14 DAY TRIAL // The guys over at Mozilla seem pretty busy with the development of the mobile version of their Internet browser, called Fennec. And since they work so hard on it, they might be able to deliver a release candidate for the mobile Firefox as soon as next week, while the final version of the browser might arrive within a matter of weeks too.
“Our goal is to have a release candidate next week,” said Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's vice president of mobile, in an interview with Cnet. “If things go smoothly, we'll have a (final) version out in the next few weeks.” Moreover, it seems that the “following weeks” are expected to materialize before the end of the ongoing year.
As many of you might already know, Mozilla is currently working on delivering the mobile version of its browser to two of currently available operating systems on the market, namely Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Nokia's Maemo platform. The release candidate of Firefox mobile is to arrive to Maemo next week, with the final version soon after, while the Windows Mobile flavor of the browser is expected to land only in 2010.
When it comes to what Firefox mobile will bring during the next year, the list unveiled by Sullivan includes: - Support for multitouch displays for a more sophisticated user interface. - Support for haptic feedback, such as the phone vibrating when a virtual keyboard key is tapped. - The ability to control a camera. - Support for Electrolysis, Mozilla's project to split tasks such as the user interface, tabs, and plug-ins into separate processes. That improves stability and performance, he said. - Support for JetPack, Mozilla's next-generation extensions system. - Integration of the Weave synchronization software so it's no longer a plug-in. - Support for WebGL, an interface to provide browsers with accelerated 3D graphics. - Faster execution of JavaScript programs that are common and increasingly powerful on the Web.
According to Cnet, Mozilla and Nokia have been working closely on the development of Firefox mobile for Maemo, and users of a Nokia N900 Internet Tablet, the latest device delivered to the market with the platform, should enjoy an enhanced experience with the browser, it seems. “You want to put the desktop experience into a pocket-sized device,” said Ari Jaaksi, vice president of Maemo devices. “What do people use on the desktop? Firefox.”
In the future, the Maemo-based handsets released on the market might come with Firefox mobile on them right from the start, it seems, but not for the time being. However, Maemo is not the only mobile platform Mozilla is working with. Beside the said Windows Mobile flavor of the browser, the company is also expected to deliver an Android version in the near future, though no other OSes will see it, at least for a while.