Firefox explains why its not on iOS
Mozilla, the parent company of Firefox has laid the boot into Apple’s notorious App Store restrictions, telling TrustedReviews ‘we can’t bring meaningful choice to iOS’.
Despite offering a dedicated, and downloadable, Firefox browser app for Google’s Android OS, Mozilla has never released its popular browser for Apple’s iPhone or iPad devices. Now, the company has claimed Apple’s restrictions are too limiting on its system.
“You don’t see us on iOS right now because every time we look at that platform we say we can’t bring meaningful choice,” Jonathan Nightingale, Mozilla’s Vice President of Firefox told us.
He added: “The rules of the iOS store say we’re not allowed to bring our technology.”
Highlighting the restrictive nature of the Apple App Store, Nightingale stated: “I’m confident I could get the Firefox icon into an iOS device but I think that’s about where it would end. It would be somebody else’s rendering engine, somebody else’s Java script.”
Although the company’s own Firefox OS continues to grow in popularity and availability, the Firefox VP has suggested that is no reason not to continue supporting its Android-based browser.
“For us, we look at the entire spectrum of where does the internet exist, where can we bring our values and meaningful user choice to people – that’s where you see us,” Nightingale said.
“Firefox for Android really reaches users who are in markets that have high power devices and what they want is the Firefox they know and love.
“They want that experience and they want the syncing with their desktop product but they are not ready, or they are not in a market where it is possible to switch to the Firefox OS.”
In recent weeks Mozilla announced plans to launch a $25 Firefox phone, a device which will bring the internet-based OS to a wider, more emerging market.
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