AUSTIN, Texas — Opera Software has a version of its Mini browser prepped and ready for the iPhone. Opera Mini 5 for the iPhone will be available in the App Store in a matter of weeks, but the company is demoing a beta version of the tiny mobile browser here at South by Southwest Interactive.

We got to see a live demo of the app in action, but we weren’t allowed to photograph it due to the company’s agreement with Apple. The screenshot at left is all that’s been approved for distribution.

Opera Mini 5 has the same features as all other implementations of Opera Mini for other mobiles. It syncs history and preferences data (like Speed Dial), it has a customizable search field, and it can discover and subscribe to RSS feeds. It also has an elegant tab switcher that lets you browse your open tabs like you’re shuffling a stack of cards.

All versions of Opera Mini use proxy servers to squish pages and images before they’re delivered to your phone, greatly speeding up page loads over slower connections. Opera claims a 90% compression rate, which is impressive, but the trade off is that you lose one of the iPhone’s special features. There’s no multi-touch on the iPhone version of Opera Mini. You can double-tap to zoom, but not pinch to zoom. Even so, it’s nice to have the option to load an alternative browser onto the iPhone, which right now only has Mobile Safari.

Look for it in the App Store some time in the next few weeks. An Android version was recently released as well. Try it out at Opera’s site.

We’re headed to Austin, Texas tomorrow along with the crew from Wired’s Underwire blog to attend South By Southwest Interactive. The week-long nerd fest starts Friday, and we’ll be reporting from the trenches.

If you’re headed down to SXSWi, here’s what Webmonkey will be checking out. If you’re not going this year, you’ll be able to follow along from home here on the blog and everywhere else on the intertubes using the hashtags #sxsw, #sxswi and #sxsw2010.

The Wired Party, of course. Monday, March 15th at 5pm.

Molly Holzschlag from Opera leading a discussion about the current issues surrounding web browsers. Saturday, March 13 at 12:30pm.

The ActivityStrea.ms crew talks up their data format, which aims to let real-time status updates work across the entire social web. Saturday, March 13 at 9:30am.

The Beauty in Web Design panel, where designers will contemplate what it takes to move beyond usability and into real beauty on the web. Friday, March 12 at 2pm

New Publishing and Web Content, Jeff Zeldman’s panel about the use of web standards in e-books, e-magazines and the future formats of digital publishing. Saturday, March 13 at 5pm.

The Mozilla Party, happening right after the e-publishing panel. Saturday, March 13 at 6pm.

The SXSW Web Awards on Sunday night.

Google’s Hackathon, a hands-on app-building workshop. Sunday, March 14, all day.

Evan Williams’ keynote. We think he’s going to talk about Twitter or something. Monday, March 15 at 2pm.

Fun with HTML5 Video. As messy as the landscape is, there’s still some cool, creative stuff being done on the bleeding edge. You’ll see some of it here, Sunday, March 14 at 3:30pm.

Google Talks About Gmail and Buzz on Sunday, March 14 at 5pm.

The Bigg Digg Shindigg, with a live Diggnation broadcast and a live set from The Walkmen. Saturday night at Stubb’s BBQ

Scott Gilbertson will be holding down the daily coverage on the blog while I’m attending these (and other) fabulous SXSW events. I’ll also be tweeting as @webmonkey whenever anything interesting happens, which should be often. So stay tuned!