Mozilla takes aim at the iPad browser market with its 'Junior' prototype. When it comes to browsing the web on iOS, there are plenty of third-party alternatives to Apple's Safari. Atomic, Dolphin, Mercury, Opera Mini, and Skyfire are just a few that have enjoyed some measure of success on the platform, but one name that has been noticeably absent from the category thus far is Mozilla.
To this point, the company's sole offering has been an iPhone-only app that syncs tabs from a PC or Mac to your handset — assuming Firefox is your home browser of choice, that is. Judging by a presentation from the company's Product Design Strategy team this past Thursday, however, Mozilla will soon be joining the fray in a big way. "We wanted to look into how we could reinvent the browser for a new form factor.
" Enter Junior. "So here comes the fun stuff," said Alex Limi as he began discussing the prototype iPad browser Mozilla has been working on for several months. Looking for tabs? To start off, it's a full-screen experience. The Mozilla Marketplace is now open for app submissions. The Web IS the Platform! Using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, a developer can build an app using responsive design, and that app can offer the same look and feel as a device-native app, without having to rewrite for every desired target platform. One code base – all popular devices! Now, developers can build apps and submit them to the Mozilla Marketplace, so that when the consumer side of the marketplace launches later this year, your apps will be listed and consumers will be able to begin installing and using your apps from the first day of business.
Why use standards-based Web Development for apps? Developers and organizations large and small have expressed interested in building apps for the Mozilla Marketplace. This combination of the latest standards-based Web development technologies is enjoying unprecedented popularity and is changing the way we build both websites and apps. The Mozilla Web Apps platform will feature: Why build apps for the Mozilla Marketplace?
What’s in this release? Mozilla Makes A Better Case for Web Apps in Minutes Than Google Did in Months. When Google first introduced Chrome OS and the idea of "Web apps" last December, the idea made little sense to me. Then, over time, as I became used to it and started playing around with their prototype CR-48 unit, which runs the browser-based operating system, it began to make more and more sense. But still, there was something missing. Today, Mozilla announced its own Web app initiative and, in just minutes, it makes so much more sense than the vision put forth over the several months since the same idea was first introduced by Google.
To this day, I hear Google say "Web app" and I think "website". There's little, if any, difference. It opens up in a new browser tab, takes up the entire page and functions exactly as a website would. Mozilla manages, within two minutes, to convince me that Web apps are something completely different and empowering for both the user and the developer.
Blog Archive » First developer release of Web Apps Project. Ahead Of Chrome Web Store, Mozilla Outlines Their Open Web App Ecosystem. Back in May, Google surprised a lot of people by unveiling plans to create an app store for the web, which they called the Chrome Web Store. A day later, Mozilla, makers of rival browser Firefox, stated their plans for an Open Web App Store. Mozilla’s post on the matter was clearly a quick reaction to Google’s maneuver and so there weren’t a lot of details. Today, as the Chrome Web Store opening approaches, Mozilla finally has some of those details. Why does Mozilla care about Google’s store? Because it has the name “Chrome” in it, obviously. Here’s their key blurb: Today, we are releasing technical documentation of the proposed system and a developer preview prototype that allows you to install, manage and launch Web apps in any modern desktop or mobile browser (Firefox 3.6 and later, Firefox for mobile, Internet Explorer 8, Chrome 6, Safari 5, Opera 10 and WebKit mobile).
And here are some examples they’ve created: a web app store, an app directory, and self-published apps. How did StumbleUpon gain its initial traction? Mark Cramer Getting Traction.