Mozilla Says No Firefox For iPhone

While providing an update about its Firefox Home product, Firefox reiterated that it is not developing its Firefox browser for the iPhone.

Mozilla said, "We are working to bring as much of your Firefox experience as possible to Firefox Home. People have asked about adding more browser-like features to Firefox Home, but there are technical and logistical restrictions that make it difficult, if not impossible, to build the full Firefox browser for the iPhone. We are focused on building Firefox Home as a rich, cloud-based application and making it a valuable product that people will continue to love and use."

Earlier this month, Mozilla updated Firefox Home for the iPhone. The new version of Mozilla's browsing-syncing application offers a handful of new features, including immediate access on the iPhone to tabs that were open on the desktop, Awesome bar support for faster searching, faster access to bookmarks, one-way refresh of Firefox desktop history, and support for Firefox Sync servers.

The application is meant to make it easier for iPhone users to take their Firefox browsing sessions and all the relevant data with them when using their iPhone. The application also supports 16 additional languages. It is free to download.

Mozilla also said that, based on user feedback, it is working to bring Firefox Home to the Sybian and Blackberry platforms. Mozilla wrote, "We want to offer people access to their Firefox data no matter where they are, and these two platforms make up around 60% of the worldwide smartphone market combined. We’ve also heard interest for an iPad version of Firefox Home and will investigate this option further."

Firefox Home lets users:

• Synchronize passwords to your phone so you don’t have to type them in anymore.
• Better integrate with new iOS4 features and other native applications (such as Youtube, Maps, Mobile Safari etc.)
• Bring other Firefox customizations such as search engine preferences.
• Bring your Firefox Panorama settings and tab groups to your phone.
• Some of our more experimental features will allow you to easily share links, reviews and comments with your friends on
• Twitter, Facebook or other social networks directly from Firefox Home.
• Build the ability to provide feedback and get help with any issues directly from within Firefox Home.

Right now, the iPhone comes with the native Safari browser. Opera Mini is also available in the app store as an alternative. Skyfire submitted its mobile browser to Apple earlier this year, but has yet to score approval from Apple.

Mozilla does have a beta version of Fennec (Firefox mobile) for the Android platform.