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No More Firefox For Windows Mobile
angry tapir writes "Mozilla has decided to stop development of a version of its Firefox mobile Web browser for phones running Windows Mobile. The reason is that Microsoft has closed the door to native applications on smartphones running its new Windows Phone 7 Series software. More reasoning can be found in a blog post by Stuart Parmenter, director of Mobile Engineering at Mozilla."
How dare they not allow native applications to run on their smartphones? Microsoft should die and burn in hell, etc., etc.
So there will only be 11 selections on the browser choice menu.
I can still pick Opera.
Have gnu, will travel.
And Java and JavaScript are completely unrelated. JavaScript is to Java as fish is to phishing.
Great analogy!
"Widows Mobil"
A gas station only for women who have lost their husbands?
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
I wonder, will the Apple fanboys defend Microsoft for this?
I think they did it because they see it works for Apple, and they are tired of being the industry whipping boy for security flaws in a platform. And honestly, who can blame them? They have formed a safe vantage point from which they will probably not be the worst platform for mobile security going forward.
I got the vibe the 7 app store was going to be closed right after they announced Windows 7 Series Mobile (any misordering of words there is not disrespect, I just have given up remembering the proper order), just because of how they framed it...
I think the closed app store model is a good idea that has helped Apple avoid some problems on the platform. What I think is a much, much less good idea is not offering the native SDK out of the chute - did they learn nothing from Palm of all people? And as I said, I think they have made a terrible mistake in not re-courting C# developers to come back into the fold. I'm sure people will jailbreak the 7 phones just like the iPhones, and we'll see some interesting stuff from that.
As far as looking for people to defend Microsoft I'll do you one better - I will even defend what they are doing with cut and paste (as in not having it). I still think it's possible to do some magic with data flows that might approximate cut & paste for most people and be an interesting alternative, so I am interested to see what they are doing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The iPhone is totally open as well if you count the ability to develop whatever you like* and deploy it - it just costs a little more, but once you have paid you can put anything** on the phone.
* Subject to limitations of no on platform multi-tasking. ** Subject to approval by Apple Corporation.