Mozilla iPhone App Coming Soon
Whenever anybody from the Mozilla, the overseers of Firefox, gets to talking about iPhone apps, the geek-blooded world gets themselves all in a tizzy. As the mobile port of Firefox, otherwise known as Fennec, ticks away through the beta paces on Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Linux, iPhone owners care about only one thing: When do they get it?
In an interview earlier today Mozilla’s CEO John Lily announced that Mozilla would be on the edge of releasing an iPhone app:
“Mozilla will release an app to the iPhone App Store in the next few weeks,” Lilly said. “It’ll surprise people.”
An app? What would it be? He didn’t give any further details for the moment but it’s pretty clear that Apple would never allow Firefox on the App Store. Apple’s guidelines clearly forbid duplicating iPhone’s core functionalities.
Nowadays, Apple has already been heavily criticized for the limitations put on third party developments, and this only adds insult to injury for Apple. Further more, Mozilla needs to acquire a license from Apple allowing for Firefox running on the iPhone. Currently, Apple forbids programs that interpret code themselves without using Apple’s APIs, making it impossible for Mozilla to release Firefox browser for the iPhone. Mozilla will instead aim for more open platforms, such as Android. For whatever the reasons, Apple’s limitations on software development may be cause for greater problems down the road, as more developers are put down by these limitations.
So, it is interesting to note what kind of an application is Mozilla actually working on. While it’s quite natural for anyone to assume it might be a new browser, keeping in mind Apple’s stand on third party browsers, we can also expect a software other than a browser. It could be anything, ranging from a bookmark sync tool or a plug in for the existing Safari browser.
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