Firefox Mobile Threatens Mobile App Stores, Says Mozilla

Barence writes "Mozilla claims that its new Firefox Mobile browser could be the beginning of the end for the hugely popular app stores created by Apple and its ilk. Mozilla claims Firefox Mobile will have the fastest Javascript engine of any mobile browser, and that will allow developers to write apps once for the web, instead of multiple versions for the different mobile platforms. 'As developers get more frustrated with quality assurance, the amount of handsets they have to buy, whether their security updates will get past the iPhone approval process ... I think they'll move to the web,' Mozilla's mobile VP, Jay Sullivan, told PC Pro. 'In the interim period, apps will be very successful. Over time, the web will win because it always does.'"

Comments

web-app-web

[ghetto2ivy]

Not without better connectivity.

Re:web-app-web

[maxume]

Or perhaps the local storage features present in html5.

Re:web-app-web

[Greenisus]

I've used the local storage features and they're great. Even made a simple hash store based on it. But you're still stuck in the browser, so the user experience isn't quite as good as a native app. Also, you have all of the overhead of the browser, so even the leanest and meanest Javascript will have a hard time keeping up with the speed of a native app. At least, that has been my experience with the iPhone and Mobile Safari.

But it's definitely moving in the right direction, especially when you throw in CSS-driven animation (which is sadly slow on the iPhone).

Nope.

[7Ghent]

Not until mobile OSes allow for direct hardware access from the browser. Palm's Web OS does, but I can't imagine Apple allowing Fennec to access the accelerometer or camera, say. Particularly if it begins to cannibalize their App Store profits.

Um...how do you figure?

[danaris]

First of all, you can be 100% certain that unless Mozilla's made some kind of specific arrangement with Apple, this will not be allowed on the App Store. It's plainly and obviously against the SDK terms.

Second...how many times have people complained that web apps are totally inadequate substitutes for native apps, for many types of application? I mean, sure, you can make an RSS reader, or a Twitter client, but what about (for instance) Myst? That's now an iPhone app, weighing in at over 500MB, if I recall correctly. Do you really think that's going to be a viable app to distribute as a web app?

Third, unless you're going to have some sort of subscription thingy worked out, how are you going to make money on web apps without intrusive ads? Again, consider Myst. No one is going to accept ads suddenly popping up when they try to link from Myst Island to Channelwood. And I doubt that people will want to pay a monthly fee to access a single-player game, either.

Fourth, if you're writing a plain web app, however fancily mobile-enhanced, how are you going to make use of the cool features of different phones? The iPhone has a camera, accelerometers, GPS, and multitouch. I admit I'm not terribly well-versed in the features of other smartphones, but a) do they all have these? b) can you access them from web apps? and c) can you access them all in the same way from web apps?

I'm betting the answers to these are all, to greater or lesser extent, "no."

Mozilla can dream about "killing the App Store." But if it ever happens, it's not going to be Firefox Mobile that does it.

Dan Aris

Re:Um...how do you figure?

[GooberToo]

You're missing the point. The point is that developers will move to browser independent webapps rather than writing an iPhone+blackberry app+htc touch app, etc.

You're missing the point. If that were going to happen, Palm would have had a smash success on their hands. As is, they've had just enough success to keep the wolves at bay. Developers AND users don't want browser apps. And from what I've read, Apple will remove the app at the first sign of success. Simply put, article's rant is nothing but a wet dream. It simply isn't going to happen - at least not any time soon.

Web browsers are not appropriate for everything, but they're becoming increasingly faster, and increasingly more appropriate for more intense tasks.

Right - and that's only just barely started to happen on the desktop where enough power exists to allow for JIT of JS. Mobile devices are no where near powerful enough at this point to allow for those types of optimizations. Maybe sometime over the next decade... Until then, its not practical, and that's just from a CPU perspective. Broadband radios drain the holy crap out of the battery. Forcing basic functionality to the browser is simply going to make users even more unhappy in addition to the crappy interfaces.

You're point four is certainly a good one but that also means additional layers on layers. That's not going to fly and simply make it unusable for vast too many applications, given the limited nature mobile platforms.

Simply put, a wet dream is a wet dream, no matter now much you want to rationalize its real. In the end, your friends are still going to roll their eyes when you insist you nailed that super model last night. Even if everyone wanted to buy into your wet dream, the technology just isn't there yet.

Re:Ahem

[MichaelSmith]

But the only really successful app store is on the iphone, and apple won't allow firefox on that platform.

Always...

[daVinci1980]

It's a little shortsighted to use "always" to describe the web's winning streak for two reasons:

1) The web has not always won. Despite Google's Office suite, Microsoft continues to dominate the office space and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. So at least in one market, thick clients have continued to win out over thin clients.

2) The web is just not that old. Claiming that the web will win because it has always won is a weak appeal to tradition made especially weak by the fact that the web is realistically 13-15 years old.

Re:Ahem

[aztracker1]

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only android user that would disagree. I have a friend who's a die hard mac fan, who's getting a Droid. There are a lot of things the users don't like in the iPhone, Apple's App Store and AT&T.

Re:Is it just me?

[ceoyoyo]

Mozilla is suggesting that Firefox should essentially be the OS for smart phones. If that came to pass, all the apps on your phone could be, at best, as stable as Firefox. Which makes the stability of Firefox definitely on topic, in addition to the speed.

Give me a break, you just made that up.

[WiiVault]

Sorry but you are wrong. The iPhone has 17% of the mobile share globally, 50% of the global app usage, and an insane 65% of the mobile HTML request. Unlike you I did the research instead of making shit up. Want the source? Here

Re:Deja Vu

[jo42]

What the PHB-tard from Mozilla forgot was the initial way of developing apps for the iPhone was in Safari via HTML, CSS and Javascript. Since day one Safari on the iPhone supported sending multi-touch info to Javascript code and many, many other Apple originated extensions to Webkit and proposed HTML and CSS standards (which Mozilla will have to add to Firefox if they haven't already). The iPhone app market exploded when a native SDK became available. Comparing developing apps in Javascript to native SDKs, on any platform, is like comparing skateboards to cars - yeah, both are transportation, with one being a toy and the other the real thing.