Mozilla rules out iPhone Firefox with swipe at Apple

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 30 Jul 2008 at 17:44

Mozilla has dismissed the prospect of a version of Firefox for the iPhone because Apple makes converting the browser "too hard".

Firefox has long been available for Mac OS X computers, but in an interview with Wired, Mozilla CEO John Lilly says there's no prospect of Firefox being developed for Apple's Mac OS X-based phone.

"Apple makes it too hard," Lilly claims. "It says it's because of technical issues - it doesn't want outsiders to disrupt the user experience."

That's an argument Lilly's not buying, however. "That's a business argument masquerading as a technological argument," he says. "We're focusing on more important stuff. The iPhone has been influential, but there's not that many of them. We're part of the LiMo Foundation - Linux on Mobile. The Razr V2 is a LiMo phone, and you'll see more in the next year or so."

Mozilla has other reasons not to develop for the iPhone: the company is working on a radical mobile browser of its own, which it unveiled in a video demonstration earlier this year.

The company has also released an alpha version of Firefox 3.1, just two months after releasing version 3 of the browser.