Firefox May Come to Android - Too Little Too Late?
Last week, Google announced a change in how software can run on Android, the company's mobile operating system which powers such devices as T-Mobile's G1 and the upcoming MyTouch 3G. Instead of just allowing Java applications that run on Google's Dalvik virtual machine, Android will now allow software that runs natively in on the Linux operating system itself. This will be made possible through a new toolset for developers, the Android Native Development Kit. The change may allow Mozilla to bring their young mobile browser, Fennec (aka "Firefox Mobile") to the Android platform.
Mobile is one platform that Mozilla has yet to conquer. Only recently, a second alpha version of Fennec was made available for Windows Mobile devices (version 6 and up). If the Android NDK provides the proper capabilities for bringing the mobile version of Firefox to Android, that would only be the second mobile platform that Fennec supports.
According to a report from CNET, Mozilla is considering the possibilities. "I think our community would be interested in doing it, because Android will be appearing on more smartphones with the capabilities to provide a good browsing experience," said Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's vice president of mobile.
The only question now is whether or not Fennec will ever have a shot at becoming a popular mobile browser. Although development is moving along at a reasonable pace, it's certainly had its setbacks along the way...and it's nowhere near a version 1.0 yet. Meanwhile, WebKit is taking the lead when it comes to browsers on many of today's hottest smartphone platforms. The open-source WebKit code currently powers a lot of the newest browsers on the market including the one that ships on Android, iPhone's Safari browser, and the browser on the Palm Pre. Where does that leave Fennec? Apparently, it leaves it competing against Opera, which already has a solid foothold on the other mobile platforms lacking a decent mobile browser - Opera even became the top mobile browser recently.
Hopefully with the new NDK from Google, Fennec will be able to make its way onto at least one of the top smarthphone platforms out there. But we wonder: will anyone care when it arrives?
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Choice is always a good - I recall when people questioned Apple's decision to go with KHTML/WebKit when they should be using Mozilla.
The same applies the other way - it seems to me that we (developers/users) benefit more by Mozilla, WebKit and Opera competing to hit goals like the Acid test, than we ever did when it was just IE, or even IE vs Firefox.
"If the Android NDK provides the proper capabilities for bringing the mobile version of Firefox to Android, that would only be the second mobile platform that Fennec supports."
Nope. Wikipedia: "It is currently available in beta version for Nokia Maemo based N800/N810 devices, and in alpha version for Windows Mobile. Work is underway for Symbian OS based mobile devices."
Sarah,
I was interview din May by Mozilla about this.
Android does bit let native apps run via NDK as NDK is to compiled a hsarede native library only.
JavaUI stil required to run native shared libraries..
Get if effing right!