The Firefox Marketplace Debuts on Android, Coming to the Desktop Later

Mozilla's web apps vision is one step closer to reality. With Firefox OS just around the corner, Mozilla needs its app platform to be ready. Now, it has started testing the marketplace as well as the apps themselves in the latest Aurora builds for Android, Firefox 18.

"Today, Mozilla announced the Firefox Aurora Marketplace release. We’re hoping that Aurora users, our awesome early adopters, will go experience the Firefox Marketplace on their Android phones and let us know what they think," Bill Walker, engineering manager at Mozilla Labs wrote.

If you're running the Aurora build on Android, you can give the marketplace a try right now.

There's no guarantee that you'll be able to install any of the apps there, which are just a bunch of HTML code in any case, but you're welcomed to try.

After all, that's why Mozilla needed this testing phase and that's what Aurora was created for, too.

The Marketplace had been open to developers for a while now, but it's the first time regular users get a chance to use it in a relatively complete shape.

The Marketplace is not open on the desktop just yet, Mozilla's priority is the mobile space. However, apps are cross platform, they're web apps after all, so they should work everywhere.

However, the mobile Firefox and Firefox OS in particular come with some specific mobile APIs that will not be present or be of much use on the desktop.

So, even though apps should technically work everywhere, there will be apps targeted for the mobile space and likely desktop-only apps as well. It's still in its early days though, this will change and improve, you can help with that.

"Our goal is to collect as much real-life feedback as possible about the Marketplace’s design, usability, performance, reliability, and content. Feedback from early adopters helps us enhance the quality of the Marketplace before it is released to larger audiences," Walker added.

Likewise, developers are more welcomed than ever to take a shot at writing an app for Firefox. Assuming you're already familiar with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, getting started should be fairly trivial.