Smartphone users looking for an open source browser won’t have to wait much longer now that Mozilla’s Firefox Mobile 1.0 is officially available. EnterpriseMobile Today looks ahead to see which smartphone platforms will be the next to support Firefox and what it challenges developers face bringing it to the Android and other mobile devices.
When it comes to browsing the Web, smartphone owners have not had the same browser choices that desktop computer users enjoy. That might soon be changing for some platforms as open source browser vendor Mozilla ramps up its mobile Firefox efforts.
Firefox Mobile 1.0 is now officially available, though only for Nokia’s Maemo platform, which runs on the Nokia N900 handheld device. However, Mozilla—which has worked on Firefox Mobile under the codename Fennec since 2008—also said it’s now working on Firefox Mobile for other smartphone platforms as well.
But don’t expect to see Firefox on Apple’s iPhone anytime soon.
“Nokia’s Maemo platform is a promising emergent platform,” Jay Sullivan, vice president of mobile at Mozilla, told InternetNews.com. “We share open source values and Nokia has been part of the Mozilla community for a few years, making Maemo a good first platform for Firefox for mobile.”
Sullivan added that the initial response so far from Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N900 users has been great, with thousands of active daily users.
Porting Firefox to the Maemo platform meant moving Firefox to a platform that has similarities with existing Firefox deployments. Sullivan noted that Maemo is very similar to the desktop Linux platform on which Firefox already ships.
