Yesterday Mozilla announced that during the next week it will make available a release candidate for the mobile version of the famous web browser. The release candidate will be the first step, and after analyzing the feedback and solving any bugs, a final version of the application will be released towards the end of the month or at the latest at the beginning of January 2010. The RC will only work on the new phone of those from Nokia, N900, a version for Windows Mobile will most certainly appear at the beginning of next year together with a version for Android, this is due to the publication by Google of the developer kit for Android, the other day.
The mobile version will be based on the same code as the new desktop version, Firefox 3.6, giving users the opportunity to synchronize their bookmarks or passwords with the desktop version. In addition, the version for N900 will also allow the use of add-ons, until now Mozilla has 30 such extensions ready for release.
The new version supports geolocation and orientation, and a new set of features will be introduced in 2010:
• 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.
Apple? Are you paying attention? I wonder when you're going to wake up and leave the Firefox application for iPhone in the AppStore? Considering the recent wave of concessions, I have the impression that we will see a version of Firefox for the iPhone at the beginning of next year. Finally, a small presentation video:
