Mozilla Shows Off Junior, a Simple Browser Built for iPad

The Verge reports that Mozilla last week showed off a prototype browser built for the iPad called Junior, based on a simplified interface and gesture-based controls. Junior — remember, not a shipping product — is full-screen, and lacks tabs; most controls are off-screen until called up with an on-screen button, to emphasize whatever page is loaded. See the video demo for an idea of what Junior is like in use.

Comments

Good, but a little pointless.

[Sasayaki]

More browser competition on the iPhone is fantastic, but it'd be even better if iOS allowed you to change the default browser so that when you tapped a link in an email it would open in that browser. Currently this is not possible; no matter how many browsers you have installed, you tap a link in an app (such as Mail) it opens in Safari. You can't change that, and you can't uninstall Safari, although you can remove it from your quicklaunch tray if you want and put something else there. Doesn't fix the problem though.

I don't really care much for being able to remove Safari -- it's probably arc-welded to the OS anyway, and if you take it off your quicklaunch and change the default browser you'll never see it -- but without the ability to make Junior/Opera/Long Awaited Chrome For iOS/etc your default browser, choice is a bit of an illusion.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[gl4ss]

it would be even better if they allowed other engines on the app store.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[Sasayaki]

This is extremely unlikely. I very much doubt that, ever, Apple will ever allow a non-native toolkit to be installed on the iPhone. Their philosophy is "We own and control everything down to the sandboxed app level and manually approve every app", and the official reason why they do this is because it allows for a uniform user experience without weird bugs caused by strange combinations ("When I use Chrome with Gecko some pages render funny!"). The fact that doing so allows them to make dump trucks full of money out of the defacto walled garden is incidental.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[flyingfsck]

There is always a way to do what you want with UNIX. You can rename Safari to something else, then make a soft link that fools the unconfigurable applications that call Safari to call your browser of choice. This should not be a big deal at all.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[Sasayaki]

Yes, if you jailbreak you can do anything, obviously. Removing WebKit would be a *bit* harder, since I assume it's basically built into the OS in a very deep level, but hey. You start the kickstarter to fund having a team look at ways of replacing it with a suitable alternative, I'll throw in some cash. ;)

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[MachDelta]

This post gave me deja-vu. I swear it was only a few years ago we were all sitting around complaining about Microsoft "arc-welding" IE to Windows and limiting customers' ability to change browsers. Only difference this time is that Apple doesn't have quite the same market stranglehold that Microsoft did/does. It does make one wonder though - given the mass shift away from desktop PCs towards more portible devices, and if Apple did come to utterly dominate the laptop/mobile market, how long would it take for Apple to wind up in a courtroom? If ever?

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[janek78]

"Utterly dominate" as in ~8 % of the mobile phone market? Or ~25 % of the smartphone market? Apple is big, but utter domination looks different, IMO.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[wvmarle]

Safari is too integrated then, pity. But not surprising.

Anyway this Junior is a prototype browser, an experimental interface. It must be seen like that: an experiment with new interfaces. This is also the interesting part of it, and that they do it on the iPad may be just a marketing ploy. "New browser for iPad" sounds much better than "new browser for Android tablet". The the average consumer the iPad is hot hot hot, the Android tables are the cheap second choice.

It is great that these experiments are done, it shows people that there are more ways to do the same task. Not all experiments will work though, others may refinement, or will inspire a third party into making something that does work well.

If this browser is released, and if it gains significant popularity, then people will call on Apple to allow them to change the default. Maybe Apple will listen, maybe people will defect to Android systems where they can use Junior, let the market decide.

While it's sad that Safari is so tightly integrated, we're still talking about a single product line of a single vendor. There is a lot of competition: on the hardware side there are dozens of other hardware vendors producing tablet computers, on the software side there is Android, plus some secondary choices like Windows 8 (RT for tablets, iirc). Linux vendors are also creating typical tablet interfaces (like Ubuntu's unity). Neither has any traction near what Android has, but they are there nonetheless.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[arkane1234]

In case you didn't notice, the GP was referring to people shifting from using PCs to mobile devices, not cell phones.

Smart phones are only one demographic of the mobile device market. I'm willing to bet tablets were the environment being referred to...

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[ThePeices]

Only difference this time is that Apple doesn't have quite the same market stranglehold that Microsoft did/does.

Apple has a complete and total monopoly on the iOS market.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[shoehornjob]

it would be even better if they allowed other engines on the app store.

Then Apple would not have access to your data. I like Opera but I use the Google search tool as well as Safari. A Firefox browser would be a welcome addition though.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. But the iOS market is just one part of a much bigger mobile device market. No one is forcing you to buy an iPhone/iPad. You can choose between a number of different manufacturers. So no, Apple still doesn't have quite the same market stranglehold that Microsoft did. Installing and running Linux was not an option for many users at the time (and still are not).

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[whisper_jeff]

I'm going to have to disagree - webkit is simply superior to the other options out there, imho. Whether you're using Safari or Chrome (my preference is Safari but take your pick - both are excellent), you simply get a better experience with webkit than you do with any of the other options. Obviously, that's my opinion in my experience but I have yet to experience something rendered by a different engine that makes me think "wow, that really was better than webkit".

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[SuricouRaven]

And it'll only cost you a couple of hundred quid extra to even have a choice of more than one market. It is cost-prohibitive for most users to own both an iPad and an Android, as well as awkward with media purchased for one device being unplayable on the other due to DRM (Pirates excepted, of course) and compatibility issues. Vendor lock-in is an important factor to consider.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure if it works with hyperlinks the way it does with media files, but if you just hold your finger on the app or link, you get a popup to choose which application to open it with. I see this with VLC as well as a variety of media players i have installed on a non-jailbroken iOS device.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only difference"? Seriously, MS used their market leverage to force vendors to install IE or they threatened to yank their access to windows (effectively killing any chance that vendor would have had in competing in the PC market).

Having market dominance doesn't mean anything, and it's certainly not illegal unless you use that leverage unfairly in the market place.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[Nerdfest]

Allowing other browsers doesn't stop people deom using webKit, it just gives them the option. You're disagreeing with giving people the option (and so is Apple).

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

How would you know? You can't install anything else.

"No siree, ain't nothing ever going to be better than a good ol' horse and buggy. I mean, look at them horseless carriages.. I don't need to try one to know they are inferior, come on, they don't even have a horse!"

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[Savage-Rabbit]

Apple doesn't have quite the same market stranglehold that Microsoft did/does.

And that's a pretty important difference. Thanks to Android and Samsung, Apple does not have a stranglehold and cannot play kingmaker like MS could on the PC market
.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that an important distinction is that Microsoft at least allowed you to change the default browswer. iOS does not allow the same functionality, at least not currently.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[vic.tz]

While I agree it'd be nice to be able to set a default browser, the vast majority of my browsing sessions start with me tapping the Safari icon and visiting one of my bookmarks. Maybe 1 out of 20 sessions start with a link from another app, to put an arbitrary number to it. Simplifying the majority of my ipad browser usage would be a welcome upgrade (i.e. not pointless).

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on the desktop market, only on the Windows market.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on the desktop market, only on the Windows market.

Microsoft was found to have a monopoly on the market for operating systems running on x86 processors. Nothing wrong with that, but they were also found to have used that monopoly to keep consumers from having alternatives in the OS and browser markets.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[ceoyoyo]

"Only difference this time is that Apple doesn't have quite the same market stranglehold that Microsoft did/does."

Yeah, that's generally a prerequisite for a charge of abusing your monopoly power.

"It does make one wonder though - given the mass shift away from desktop PCs towards more portible devices, and if Apple did come to utterly dominate the laptop/mobile market, how long would it take for Apple to wind up in a courtroom?"

Not very long at all.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[MightyYar]

Vendor lock-in is an important factor to consider.

You ain't kidding! I have all of these options I bought for my Ford that won't even work at all with my new Chevy! What the hell?

Ford has a monopoly on Fords, and it is disgusting.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[ncc74656]

More browser competition on the iPhone is fantastic, but it'd be even better if iOS allowed you to change the default browser so that when you tapped a link in an email it would open in that browser.

Browser Changer will do that.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[shutdown -p now]

Or 80% of the tablet market?

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[BasilBrush]

Remember, Apple came from nowhere in these markets. When they launched the iPhone in 2007, they had an ambition to get just 1% of the phone market. A year later when they launched the App Store, there was no predetermined inevitability that it wold work. Smartphone apps had been around for a decade as a tiny niche. When they launched the iPad, various other companies had tried and failed to create a commercially successful tablet.

Yes for sure these markets make them dump-trucks full of money. But there is only one possible reason for that. Because vast numbers of people like what Apple creates, products and surrounding ecosystem. Their "official reason why they do this is because it allows for a uniform user experience without weird bugs caused by strange combinations" is very, very popular. To put it more succinctly "It just works."

For sure Apple won't be allowing any other browser engine on iOS. Because there is no benefit to the consumer in doing so. Browser rendering is a essentially a commodity. But a few trivial differences in browser engines can mean that occasionally a web-site will behave badly on a particular browser. By standardising on a single renderer, the consumer is better served - any web page that is intended to work with an iPad will work with any iPad browser. No incompatibilities. And as Google's Chrome also uses Webkit, essentially any web-site intended to work on mobile devices will always work perfectly. A Mozilla rendering engine would do more harm than good. And for what? The idea of Open Source? Webkit is open source anyway.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[BasilBrush]

Google's the one that only wants you for your data (and to show advertising to.) Apple's proposal is more honest. They make their money by selling hardware, software and entertainment media.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[BasilBrush]

Contrary to popular opinion, choice is not necessarily a good thing. And for browser rendering engines it's definitely not a good thing. Browser rendering engines are essentially a commodity - all supposedly adhering to the same set of standards. But bugs and slightly different interpretations of those standards create problems for web-developers and problems for users. Better to have a defacto standard for mobile by only having one engine. Far better than the situation on the desktop where sometimes people have multiple browsers for no other reason than ome websites don't work well on certain browsers.

Webkit is that defacto mobile standard. Not just because Apple uses it, but Google's standard Chrome browser onAndroid uses it too. As do most other varieties of smartphones. Nokia did too until Microsoft's stealth take over.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[yincrash]

So why aren't we all just using Internet Explorer 6

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[BasilBrush]

6?

I didn't say anything about not advancing that defacto standard on as new web standards appear.

And of course the problem with IE as a defacto standard is that it isn't available on different platforms. Other than Windows, it appeared for a while on Macs. And that's it. Webkit on the other hand is open source, and therefore can be put on any platform. Hence why most mobile devices use it.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[ThePeices]

Hear that whooshing sound?

Faint tho it may be ( due to excessive altitude ) but you guessed right. Thats the unmistakeable sound of a funny joke flying waaaayyyy over your head.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[rastoboy29]

Android doesn't have this problem.

Your description is a nutshell summary of what is wrong with closed source software--especially OS's.

It's not even so much that "you can go in there and change it if you don't like it".  It's more along the lines of who the OS and software makers are thinking of when they design it.  In closed source, the designers are thinking of themselves, primarily, and the users second.  In open source, it's all about the user.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

For sure Apple won't be allowing any other browser engine on iOS. Because there is no benefit to the consumer in doing so. Browser rendering is a essentially a commodity. But a few trivial differences in browser engines can mean that occasionally a web-site will behave badly on a particular browser. By standardising on a single renderer, the consumer is better served - any web page that is intended to work with an iPad will work with any iPad browser. No incompatibilities.

Hrm...sounds exactly like a strategy for a certain browser in the 90s, but once you have enough market power you can't do that anymore because it artificially locks out competition.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[theweatherelectric]

The fact that doing so allows them to make dump trucks full of money out of the defacto walled garden is incidental.

This is naive. Generating profit and increasing shareholder value are Apple's primary concerns, as they are with any large corporation. It is not incidental. It is an explicit goal and everything Apple does is designed to achieve that goal.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[theweatherelectric]

For sure Apple won't be allowing any other browser engine on iOS. Because there is no benefit to the consumer in doing so.

There are clear benefits for the end user that are derived from browser competition. You need only look at the improvement in browsers on the desktop to see that.

Apple won't allow other browser engines on iOS because it introduces competition on the platform and has the potential to diminish Apple's opportunity for profit. The capability to run web-based applications on iOS in a full version of Firefox or Opera or Chrome horrifies Apple because it would mean iOS users could install applications through distribution channels other than the one Apple controls and profits from. It also means that a user of Firefox or Opera or Chrome can more easily move to another platform because they can just go ahead and keep using Firefox or Opera or Chrome on the new platform with a minimum of fuss.

Remember: corporations hate competition. They will always do everything they can to avoid it.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[BasilBrush]

There are clear benefits for the end user that are derived from browser competition. You need only look at the improvement in browsers on the desktop to see that.

I see no evidence that that is true. What we had is 15 years of web-developer hell as they tried to create web-sites that would work across all the browsers. And consumer frustration as they found that some of the web-sites wouldn't work well with their browser. Presumably you think all that was worth it because very slowly browsers got better. Dogma says that competition improves things, but I see no evidence of it here. In fact software that is much used, and has no significant competition also improves over the years, without causing all that incompatibility hell.

Apple won't allow other browser engines on iOS because it introduces competition on the platform and has the potential to diminish Apple's opportunity for profit.

You don't understand Apple. Apple got to be what it is by designing the best products for consumers. That's what motivates their product decisions. By having the best products the money follows. Apple doesn't sell Safari. It's free. They suffer no financial loss from other browsers on the platform. And indeed there are plenty of other browsers on the platform. It's only the rendering engine that's mandated to be one defacto-standard. And that's for user experience reasons.

Remember: corporations hate competition. They will always do everything they can to avoid it.

People are not all the same. Neither are corporations.

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[theweatherelectric]

I see no evidence that that is true.

I see no evidence that it isn't true. Browsers are more capable and faster today than they were even two years. Every browser maker wants their browser to be the fastest and the benchmark is the speed of other browsers. Competition breeds improvement.

And indeed there are plenty of other browsers on the platform.

There are no other browsers on iOS. There are only shadows of other browsers. If you can't have your full browser stack on iOS, there are no competiting browsers.

It's only the rendering engine that's mandated to be one defacto-standard. And that's for user experience reasons.

*Only* the rendering engine? You mean the most fundamental part of any browser? In any case, it's both the JavaScript engine and the rendering engine that are banned. My user experience would be improved by being able to run full Firefox on iOS. I like Firefox. I can run Firefox on Windows. I can run Firefox on OS X. I can run Firefox on Linux. I can run Firefox on Android. There is no justification for not being able to run Firefox on iOS. The quality of the user's experience is for the user to decide, not Apple.

People are not all the same. Neither are corporations.

If you want to draw an analogy between people and corporations, corporations are psychopaths. This may help you: http://www.economist.com/node/2647328

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[SuricouRaven]

You want a car analogy? How about if Ford modified their engines only to accept Ford-branded petrol, identified by a patented additive marker?

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[MightyYar]

You mean like how Apple only uses Apple-branded electricity?

Re:Good, but a little pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes for sure these markets make them dump-trucks full of money. But there is only one possible reason for that. Because vast numbers of people like what Apple creates, products and surrounding ecosystem. Their "official reason why they do this is because it allows for a uniform user experience without weird bugs caused by strange combinations" is very, very popular. To put it more succinctly "It just works."

Apple is a rich company that stays rich by selling rich people toys to rich people year after year after year. The majority of us struggle to even get the previous or two models previous version of the iPhone. Apple represents the new world order where governments are supported by the incomes of the very few, while the underclass just works to survive.

Kudos to you, my man.

Mozilla Edsel?

[Tablizer]

Like the PC Junior name did so well for IBM.

Finally!

[matunos]

A browser that can consume all available memory *and* offer a simple UI!

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

A browser that can consume all available memory *and* offer a simple UI!

The anti-M$ people might downvote this on autopilot, but it is interesting how everything called out as new in the summary about this new Mozilla browser is taken from Metro IE10 in Windows 8: "based on a simplified interface and gesture-based controls. Junior — remember, not a shipping product — is full-screen, and lacks tabs; most controls are off-screen until called up with an on-screen button, to emphasize whatever page is loaded" this is all exactly what Microsoft has been showing with Metro IE10 in Windows 8.

Re:Finally!

[Nutria]

The difference is that Mozilla only wants to do it on the iPad, but MSFT wants it on the desktop.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that Mozilla only wants to do it on the iPad, but MSFT wants it on the desktop.

On the desktop you have the option of a normal UI (non-Metro) version of IE10. I've tried the Win8 RC and agree that the Metro interface is a big question mark for non-touch "desktop" use on traditional hardware. It becomes mainly an app launcher into the desktop mode.

But already laptops are outselling desktop PCs by almost 50% according to IDC, and this trend is accellerating. And in this new world of new mobility hardware, the combination of Metro and traditional Windows might make more sense. I for one would love to travel with a full power (thin and light) laptop that I can work on, but convert into a touch tablet for media consumption, games, etc. It won't be a side-by-side iPad competitor, but something new, I won't have to travel with both laptop and iPad. I do have an iPad2, a very nice device for its use, but I think there are room and demand for other kinds of devices that are not exactly the same. You will also have a new generation of multitouch trackpads for Windows 8 on non-touch screen laptops, where a big pad on your laptop (or even separate, maybe the new mouse matt is just the matt, not the mouse.. :) becomes a proxy for the touch interface.

Microsoft seems to make a big bet on things changing, not staying the same, which is the exact opposite of what they usually has been criticized for over the years. And that I find refreshing, for the industry and as a user, regardless of the initial sales success or not (even Apple spectacularly failed their first attempt with Newton).

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget so that they can forget the point of their own browser and add more bloat to it, eventually creating a blackhole that consumes ignorance!

Oh Mozilla... what did you do to FF?

Re:Finally!

[AmiMoJo]

I'd prefer they were working on the desktop version TBH. What ever happened to one process per tab?

Re:Finally!

[SuricouRaven]

That sounds a lot like how firefox looks when I press F11, or the android browser. It doesn't take a visionary genius to realise that if you really need to maximise useable screen space you need to conceal controls until needed.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

My thoughts, exactly. I love Firefox. It took years of continued poor behavior on the browser's part before I finally forced myself to leave it. Fuck, I used to be an engineer at Netscape. Firefox/Netscape and I go way fucking back. But all I ever see are excuses and justifications from the Mozilla team (and others) for why the browser can't handle its booze (while Chrome handles it just fine when I use it in exactly the same way with almost exactly the same extensions).

When it comes down to it - all that matters is the results. I don't care WHY you can't do it. That you can't do it is all that matters to me.

Re:Finally!

[transporter_ii]

And it is already at version 8.02

Re:Finally!

[MichaelJ]

s/can't/won't/g

When it comes down to it - all that matters is the results. I don't care WHY you won't do it. That you won't do it is all that matters to me.

There, I fixed that for you.

Re:Finally!

[ceoyoyo]

And it sounds like what Safari already does on the iPad (except for the unnecessary button to bring up the interface). So what?

Re:Finally!

[CastrTroy]

I think the reason that laptops are outpacing desktops is because desktops hit the "good enough" stage quite a while ago. If you look at people who aren't power users, they have no reason to upgrade. Most now only buy desktops to replace their current one when it breaks down. Also, most households probably have one desktop computer. Laptops on the other hand are still in the position where they are worth upgrading every 2 years because of lack of ability to upgrade certain components, and because there are still quite a few advancements being made. My desktop is currently 5 years old, and I see no reason to upgrade it. It still does every thing I need it to do. My laptop on the other hand is only 1.5 years old, and I can already see some reasons for getting a new one, although I'll probably hold onto it until it's at least 3 years old. Also many households probably have 2 or 3 laptops. If you got a family with 2 teenage kids, it wouldn't be uncommon to have 4 laptops in the house..

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds a lot like how firefox looks when I press F11, or the android browser. It doesn't take a visionary genius to realise that if you really need to maximise useable screen space you need to conceal controls until needed.

So what you are saying is that Mozilla has started the whole Junior dev project just to press F11 for you? (because the above list is the main listed goals of the project)

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

And it sounds like what Safari already does on the iPad (except for the unnecessary button to bring up the interface). So what?

I'm sitting here with an iPad2 in front of me, and this simply isn't the same. Default it has a quite traditional browser UI, with permanent header, toolbar buttons, url box and search box. It is not the same as how Junior and Metro IE10 does completely away with all of the chrome when surfing. If you prefer one over the other is a different discussion, but Safari on iPad looks much more like a traditional browser than what Mozilla and MS are doing here.

cat got my tongue

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is mozilla making a specific product for something as closed as the ipad? Wouldn't they be encouraging its use indirectly?

Re:cat got my tongue

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is mozilla making a specific product for something as closed as the ipad? Wouldn't they be encouraging its use indirectly?

What gave you the idea that Mozilla's ethos is the same as Richard Stallman's?

Why is making a web browser that runs on iOS any different than making a web browser that runs on Windows?

Re:cat got my tongue

[arkane1234]

I hate to break it to you, it's already being used.
The difference would be that Mozilla would be on it to use.

Re:cat got my tongue

[gl4ss]

Why is mozilla making a specific product for something as closed as the ipad? Wouldn't they be encouraging its use indirectly?

What gave you the idea that Mozilla's ethos is the same as Richard Stallman's?

Why is making a web browser that runs on iOS any different than making a web browser that runs on Windows?

because they can't release it on the iOS with gecko doing rendering and javascript running. making a web browser that runs on iOS would be great, but making a web UI skin could be regarded as waste of money.

But ...

[mister2au]

More importantly, will it render quickly? I suspect given Apple's policies it will need to use webkit and therefore not much to gain there.

My pet hate is trying to scroll complex pages in Safari - don't care about gestures, tabs, hidden GUI elements

Isn't this against their mission?

[Skuto]

I don't understand the point of this at all. The idea of the Mozilla Foundation was to be a non-profit to promote web standards. So it makes a lot of sense to work on their own rendering engine Gecko, which can be used to implement new web standards, and a browser that contains it (Firefox).

This is just a WebKit shell. What purpose does it serve that furthers that goal? Is Mozilla abandoning Gecko in favor of WebKit? They've said several times that would never happen because multiple implementations (engines) are needed to have a real standard, yet they are now promoting Apple's WebKit version.

Calling this a browser is a lie. Mozilla went from being a company that made browsers and made it a statement to point out where this was not allowed (Apple's ecosystem, and recently Microsofts) to a company that is comfortable locking itself in into those closed ecosystems with fake products that do nothing to promote the open web, perhaps even on the contrary.

That said, I can't seem to find anything on Mozilla's pages, so for all I know this is the press getting things entirely wrong yet again. But I'd love to see some clarification here - it's almost unbelievable if this goes through.

Re:Isn't this against their mission?

[ChunderDownunder]

If it's a concept-UI only, perhaps the feeling is they wanted to share concepts with the fussiest group of guinea pigs - Apple users.

iOS enjoys market penetration and a fan base picky about software that doesn't gel with the look and feel of the host platform. In this sense, it's a reasonable strategy - if you want a killer browser for mobile, to out-safari safari is a good start.

If this thing smashes all expectations amongst Apple fans, its conceptual UI could migrate to Mozilla's fledgling boot to gecko project. B2G is a nice idea but it's not ideal to prototype ideas to a mass user base - which currently consists of a maybe a handful of people outside Mozilla who decided to void their Galaxy S2's warranty.

More than likely it's just the work of a couple of bored Firefox for OS X developers wanting to hone their skills on iOS, and potentially sharing some of the non-gecko, darwinesque infrastructure. The effort might not necessarily be wasted should Apple ever unify iOS and OS X by applying a Metro-like veneer to the Mac!

Re:Isn't this against their mission?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa mate, you are going all wrong on the assumption that the decision to use webkit is Mozilla's decision.

It is not, it is Apple's decision. They mandate that only webkit will be used for web browsing.

Never duplicate core functionality in iOS.

Re:Isn't this against their mission?

[thetoadwarrior]

So much stupid, it hurts.

Video

[Judas-Priest]

Releasing an iPad app with a video that doesnt paly in the iPad is a really bad sign. Did they even tested it?

Re:Video

[nzac]

Releasing an iPad app with a video that doesn't play in the iPad is a really bad sign. Did they even tested it?

Of course they knew it would not work. There is no 'free' way to do this as far as i know.
Its using webM.

Re:Video

[gl4ss]

youtube would have worked.

Re:Video

[nzac]

So would have embedded H264 video* but that's not a royalty free web standard.
*I think

Re:Video

[crossword.bob]

Works fine on mine...

Re:Video

[Judas-Priest]

How? With Safari?

Showing off junior

[LongearedBat]

Isn't it illegal to show off bare bones juniors on the internet?

Re:Showing off junior

[Dog-Cow]

No.. What's illegal is showing of Junior's bare boner.

Re:Showing off junior

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid joke is stupid.

Re:Showing off junior

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Mozilla - in a few weeks it'll be Junior 18

I will try it, on android.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I would like to try it. Isn't there an android version yet?.

Re:Allow me to slurp your tiny little snap!

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Spam on /. is getting worse. Whatever happened to goatse and fristpost?

Off screen controls

[Anonymous Coward]

...most controls are off-screen until called up...

That iBooks app also works like this, I think it's incredibly annoying behavior... YMMV of course.

YES! NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla Shows Off Junior, a Simple Browser

YES! Finally!

Built for iPad

FUCK! Suddenly I lost all interest.

Re:YES! NO!

[pandronic]

If you want to try a new great browser from Mozilla, try the Firefox Mobile Nightly for Android: http://nightly.mozilla.org/
It still has some bugs, being a nightly and all, but the performance is great, the UI is miles ahead of anything on Android, it has Flash support and IMO, the best rendering engine on Android.

Re:YES! NO!

[halcyon1234]

f you want to try a new great browser from Mozilla, try the Firefox Mobile Nightly for Android: http://nightly.mozilla.org/

Does it support the Trinity of plugins? (Adblock, Noscript, Ghostery)

Re:YES! NO!

[pandronic]

I don't use any of these add-ons, so I can say for sure, but after doing a quick search it seems it does. Check it out for yourself: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile/search/?q=adblock&appver=&platform=

Also, I forgot to mention in my first post ... I use it on an ICS Asus Transformer, so I've got no idea how it works on phones.

Surprisingly blunt

[gstrickler]

If you watch the video (it's about 52mins long), he's surprisingly blunt. It's not a polished presentation, but it is interesting.

Re:Surprisingly blunt

[Anonymous Coward]

If you watch the video (it's about 52mins long), he's surprisingly blunt. I

5 minutes is blunt. 52 minutes is ... way too long.

Oh good, a peek at next year's GNOME browser.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) It's for an Apple product so it will catch their attention.
2) It involves a touch interface so its the future
3) Just one window with no buttons on it regardless of screen size is a Gnome design fundamental.

Re:Be a Better Parent – Protect Your Childre

[couchslug]

Doing something to fuck up these SEO posts is looking better and better.

Might be time for an "Ask Slashdot" on the subject...

Re:Allow me to slurp your tiny little snap!

[inasity_rules]

Might I suggest everyone go to my clean pc and lodge complaints with the better business bureau. Read http://thebloodysiteabove.com/privacy-policy.html , and look down to the relevant paragraph. Either that or spam their emails with goatse....

Re:Off-screen controls...

[kelemvor4]

Could have been the first post, but the catcha was off-screen...

How'd that guy get modded off topic? Seems slightly humorous and very much on topic to me...

Browserchanger in Cydia sets default browser

[blahbooboo]

More browser competition on the iPhone is fantastic, but it'd be even better if iOS allowed you to change the default browser so that when you tapped a link in an email it would open in that browser. Currently this is not possible; no matter how many browsers you have installed, you tap a link in an app (such as Mail) it opens in Safari. You can't change that, and you can't uninstall Safari, although you can remove it from your quicklaunch tray if you want and put something else there. Doesn't fix the problem though.

I don't really care much for being able to remove Safari -- it's probably arc-welded to the OS anyway, and if you take it off your quicklaunch and change the default browser you'll never see it -- but without the ability to make Junior/Opera/Long Awaited Chrome For iOS/etc your default browser, choice is a bit of an illusion.

Browserchanger in Cydia jailbreak app store allows you to set default web browser.

Not a shipping product.....

[MarkGriz]

"Junior — remember, not a shipping product"

and yet it's already at version 8.

Mozilla Junior

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, it kind of sounds like an alt-alt 90s band...

Re:Allow me to slurp your tiny little snap!

[tehcyder]

Might I suggest everyone go to my clean pc and lodge complaints with the better business bureau. Read http://thebloodysiteabove.com/privacy-policy.html , and look down to the relevant paragraph. Either that or spam their emails with goatse....

I find it hard to believe that these posts are genuinely spam from My Clean PC. They are so bathetic they're works of genius. The one where the guy loses his wife, gets cancer and is only redeemed by installing My Clean PC is quite simply hilarious, but is as likely to persuade me to buy their software as if they came round and nailed my head to the floor.

I thought apple didn't allow competing products?

[Cutting_Crew]

Apple letting another browser app onto the platform? Unless I have amnesia I am pretty sure that they are pretty strict on rejecting apps that compete with their own?

Is it all Safari under the hood?

[swb]

I have a third party browser called "AtomicWeb" which does some basic ad blocking and tab browsing. I installed it a couple of years ago but I've always suspected it was basically just a slightly different UI with a few more features added on but essentially under the hood it was Safari.

Re:Is it all Safari under the hood?

[gl4ss]

I have a third party browser called "AtomicWeb" which does some basic ad blocking and tab browsing. I installed it a couple of years ago but I've always suspected it was basically just a slightly different UI with a few more features added on but essentially under the hood it was Safari.

yep.

you see, the reason is that if they did allow programs which could run other programs from the wide 'net, then there would be little point in paying the apple tax at all. so you can't have extended js runtimes.

Re:Is it all Safari under the hood?

[Anonymous Coward]

yep.

you see, the reason is that if they did allow programs which could run other programs from the wide 'net, then there would be little point in paying the apple tax at all. so you can't have extended js runtimes.

Slow down, you're losing me. What kind of "programs from the wide 'net" can you not run with the built-in Safari browser that you could hypothetically run with an "extended js runtime?" What kind of extensions would you want to add to JavaScript to make this possible?

Re:Is it all Safari under the hood?

[shutdown -p now]

You didn't understand what GP meant. Apple's policy is "no general-purpose runtimes in the app store", because if they were to allow such a thing, it could then be used to run arbitrary apps that don't come from the app store, thereby circumventing their screening process. A modern third-party browser engine is, effectively, a general-purpose runtime.

Re:Is it all Safari under the hood?

[BasilBrush]

You seem to have forgotten that Apple's original plan for third-party apps for the iPhone was web-apps. The plan was roundly rejected by everyone.

As it was when Palm/HP tried it with "WebOS". It killed Palm, and HP had to have a firesale of the devices that no one would buy.

The threat of web apps to Apple is like the threat of being mauled by a dead sheep.

Thats not the reason Apple don't allow other browsers. The reason is that one single standard web rendering engine serves the consumer better than having multiple slightly incompatible ones. And Apple's success is by making decisions that are best for consumers rather than delegating those decisions and offering choice for choice's sake.

Re:Is it all Safari under the hood?

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't understand what GP meant. Apple's policy is "no general-purpose runtimes in the app store", because if they were to allow such a thing, it could then be used to run arbitrary apps that don't come from the app store, thereby circumventing their screening process. A modern third-party browser engine is, effectively, a general-purpose runtime.

That makes a hell of a lot more sense than the original post, yes.

woow....

[ryanmika]

nice info..thanks for share

Re:I thought apple didn't allow competing products

[BasilBrush]

There are many, many browsers, mail clients, media players, address books etc available on the iOS App Store. So if that was ever a rule at all, it certainly hasn't been one for years.

I say if, because I think that line of thinking dates from before Apple published it's app review guidelines.

here is a recent app that was pulled

[Cutting_Crew]

app pulled

I am pretty sure that Apple has so much stated in the past that if it competes with one of their products they could pull it. I should go look at the guidelines now to check up on it.

Re:here is a recent app that was pulled

[BasilBrush]

That wasn't pulled for competing on app functionality. That was pulled for re-implementing a proprietary protocol without permission.

Re:here is a recent app that was pulled

[Cutting_Crew]

yeah i gave you that link in haste - then read later on what they had done. shame shame.

Apple Guideline 8.3: "Apps which appear confusingly similar to an existing Apple product or advertising theme will be rejected."

Now lets get down to business. Will Apple pull a competing app?

Re:here is a recent app that was pulled

[BasilBrush]

"Apps which appear confusingly similar to an existing Apple product or advertising theme will be rejected."

That's not a non-compete rule. That's a "don't copy our app designs" rule. I mean you'd have to be pretty brazen to copy an Apple app, then expect Apple to sell it for you on their store. And yet people are that brazen... read on...

Now lets get down to business. Will Apple pull a competing app?/quote>

Evi is still there, despite obviously being named and designed to be a Siri clone. So the answer to your question appears to be "no".

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/evi/id463296609?mt=8

And there are plenty more, such as this one who's icon is very obviously meant to suggest Siri.

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/voice-assistant+/id517603342?mt=8

The anti-Apple crowd makes much of Apple App Store rules. But the rules are not unreasonable nor their implementation usually capricious, they're pretty reasonable. With about 600,000 apps approved so far there have been remarkably few instances where poor judgement has been made by a reviewer, but they are endlessly recycled as links. Even ones where there wasn't really a problem, but the story has been misrepresented. Like the two links you gave.

Mono-cultures are bad.

[DrYak]

A Mozilla rendering engine would do more harm than good. And for what? The idea of Open Source? Webkit is open source anyway.

It will bring diversity to the market. This has 2 main advantage.
The first is security. Monocultures have regularly proven in the past to be easy target for malware and exploits. The case for browser is even worse because they are facing the web. (Unlike some obscure software which only opens local documents and for which you need to trick the users into opening an e-mail attachment)
And its not as if iGizmos or other phone have always been 100% secure (if only, the exploits to root the phones are a nice example of security failures).
So manage to write an exploit targeting mobile Safari? Bam! (almost-) insta-own of tons of iGizmos.

Web developers might complain that it makes their job a little bit more complicated, but as long as they are sticking on standard this isn't impossible. (And some time, the differences in rendering might come from problem in complying with the standards, either from the website using weird code, or one of the engines having a faulty implementation. Testing on more platforms, although requiring more efforts can help finding bugs and move forward compliance).
On the other hand exploit writer have it much more harder, because they HAVE TO write non-standart stuff. They would have even more difficulties targeting multiple devices, multiple engines and so on.

Re:Mono-cultures are bad.

[BasilBrush]

The first is security. Monocultures have regularly proven in the past to be easy target for malware and exploits.

There is no such proof. Take for example iOS vs Android. iOS has a single vendor, most people are using the latest version, there are no branched variants, there is a single store. The ultimate monoculture. Result: No malware.

Android, has multiple vendors, each allowed to customise to fair extent and still be called Android, and to customise completely if they don't care about the Android brand. Lots of branches. Enthusiasts can build their own custom builds. People are on a wide variety of different versions. There's lots of stores - anyone can have a store. Result: Malware.

Web developers might complain that it makes their job a little bit more complicated, but as long as they are sticking on standard this isn't impossible. (And some time, the differences in rendering might come from problem in complying with the standards, either from the website using weird code, or one of the engines having a faulty implementation. Testing on more platforms, although requiring more efforts can help finding bugs and move forward compliance).

In other words web-developers should just accept all the extra work and hassle of making web-sites work with this multitude of browsers, in the name of some suggested greater good.

In actual fact web-developers work has got easier in recent years. But not because of competition in browsers. But because they've moved to using libraries that do all the work of papering over browser incompatibilities for them. I other words they choose a monoculture to paper over the problems of variety.

On the other hand exploit writer have it much more harder, because they HAVE TO write non-standart stuff. They would have even more difficulties targeting multiple devices, multiple engines and so on.

No, they have it far easier, because they don't need to be compatible with all major browsers. They only have to find a hole in one. And if there are say 5 major browsers, then they have 5 times the chance of finding a useful hole than if there was only one browser.

Malware!

[DrYak]

Yup, let's give the malware writter a single target (webkit) in order to own nearly all smartphones!

Nope, sorry. Better to have open standards that all (web designer, engine coders) try to follow, rather than 1 single piece of software (and in this case, one facing the internet) imposed on all.

But bugs and slightly different interpretations of those standards create problems for web-developers and problems for users.

On the other hand, testing on multiple engine might help discover hidden bugs (either in web pages or in web engines) and help fixing them faster. Also discovering slightly different interpretations of standards can help show which part of the standard needs to be better defined. (Although this seems to be recently happening less often).

(Also multiple engine tend to stimulate competition and thus experimentation of new feature which end up in the standards)

Tuck it away, Mozilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't go prancing around with your junior all out in public!