Today Opera Software announced that it will be previewing a version of Opera Mini for the iPhone during the upcoming Mobile World Congress event. Whether or not Apple will approve the app is anyone's guess, but there's one big reason it should.This entire post really only needs to be two words long, but I'll milk it out a bit. Why would Opera Mini for the iPhone be awesome?

Data costs.

Forget how good or bad the browsing experience might be, Opera's true claim to fame is its compression technology. Every month, Opera crows about how much data it has compressed, thereby saving both network operators and end users money. Fewer kilobytes, megabytes and gigabytes transiting mobile networks leads to dollars saved on both sides of the equation. What's not to like about that?

This would be killer for world travelers. Example. I am flying to Barcelona to attend Mobile World Congress. I'll most likely turn data roaming off on my iPhone and use that device strictly for voice calls and necessary SMS. Rather than pay AT&T through the wazoo in data roaming fees, I'll purchase a local SIM card once I land in Barcelona and put it in a second device. That way, I can take advantage of European 3G networks for all my mobile data needs (i.e., email, browsing, Foursquare updates) and save some money at the same time.

Were Opera Mini to be available for the iPhone, perhaps Opera's compression technology would allow me to skip this added hassle of carrying two devices when traveling abroad.

As for the iPhone version of Opera MIni itself, Opera says that it will carry forward many of the features already offered to other platforms. Those would include tabbed browsing, bookmark syncing, Speed Dial, and password manager. I'll be sure to provide some video of my experience browsing the web via Opera Mini rather than the iPhone's Safari browser at some point next week.

Of course, reality must intervene a bit here. Apple has strictly forbidden developers from offering alternative programs that duplicate the native applications on the iPhone. Opera Mini clearly duplicates the functionality of the iPhone's Safari browser. Will Apple approve Opera Mini? I find the prospect to be a slim one at best. Who knows, though. Perhaps Apple will surprise us. Hell, AT&T should be begging Apple to approve this one, as Opera's data compression could loosen the stranglehold iPhone users have placed around AT&T's neck.