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No Firefox For iOS, Says Mozilla's Product Head
hypnosec writes "Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's VP of Product, has revealed that the non-for-profit organization is not going to build an iOS version of its Firefox web browser as long as Apple doesn't mend its unfriendly ways towards third party browsers. Speaking at SXSW in a mobile browser wars panel Sullivan said that Mozilla is neither building nor planning to build a Firefox version for Apple's iOS. Mozilla pulled Firefox Home from the App Store back in September 2012 following Apple's not so accommodating attitude."
It's not just microsoft that engages in anti-competitive behaviour.
Dear Mozilla,
Please don't worry about what Apple wants, release Firefox for iOS in Cydia.
I wish more large developers would do the same. All they need to do is allow an 'install external app' checkbox to make most happy, but that would break the app-store lock-in. Personally, I think your business should rely on people wanting to use it, not being forced to. The app store has value, but to me it's unacceptable to have no alternatives.
So, by that reasoning, Opera is written in Objective C, seen as it does have an iOS version?
Also, Firefox can hardly be said to be written in XUL, it's more than likely written in C/C++ and uses XUL internally for user interfaces.
No kitty, this is my pot pie!
Meanwhile, in Firefox OS, alternate browsers will thrive.
http://samuelsidler.com/2013/03/firefox-os-and-browser-choice/
... will they allow other browsers on their new mobile OS?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Counterexample:
My employer has deployed a heavy-handed security environment on all Windows workstations along with an antique version of IE. Chrome consistently crashes and hangs to the point that it's unusable. Firefox runs like a champ and has become my browser of choice at work.
Anyone can find a single sample to prove anything.
"Oh God help us. We're in the hands of engineers."
It's not so much about language: you have a choice of several. It's about the rendering engine: Apple only allow their own on the platform.
Chrome (and Opera Mobile, if it's available for iOS, not sure) use Safari's rendering engine; only the user interface is different.
Opera Mini (as opposed to Mobile) does its rendering on Opera's servers, which then send over a compressed and simplified version of the page, and apparently that's allowed... or not, and maybe Opera Mini also uses Safari's renderer.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Apple IS competition. There are two very strong platforms for smartphones right now, and they both improve almost daily because of intense competition.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Apple takes care of me -- I don't have to thiwnk about words like standards, or openess, to see the content Apple provides. All my friends like Apple too. Apple is the only company whom provides a user esperience -- I don't need anything else -- people think I'm cool.
How is this news?
a) Why would Mozilla build a browser Apple has already said it won't allow?
b) This same stance has been repeated by Mozilla multiple times.
My employer has deployed a heavy-handed security environment on all Windows workstations along with an antique version of IE.
Forcing IE5 or IE6 for security reasons is, at least, unusual.
lucm, indeed.
Well, save for the fact that 'Chrome' on iOS is just a skin over Apple's WebKit with the slower JS engine Apple 'graciously' lets apps us vs the faster one their browser can access on the same device.
Firefox may be open source, but Mozilla has demonstrated their need to divert resources where they count the most. This is, for instance, why Firefox is no longer developed on Maemo.
So beyond the potential political or legal ramifications, the sliver of market share that Cydia possesses is simply not worth the engineering effort. And the gamble that releasing it for iPhone would somehow influence Apple to allow third-party browsers, given Apple's stubborn history, would likely be foolhardy.
aside: I have an iPhone and would love if Firefox existed on it.
I said it before and I said it again! Tim Cook has to make licenced mac clones again! A samsung licenced macbook air with ultra high defintion retina is worth the wait!
Now keep calm and carry on. Every day new patents expire, new processors are made, and more new inventions are created. Samsung will be best friends with Apple again one day!
Opera is not available on iOS. Opera Mini is available, but it is not a browser strictly speaking.
Once Opera converts from Presto to Webkit it may have an iOS version.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Try to buy a non-MS machine at any retail store other than Apple..... Yup... That's called MONOPOPLY . Microsoft's position is more absolute than when the Feds broke up Standard Oil or Ma Bell.
When I go to Newegg and punch up Desktop Operating Systems the ONLY results are MICROSOFT.
what about windows phone and the win 8 app store they may hit the same laws.
Try to buy a non-MS machine at any retail store other than Apple..... Yup... That's called MONOPOPLY
No, it's not.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I switched to Firefox so many years ago for innovative features, but both Chrome and Safari have beat them out in performance and integrated capabilities. How many BS Firefox updates were there last year with nothing significant delivered. Once big fan and now I don't care what system they are on. Perhaps they should pull back and focus where they may be able to be good again. (my .02)
Chrome on iOS uses the same WebKit version as Safari?
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Anyone is welcome to make their own alternate browser for Firefox OS. (Mozilla would surely encourage it it.)
True, but it's still not really Chrome as it doesn't use their version of webkit or their JS engine.
Just a skin.
In terms of shipped mobile operating systems, most of the universe out there right now is Android.
Now Android has it's own issues - namely upgrade paths. But it does run your choice of browser without complaint.
I remember when I got my Android phone - I worked with a bunch of iPhone users. I used to listen to them complain about they couldn't install cool app x, and said I had no trouble putting on my Android phone.
No, any company is free to fork Android. Take a look at Amazon. They seem to be perfectly content right now.
Oh wait, you're talking being in the inner circle where they're privy to what's being developed before it's released and dropped to the AOSP. Explain why anyone should help the competition? Putting the code to AOSP is currently miles ahead of most other companies.
Must.... Resist.... Urge... To... Respond.... To.... Troll.....
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
Not the only competition, though, If that's a factor on your choice of phone, wait a bit and buy comething with Tizen, Ubuntu, Firefox OS etc. Because, from an user's - and society's - point of view, there's good and bad competition. And competition that litigates aggressively to ban competitors, like Apple, or to extort competitors, like Microsoft, is surely bad competition.
No, not according to the more pro-active EU competition/monopoly laws or similar US laws. Apple's market share is too small to fall under "monopoly" in any or all European countries, where the distribution is quite varied from nation to nation. Scandinavia is not at all representative of the European handset market as a whole, my dear neighbor.
Furthermore the fact that a product only supports its manufacturer's services is not a violation of any doctrine here or there. The cases involving Microsoft has confused the general public, it's not illegal to only provide your own service/software/accessories. It's when that affects the general market to such a degree that it become detrimental to competition in general. US laws treats and views this differently than the EU does.
In the EU a monopoly is by its very definition seen as detrimental to consumers and must be acted upon. Until Apple constitutes a monopoly or is the dominant force it's not realistic to imagine any action by the US or EU. Apple's great influence does not constitute market power. At the moment Google's Android has the clear majority of consumers in their hand, or rather vice versa.
What? The man who forced Microsoft to settle [the lawsuit Apple brought against them] in return for buying Apple shares, making Office for Mac and bringing Internet Explorer to Mac OS!
No, I'm sorry, Safari is just a "pet project", Apple needed it to for their O/S to stay valid - and avoid Microsoft's grip. The very reason Microsoft was forced to open up by the EU was because their own browser skewed and hindered the market from developing. WebKit is an open source project, as Google and now even Opera proves. Apple doesn't have any greater advantage than say Google Chrome on Mac OS X. What possible arguments do you have?
...were I to own an Apple device, it would be like living in North Korea?
As an iPhone user, I can't see why I'd possibly want Firefox. We've really reached the point that browsers are commodities for almost every user. I know some people are so in love with the idea of user-selectible choice that they can't imagine that a unified user experience is a good thing, but for the vast majority it's the best way to go. If you truly have some specialized need for a browser function that doesn't come with the WebKit-based Safari, you're probably already using another platform anyway. This just isn't the big deal it was back in the day when some companies thought they could control the web by controlling the browser. But some people haven't figured that out.
re: Interesting how you were prepared to make the most ridiculous excuses for Firefox OS though
.
??? You must be mixing me up with someone else. I was neither "prepared to make the most ridick excuses for Firefox OS" nor "making the most ridick excuses..." nor "making ANY excuses for FFox OS". The GP post to this is my first post on this topic, so must be thinking of someone else's beliefs or belief statements.
I can feed trolls with the best of 'em. Burn, karma, burn!
The fact that the rendering engine would be Gecko on their PC and WebKit on their iPhone just doesn't fucking matter.
Apple limits third party IOS developers to UIWebview, while Safari gets to use the Nitro JIT javascript engine. It's an automatic performance disadvantage for any aftermarket browser. That fucking matters.
It really shows that Mozilla's focus is on themselves and software developers, not on the consumer end user, who has been running Firefox on their PC for years now and Safari on their iPhone for years now and just wants a Firefox interface and bookmark syncing on their iPhone.
No, it shows that Mozilla is smart enough to recognize and avoid pitched battles with Apple. Why fight to have a weird mutant version of their flagship project on a closed device, damaging their brand with artificially limited performance and a rendering engine that doesn't act like Firefox?
If that is Mozilla's focus, then they don't belong on iOS and good riddance.
Mozilla's focus is on opening up the web. You're right - they don't "belong" on closed, controlled iOS. They will, however, try to encourage Apple to let them in.
On iOS, the end user is at the top of the hierarchy, and software developers and content producers all work for the user. The user already has an HTML5 renderer in their iPhone, they already have a TCP/IP stack. You do not need to replace them to build a browser, and in fact, it is much better security that you can't replace them. That is what is best for the consumer: a secure renderer that is highly-optimized specifically for their device.
Who decides what's in your interest? If it's Apple, then Apple is at the top of the hierarchy, not users as you say.
As a user myself, I value the ability to use Firefox over Chrome on my Android device. With Android, I can decide what's in my interests. The defaults work for "most consumers", and for everyone else there is a measure of freedom.
There are plenty of reasons that software monocultures are bad, and Google is your friend there.
There are hundreds of 3rd party browsers on iOS, many with very innovative features. Like Skyfire, which converts Flash Video to ISO standard video on a server and essentially enables you to run Flash on iPhone or iPad. There are browsers that are exploring lots of gestures, or deep social integration.
Cute little user-interface experiments are one thing, but that's all niche-market small time stuff. Deep social integration and gestures? Tee hee. Calling a UIWebview wrapper a browser is kind of endearing.
Mozilla is missing out on all of that because they are pouty, entitled developers who want their feet rubbed and cheeks kissed before they deign to bless us with their bloated, mangled code.
You realize that Firefox is the best browser on the memory usage front, and near tops in performance right? If your gut feeling about Mozilla is based on a 2006-era opinion, you might want to look at what they've done lately.
And of course, Mozilla knows better than Apple what Apple users want. As if.
Most users want options and the ability to use their devices as they see fit. Mozilla has only ever supported users' rights. Apple can't say that.
And finally, Mozilla's hypocrisy: note that the one and only HTML renderer on Firefox OS is Gecko. And Firefox OS has zero 3rd party browsers as of right now.
Hey now, third party browsers can just wrap Gecko (actually, it's more like just opening an IFRAME, since the UI is all HTML.) In your world, using the system renderer is a good thing, right? What are you complaining about? /s
In all seriousness though, it could be done with some work. I
Given that a typical netbook is slower than an iPhone, and significantly slower than an iPad, it's maybe not such an issue.
The problem is, most of us see that Apple has nowhere to go. As we wire up the world, and computers become ubiquitous, no one is going to need a $2000 laptop. Sure they will always hold a spot in the consumer space, but they really are going to experience a Tarkin's Grasp scenario.
Good-bye
Android market share seems to be progressively taking more and more Apple market share
In that case there's even less of a call to force Apple to provide alternate browser choice, since overall they still have no-where near a majority of the market nor a trend to do so.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Looking at the app store I see roughly 2 dozens of browsers for iPads/iPhones. Most of them iOS only. So independend developers easily can make a browser for iOS ... and even make money from it, but Mozilla can't?
Sorry this claim is ridiculous.
The limitation is that those browsers must use the Webkit built into iOS, so Chrome was an easy one - they already use Webkit. All of those other browsers also use it, but Firefox uses Gecko as their engine.
They just don't see the need to create an iOS version that would be considerably different to what they currently have.
You mean "writable executable pages," not directory memory access. The reason Safari is faster than UIWebView is because it can use a JIT to compile JavaScript into native code. Doing this requires the ability to create a writable page of memory that can be written.
Apps in the app store aren't allowed to do this. iOS loads the app into memory, marks all the text section pages as read only, marks all the data section pages as no-execute, and only then passes control to the program. This means that an App store program can't run the JIT because it can't create a writable page that is executable.
However, even given that, I find it impossible that there's no way Apple could give UIWebView access to the JIT. It would just take some amount of effort to architect it and write it, and the end result would probably make their own Safari more secure, but why bother doing that when you can just make every other browser on the platform be unnecessarily slower?
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Good. As much as I like Firefox on the desktop, it has even become horribly slow, even on a decently powered PC. I would hate to imagine how bad it would run on an iPhone or iPad, and how fast it would consume my battery.
Er... ok, I bought an Android phone at Walmart recently. No problem. You're mistaking "mass market" for "monopoly". If you're looking for something that only a few people in an area will want to buy (operating system software they don't have experience with), big box stores are not the place to get them.
There are a few companies that tried pre-loading GNU/linux, but almost nobody bought those. In most cases it was cheaper to buy an MS computer, and then put whatever you wanted on it, than to pay more for a similarly speced linux machine.
By the way, trying to buy a free desktop operating system at a retail software store like Newegg will always be difficult. There's this problem with not making a profit when no money is paid.
No, it's not.
Yeah, pretty much is. A monopoly does not have to be absolute for it to be called a monopoly.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I'm not commenting on the relative performance of the two processors, but there are some awfully strange results in geekbench.
For example on the iPhone stdlib copy is faster than wither reading OR writing. That seems a little odd to me.
Also the iPhone has very fast image bluring but really slow dot products. That strikes me as very strange.
Also, the primality test comes under floating point performance which is a really weird choice.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Indeed if you take a definition of monopoly then Apple is not one and I do not think they neither want to be nor stand a chance of becoming one. The argument the GP brought is silly as the described situation is not a monopoly (other vendor is there even if only one). The situation is not as straight forward as you point out either. It is not the machine that I buy - today I think it is safe to say that majority of the devices public buys has a pre-installed OS. This in itself is not bad but then some of them have made provisions so that it stays so. You may argue that this still is OK after HW like this is traditionally sold with specific OS. The software that runs on top however is usually bought freely where one wants or in quite rare cases (if you look at customer base) can be written by and owner of particular piece of HW. This is actively fought against by Apple. One may still argue (as with OS) that that is OK but is it really? How many smartphones do you expect person to have? I mean if I buy one then normally I would have enough thus by simple act of choosing a mobile phone vendor I select also vendor of products that are completely unrelated to it. This is still not a monopoly but it is not what one wants it to be and it is strangely close to what some call natural monopoly. In our case it is not a water pipe delivering water to your house but a device that you bought that delivers different services some of them restricted to only one vendor. There is a difference here of course - in old good days having said pipe connected meant you could not buy water from anybody else than owner of the pipe. Now you are not forced to do that anymore at least not in places where a commie state supported market competitions on utilities too. Assuming (I do) that such market distortion is desired to ensure that companies and corporations behave one would wander whether buying a phone or a tablet constitutes a situation like one with water pipe owned by a water company. I usually own such piece of HW/SW for 6+ years (yes I threw away my t-39 when smart phones already won). Even if you practically own such phone or tablet max 2y - still once you bought it you are limited. To me it justifies gov or rather law makers intervention.
Restaurant: We don't like people with glasses eating here, so were going to be unfriendly to them.
People with glasses: We don't like your unfriendly ways towards people with glasses, so we won't eat at your restaurant.
Restaurant: Thanks.
No soup for you. One year.
This is a
Did you mean to say "Microsoft"? Apple is the company that has transitioned most of its revenue to mobile devices. Microsoft is the one stuck on the desktop. Even Google is having trouble monetizing mobile, though I think they are playing it right with their phenomenally successful Android.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Litigation is a direct result of IP law in this country/world. Don't hate the playa...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I'm out of the loop, so forgive me if iOS has stalled. It looks to me that the iPad shipped with iOS 3, and now they are up to 6. It looks like that includes some pretty big features, such as Facetime, Siri, and full multitasking. When I look at the iOS 6 change list, it looks pretty substantial, and it only came out in September.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I'll just continue to use Safari and Chrome on my iPhone. I plan on swapping out to something with Android in a few years anyway.
You might not, I however do and I'm sure I'm not alone.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
.... nothing of value was lost.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
If you're willing to deliver a browser with no JIT and all the same web rendering bugs as Mobile Safari, doing that on iOS is easy enough.
It's when you think that you want to do better than that that you run into trouble.
Because mozilla want's to keep their browser theirs, not using iOS 3rd party accessible version of rendering & JavaScript engine. Even if they actually had access to optimized webkit/NitroJS Safari use they won't want that. Now you complain that someone doesn't want to change their product to something else because you won't get it on iOS?
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
Looking at the app store I see roughly 2 dozens of browsers for iPads/iPhones. Most of them iOS only. So independend developers easily can make a browser for iOS ... and even make money from it, but Mozilla can't?
Sorry this claim is ridiculous.
The limitation is that those browsers must use the Webkit built into iOS, so Chrome was an easy one - they already use Webkit.
They are also limited to inferior Webkit/Javascript engine while Safari uses optimized (like NitroJS for JavaScript while inferior javascript engine is available for 3rd party apps.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
Out of interest, what cool apps?
Troll mod for this comment? Really?
Can someone point out to me exactly what part of the above comment is at all trolling?
An offtopic mod for a comment directly asking how a comment about identifying mobile apps that are not being available iOS, in a thread about iOS apps and availability of said apps, could be modded troll?
If this carries on, I'm going to start getting the feeling that people around here just don't like me.
No, misunderstood me.
I was of the opinion that Apple does not allow third party rendering engines was FUD. (Like the claim you may not use interpreted languages on iOS, which was only true in the first year of the AppStore is now long outdated)
After all most posters here only linked "claims" about the requirement of Web-Kit from other news sites, no one linked an official Apple statement (on a first glance such a requirement from Apple makes not much sense. After philosophing a bit about it however I could imagine one or two reasons ...)
I only have old developer notes as PDFs on my Mac, in which nothing about web kit is stated, so I could not quickly verify this my self.
Now you complain that someone doesn't want to change their product to something else because you won't get it on iOS?
I don't really care about Mozilla, I don't use it anymore since it automatically blocks itself from Flash and other Plugins when it thinks it is unsafe (this might be the right approach for the general public, but is not for me. When I'm developing a web site and like to check my own page, Firefox suddenly says: uh, oh, Flash is outdated: update? Yes/No? [Forcing me to close ALL OTHER browsers]).
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.