Mozilla say no to Firefox on Apple iPhone: Have they made a mistake?
March 28, 2008 By Mark
Filed under Cell Phone Information, News, iPhone News
We know the Apple iPhone is the biggest product out on the market and I do personally have the iPhone and this is why this latest news is a bit of a kick in the teeth.
I work all day on my computer and indeed use Mozilla Firefox and must say am pretty disappointed that Mozilla have said no to Firefox going on the Apple iPhone.
Mozilla invited a few technology writers to their office on Wednesday for a roundtable discussion and one of the discussions was about the Apple iPhone, John Lilly Mozilla’s CEO and VP of engineering Mike Schroepfer has said that Apple’s software requirements for the handset are too restrictive, this is when they said they will not be making Firefox for the iPhone.
Lilly said, “Apple has not written a license which allows Firefox to run on the iPhone.” Instead, they will pursue more open platforms like Android.
Do you think they have made a mistake and should have Firefox for Apple iPhone?
Source – Phones Review
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Its not that they don’t want to, its that Apple completely forbids them. If you read their SDK license you’ll see that Apple does not allow programs that interpret code themselves (ie. without using Apple’s APIs) therefore they are not allowed to put it on the iPhone.
I don’t have the technical knowledge to understand the technical issues, but have been using Apple products since the first iMac, and have been through many Apple product development stories. I use Mozilla.
My hunch is that Mozilla-on-the-iPhone is another case of “not yet”, and despite Mozilla’s pronouncements and Apple’s customary silence, that Mozilla will come to the iPhone within a year…when both sides are ready.
Why would anybody want firefox on the iPhone when they already have Safari, a better, faster and much more elegant browser? I don’t get it. Firefox needs an overhaul by the graphics department cause it looks real cheap and Safari is already much faster and doesn’t suffer the same problems like memory leaks. I do use Firefox but only for it’s web development plug in application called firebug. However I don’t need it on my iPhone! I wouldn’t mind it at all if it was available, but I wouldn’t use it!
This is completely irrelevant. The reason you can use a web browser on the iPhone is that it has the automatic zoom-in-and-out capabilities of Safari. Porting Firefox would be worthless without re-inventing that technology, and it would take a long time for them to implement a decent version of it. So I’d agree with the others: who cares? Maybe in three years this will be a relevant issue, but then the game will have changed an awful lot.
Great thing to see Firefox work with Iphone and Ipod touch want to see mozila there, it will be cool.
Misleading headline, its not Firefox says no, but again its apple restrictive terms. I have a iPhone and no matter what the loyal Mac fan boys/girls say Safari sucks, and I would love to use firefox on it.
Maybe someone can port it so you can run it like the other great apps already on a jail broken phone
It’s interesting that the “No” decision has been made public to the press…if it IS NOT going to happen,why bother saying so?
This definately sounds like apple and firefox are squaring up to try and make a deal and firefox are using this announcement to raise the publics awareness of the possibility and put pressure on Apple to be more flexible with their licencsing conditions. Its a case of Firefox “posturing” in public, at the moment…
It will be interesting to see if Apple respond, but I doubt that they’ll be willing to concede to any alterations within the Iphone set-up, as it really is the best sales and product development item that they have, and will have for the forseeable future. A lot of Apple’s future will be tied up with the further development of the iphone and similar devices, to broaden it’s market share within a very lucrative market.
For one thing I wouldn’t say that the iPhone is quote, “the biggest thing on the market” as there are far more superior 3G phones on the market that will support Mozilla and maybe Mozilla have recognised this fact.
Why would anyone want to use firefox when safari exists? Well I use it because it works properly on more sites that I attempt to access (try downloading neooffice using safari… I can’t do it– It works with firefox), it has those very very useful “Add-ins”, it has “skins”, oh yeah.. and I think its faster at rendering web pages than safari. I don’t know why people keep trying to suggest safari is better than firefox, it’s blatantly the other way around!!!
But of course seeing how I prefer the principle of opensource, plus that the iphone is an expensive phone to own.. I’m really not bothered about firefox not being implemented on it. I use my phone to text and talk. I use my laptop to access the internet (or if I really need to, my Palm TX. Now THAT I would appreciate firefox on!!)
Biggest thing on the market??? Certainly not this side of the pond.
There should be an ability to have many browsers and let the user choose one -that is the point.
However, you should not that only Opera has developed its browser to mobile phones (symbian …) and not Firefox.
If Firefox wishes to get real exposure why go for development on a minority market product. The way forward must be for Firefox to be integrated into S60 devices which sell more in one month than iPhones have ever been produced.
It just goes to show that the average Jo is into gimmics and flashy adverts. The iphone is a pretty lame peice of 3G kit.
You have and iphone? … why?