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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."
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.
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.