the default Safari browser or third-party Google Chrome.
When you launch Coast, you’re greeted by a grid of square favicons that will eventually represent your favorite sites. (Coast starts you off with some favorites like The Next Web, Google+, Digg, YouTube and Reddit.) Swipe right-to-left for more grids—you can have four total. The grids default to 3x3, but the settings let you change that to 3x4, giving you space for up to 48 favorite sites.
Coast pre-populates its four grids with sites you might find interesting, but you can ditch any of those and replace them with sites you actually visit.
Strangely, this scheme is the only bookmarking feature available. You can’t bookmark a page other than the site’s homepage (no going right to the New York Times’ Style section, for example), and forget about using a bookmarklet. Sure, setting up bookmarklets in Mobile Safari is a pain, but it’s still possible.
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