Mozilla: With Firefox Mobile, Who Needs App Stores?

Posted 12/18/2009 at 7:02pm | by Ryan Whitwam

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The Mozilla Foundation is making a bold claim that their upcoming mobile version of Firefox (codenamed Fennec) will spell doom for app stores of all stripes. The foundation says that the Javascript engine in Fennec is the fastest ever developed. Mozilla believes the speed of the engine will allow developers to build a new generation of web apps. “Anyone who knows JavaScript and HTML can develop a great app without having to learn a specific mobile platform," said Mozilla VP of mobile Jay Sullivan.

Mozilla points to the frustration developers experience trying to get their applications onto multiple platforms. They hope Fennec will put an end to that by making web apps the standard. The Firefox creators are hoping to position the new browser to take advantage of the future of web apps, which they claim will win. But didn’t we hear this when the iPhone launched? Apparently Mozilla thinks it will be different this time around.

Mozilla is baking all sorts of goodies into the new mobile browser to try to get mobile users to make the switch. There will be a mobile version of the “Awesomebar” as well as extension support. Current Firefox users will also be able to have their history and tabs sync down to the mobile device. The browser will be out the N900 soon (betas are available now), and on Windows Mobile and Android early next year. The iPhone? Probably not.