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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."
Given that Microsoft has a closed app store model for Windows 7 (just like the iPhone) the chances are good Microsoft would not allow Mozilla to run anyway, even if they wanted to make a nice Silverlight based browser...
That was an interesting choice on Microsoft's part, I can't believe they are not trying to grasp a lot of C# developers that have shifted to the iPhone just to move where the marketshare is. Now those guys have no reason to switch back anytime soon.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Microsoft is going to create a need for a WinPhone Dev Team to figure out how to jailbreak Windows Mobile phones?
I mean seriously, it's like they're taking everything that I like about owning a WinMo phone and throwing it away. I *like* having a file browser on my phone. I *like* having native applications. I *like* HTC's SenseUI. I *like* being able to use my phone as USB mass storage. I *like* being able to HardSPL my phone and use a custom ROM from HTCpedia or xda-developers. I *like* being able to tether my phone using a standard data plan. I *like* Opera Mobile. These are all features that WinMo had and the iPhone didn't. Between these and the dropped calls (oh, and iTunes), I ditched my iPhone and couldn't be happier. Now they're taking away even the possibility of all of these features? Sure, I could completely understand hiding the file browser by default. I could understand not allowing HTC to ship SenseUI enabled by default. I could understand wanting to streamline the process and moving away from scouring the internet for CAB files and shifting toward a more standardized development process. But seriously Microsoft, don't try to copy Apple's shortcomings at the expense of the very reasons why I chose a WinMo phone.
So the reason Microsoft is not allowing native applications is because they are requiring apps to run in either Silverlight or XNA. This is a classic strike against for-profit closed-source: their priorities do not always line up with their users. Remove the profit-motive and all of a sudden you are following your users not trying to make your own tech the standard of the day. I like my software bottom-up please, not top-down.
Shh.
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!
Good grief, just how stupid can these guys get!
Just about the ONLY nice thing people say about Windows on a phone is that it is an open platform for all the corporate junk. Now it is a closed clone of the iPhone complete with app store. All the evil with none of the hipster kewl artsy metrosexual buzz.
Without a monopoly Microsoft couldn't sell icewater in hell.
Democrat delenda est
"Widows Mobil"
A gas station only for women who have lost their husbands?
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Android has its own issues. For example, the game some Android phone makers play with modders, where every version change unroots phones, or actually bricks (as in permanently trashes w/o change to reflash) devices.
I actually miss Windows Mobile. To use the phone to its fullest capacity (yes, including capacity), I had to do no hacks, no low level patches. Just install the right program and go. Every other vendor, I have to play the game of either continuing to run a backlevel OS, or upgrade to the latest and lose capabilities until they are re-hacked in.
Of course MS locking down stuff in Windows Mobile 7 pisses me off.
My next phone, I just want something that was like my old HTC Wizard -- won't brick if someone has a badly cooked image (just a reflash), keeps root/jailbroken, and is easily hackable without the vendor pushing out patches to kill phones.
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
Microsoft will not have a closed app store model for winmo7 (although they will have their own app store). You can get an SDK and emulator right now - for free - and make XNA/Silverlight apps that can be downloaded to a winmo7 phone.
Oh really?
Like Apple and Google, Microsoft has also thrown their hat into the ring and launched an application store called Windows Phone Marketplace. The marketplace won't be empty at launch because Microsoft has a list of impressive development partners such as EA, Foursquare, Namco and Sling to name just a few. But it will indeed be a closed system, similar to Apple's iTunes App store, being the only vehicle where the end-user can download software to their smartphone.
Am I sure? Pretty sure.
Though there's no way for end users to purchase and install apps outside of the Marketplace, Microsoft is naturally working on a solution for trialling apps on a limited number of devices; if we had to guess, it'll be something akin to Apple's ad hoc installation mode, but Charlie Kindel has said that it won't be available in the first release of the platform. For now, the only way to do it is to unlock devices one at a time through the developer portal, and Microsoft isn't talking about how many devices you'll be able to unlock on an account right now.
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.
If you want to be an good Apple fan you should try not to spout nonsense - your ignorance makes Steve look bad.
The thing that really amuses me about the whole Windows vs. Mac thing, is how often the Mac people end up knowing so much more about both platforms than the people who only really know Windows. And so the trend continues it would seem.
If you have other details illustrating the degree of openness for Windows Mobile Series 7 that you claim, by all means share them with the group.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think it's safe to say anyone will probably be able to release anything they please.
I'm not sure how you missed the news if you have been paying attention to WIndows 7 Phone Series at all but... not so:
We just got out of a meeting with Microsoft's Todd Biggs, who dropped a little bombshell on us: the only official way to get apps on a Windows Phone 7 Series device will be to download them from the just-detailed Windows Phone Marketplace. That means developers will have to abide by Microsoft's technical and content guidelines in order to make it in, with the very real possibility of rejection - sound familiar? Todd told us Microsoft plans to avoid Apple-style submission headaches by making the process transparent and predictable, with a group of Microsoft execs regularly meeting to examine edge cases and refine the guidelines as needed, but even the best intentions can be led astray by a sexy app or two.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Wait -- then MS's OS/3?
And it's not that bad, really, it's not. It's not popular in the west; I could count the WiMos I've come across the past few years. Head East and it's still popular.
Skype? Gone. FF? Gone. Is Opera next?
http://www.symbian.org/
It's as open as you can possibly get. I understand coding at the OS level is some C++ weirdness or something. But it's all there. Media freedom, OS freedom, works great, lots of apps.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Nokia N900. Can replace the kernel and root FS out of the box without the need for hacks. Nice beefy hardware.
If Nokia sold an N900 with OVI Maps for Australia bundled with the phone (like they do now with various Symbian phones) and with 2100/900 3G bands for Vodafone Australia, I would seriously jump on it as my next phone.
Conversely, if someone made an Android handset with Google Navigator for Australia (especially if it integrated with Google Transit so I could say "I want to from where I am now to this location, tell me what transport options to take") and that was as hackable as the N900, I would go that route.
But since it doesn't look like any manufacturer plans to release a phone with the combination of "really hackable" and "GPS navigation that doesn't cost big bucks", I will stick with my Motorola Z6.
It's not clear to me from the linked article, but it sounds like Microsoft want all apps running on the phone to be "managed" code running on the CLR engine. This is just plain sense. It means that they can then run all apps in the same memory-space, and be sure that they are all nicely "sandboxed" so they can't corrupt each other's memory. If non-sandboxed code is allowed, then the OS has to run each app in a separate process with its own memory-space. That makes life more complicated, and adds overhead. I'm sure microsoft don't want to handle user complaints about os crashes, and have to analyse them knowing that some of the processes on that system are not sandboxed. It's a little like the Linux "tainted kernel", where you get absolutely no support if you load non-gpl kernel modules. Of course in Linux, you have the *option* of loading the modules if you really really want to. Still, I'm sure linux distros aren't keen on having lots of users with tainted kernels, and that Microsoft feel the same about their phones. Limiting apps to using CLR isn't crippling, and with the XNA lib for fast graphics added things should be even better. Ok, not quite native speed but pretty close...
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.
The thing that really amuses me about the whole Windows vs. Mac thing
For those of us who can't find large differences between an Apple laptop running Linux and an Dell laptop running Linux, thank you very much for not framing the debate as PC versus Mac.
I can't tell you how badly I hate that choice of words. It pulls me in (because I use a computer that either is or isn't made by Apple) but then leaves me out (because I use software that both isn't made by Microsoft and isn't made by Apple).
It's a relic of the past---from when PC meant IBM-compatible PC. The IBM PC business has died out as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible#The_declining_influence_of_IBM.
The word (/abbrev.) PC means nothing having to do with being a personal thing and much more about being a consumer-affordable general purpose computer (i.e. my Wii/router/phone isn't a PC, nor is my Cray 1, but my Apple laptop is); at least that's the way I use it and hear it used, except maybe by people who need to distance themselves from the majority of people who run Windows on an Intel box.
Get over yourself. Yes, I run something else too. I don't go around telling everybody about it any longer. I was a fan boy. Now I'm pretty chill about it. Linux is the set of trade-offs that works best for me; if you like something else that's fine with me. Heck if you prefer Blackbox to Fluxbox or vim to emacs, that's cool. Use what works for you. Even if it's made by a company I don't like.
Just leave me out of your mud wrestling match between you and The Windows Sheeple. Maybe we can have a beer together when you get over it?
Thanks. </rant>
...The thing that really amuses me about the whole Windows vs. Mac thing, is how often the Mac people end up knowing so much more about both platforms than the people who only really know Windows. ...
This makes me weep. I'm a system administrator for a large design company, running Mac servers with about 45 Mac clients and 10 PC clients. The Mac users are so singularly clueless about what a computer does and how it does it, it makes me cringe. It's good that OSX is simpler and more robust than Windows because, man, do they need it.
What Mac users especially are, is loud-mouthed know-it-alls who think they know more about any topic in IT because some rabidly Mac centric blog, like Daring Fireball or Roughly Drafted writes totally false articles on why Flash won't work on the iPhone (They said it's because the OS doesn't have a cursor so roll-over events won't work, which is so utterly pathetically wrong, it's just sad), for instance. Those same "knowledgeable" Mac users will then go on to scream that piece of falsehood at the top of their lungs on the internet.
Yay Mac, because having to apply one's brains is sooo uncool.
I actually miss Windows Mobile. To use the phone to its fullest capacity (yes, including capacity), I had to do no hacks, no low level patches. Just install the right program and go.
Funny, that's exactly what I've experienced with my Nokia N900.
Heck, even better than that, on day one I install code I had contributed to Simon Tatham's puzzle collection, file bugs against it, and start looking at how to develop for this mean ass machine.
I don't have to pay corporate overlords (for what, gcc? ^_^), no one is going to say "no, you can't have that software"; I'm free to play and build, and turn my phone into exactly what I want it to be. And other people want to do the same thing, so it's not like I'm all alone :-)
It has its warts, so look into reviews and troll posts on maemo forums, and decide if they sound like you can live with them. But Nokia loves you and wants you to play. /* I'm not paid to write this, I just evangelize to what I assume is an eager audience (of at least one person) */
Microsoft mobile team meeting:
OK guys, Apple made a fuckton of money on the iPhone, so we're gonna copy what they did step-for-step. Here's my hierarchical breakdown of the project.
- Phase 1: Massive initial fuckups, geek hardon removal
----Lock development down like Fort Knox
----Make sure no alternative browsers are available
----Leave basic functionality out of the OS and apps
-------Copy and Paste
-------Multitasking
-------Browser download capability
- Phase 2: Hype the LIVING SHIT out of this phone
----Spread rumors and then deny them
----Trendy ads - no Seinfeld this time
----*Idea: Plant some line campers on release day?
----Online media blitz
-------Rapidfire press releases
-------Sue bloggers for Streissand effect
-------*Idea: Torture Chinese factory worker over lost prototype?
----Promise to patch in some basic OS and app features left out in Phase 1, hype them like they're amazing new innovations
- Phase 3: ??????
- Phase 4: PROFIT!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
By "the market" I meant finger friendly touch screen phones which an emphasis on visual style and simplicity of use. That's what iPhone invented
What a bunch of revisionist nonsense. You've defined the market as a very narrow subset of the smartphone market based on a single feature (touch screen). Smart phones have been around for a long time. The iPhone may have popularised touch screens but it did not innovate. Go crawl back into your Apple fanboi hole.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer