If you’ve wondered why nobody’s released an alternative iPhone web browser through the App Store, well, it’s probably because Apple isn’t letting anyone. At least, that’s the strong implication in a Wired interview with Mozilla boss John Lilly, who was asked whether its Firefox browser will be coming to Apple’s handset. In a word: no.
“Apple makes it too hard. They say it’s because of technical issues - they don’t want outsiders to disrupt the user experience. That’s a business argument masquerading as a technological argument. We’re focusing on more important stuff…”
You’d think Apple would be confident enough in its Safari browser to allow competition onto the handset, especially from established browser firms. Ah well.
Some companies (Goole being a good example) go out of their way to provide mobile-optimised versions of their websites. Others… not so much.
Using a badly designed site on a phone browser can be incredibly frustrating - for example, installing that Flipsilent app took ages because the hosting site helpfully put the download links right at the bottom of a huge page filled with adverts.
IBM might have a solution. They are working on a project that will let you take a favourite site and generate your own mobile version using a Firefox plugin called Highlight. This ‘mobilified’ version can be cached on an IBM server and updated as needed to give an even faster mobile experience.
As well as using heuristecs and clever algortithms to create a ‘best fit’ mobile version of a site, the system will use a browser plugin to let you define areas of the page to break off into so-called ‘pagelets’. The pplugin will ‘watch’ as you use a site and help you boil it down to just the elements you need.
Obviously, sites that rely on peppering pages with adverts might not be too keen on this approach, but it sounds like it could be great for the end user.
Firefox has been steadily increasing its market share of the web browser market on PCs and Macs, at the expense of Internet Explorer (on the former, at least). It’s been known for some time that it’s going mobile too, but Mozilla Labs’ Aza Raskin has just given us a sneak peek at how Firefox Mobile might work, in a video demo. It’s a working prototype, so may well change before us punters get our hands on it. But the browser is designed for touchscreen handsets, and has iPhone-esque scrolling and zooming, as well as the tabbed browsing approach you’d expect from Firefox. In short, it looks really, really nice. Check the demo out by clicking here. Whatever they do with it, Firefox Mobile will face stiff competition from rivals such as Opera Mini, which is also coming out with a touchscreen-enhanced edition.
The Mozilla Foundation is continuing its fine work to bring the Firefox web browser to Windows Mobile (and Symbian too? Please? Pretty please?).
While we wait (and while SkyFire plots to steal its thunder) details are starting to emerge via the Mozilla project wiki that reveal a little more about what we can expect.
Firefox Mobile will come in two flavours - one for phones with a touch screen and one for those without. The touch screen UI will be optimised for finger-tapping rather than stylus while the non-touch screen version will use a ‘virtual mouse cursor’ operated by the D-pad.
From the wiki, it’s clear that Mozilla are putting a lot of thought into how to make Firefox as usable as possible on a portable device. Among the ideas being considered are a ‘magnifying glass’ zoom function, soft keyboard and an unobtrusive way of displaying tabbed pages.
The browser is set to launch later this year. We’ll keep you posted on further developments and wild rumours.
