Firefox Browser Might Not Return To iOS
- Closed environment
- Announced at SXSW
- Competition driven
Mozilla’s Firefox browser will not be returning to Apple’s iOS platform, at least not anytime soon.
- Closed environment
- Announced at SXSW
- Competition driven
Mozilla’s Firefox browser will not be returning to Apple’s iOS platform, at least not anytime soon.
Jay Sullivan, Mozilla’s vice president of product announced yesterday at SXSW (stands for South by Southwest), a music, film and interactive conference in Austin, Texas, that the company won’t be building an iOS version of their mobile browser until Apple makes their platform more open.
The main issue with Mozilla with iOS is that Firefox is unable to carry over its sophisticated rendering and javascript engines to iOS. And thus, the company feels that it cannot build the browser it wants to for Apple’s mobile operating system. Moreover, iOS prevents its users from making any third party application as the default browser which makes moving beyond Safari nearly impossible.
Although the decision is a risky one since Firefox only holds a small share in the mobile browser market while Apple on the other hand has a big chunk of the market at its command with Safari, Mozilla is taking a stand that Apple isn’t providing a competitive environment which is critical for the survival of third party browsers – a statement shared by David Dehgahn, Dolphin Browsers Chief Software Architect and Mike Taylor from Opera.
Nevertheless, it seems that the issue might not be shared by the general public and Apple is very unlikely to be fazed by this. So it’s a safe bet that Apple won’t be making a move anytime soon.
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