Firefox for WinMo iced
The Mozilla Foundation has stopped development of a mobile version of its Firefox web browser for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform. The reason for the decision is that Windows Mobile 7 doesn’t support native applications.
Until this decision Windows Mobile was one of just two platforms that were supported by Fennec, the mobile version of Firefox. But, with the launch of Windows Mobile 7, Microsoft closed down the option to create native applications for the platform.
In a post on his blog, Stuart Parmenter, a technical lead with Mozilla’s mobile team, said that developers had been actively working towards a version of Fennec for Windows Mobile in anticipation of the release of Windows Mobile 7. However, because Microsoft hasn’t released a software development kit (SDK) for the Mobile 7 platform, the team had decided to move on to other areas.
Parmenter writes that while they think “Windows Phone 7 looks interesting and has the potential to do well in the market, Microsoft has unfortunately decided to close off development to native applications … Given that Microsoft is staking their future in mobile on Windows Mobile 7 (not 6.5) and because we don’t know if or when Microsoft will release a native development kit, we are putting our Windows Mobile development on hold.”
Instead the Fennec developers will now re-focus their attention on building versions of the mobile browser for the Android and Meego platforms. There isn’t currently an official Android version of Fennec available but the team is working on it.
The Android version is a relatively new development because Google also didn’t provide developers with an SDK when the platform was first released and expected applications to be run through its own Java platform. Google did eventually release an SDK and since then various unofficial versions of Fennec have been seen in the wild.
Originally Fennec was developed for Windows Mobile and Maemo, Nokia’s Linux-based operating system. With the creation of Meego, an amalgam of Maemo and Intel’s Moblin platform, the Fennec developers are focusing on that as a key area.
An iPhone version of Fennec is also highly unlikely given similar constraints on developing native applications on Apple’s platform.
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