With the Norway-based Opera Software firm announcing late Monday that its Opera Mini browser would hit the iPhone App Store, it was only being expected that other browser-makers will follow suit. No wonder then that another mobile browser maker, Skyfire, Tuesday announced its intentions of taking the “iDevices” route - comprising the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

The Opera Mini Browser, which essentially circumvents Apple’s restrictions facing iPhone browsers that contest the native Safari, will boast a faster browsing experience because it will compress Internet data before displaying it on a mobile handset. The Opera Mini software will hit the iPhone and the iPod Touch on Wednesday.

According to Opera spokesman Tor Odland, Opera Mini is the first browser to have received approval for using its own software engine and components on the iPhone – the other currently-available browsers on the iPhone, like Incognito, Aquari and Shaking Web, use Safari’s own software rendering engine or other Apple components.

Odland said: “This is certainly good news for us and this will help us expand tremendously in the United States. We are basically on every other type of device in the world and this covers a big hole for us.”

Meanwhile, hinting at the Opera Mini’s proxy-related shortcomings, Skyfire chief executive Jeff Glueck specifically mentioned that Skyfire supports Flash and depends on its mobile proxy browser to play back video.