Now this is something I didn’t think we’d see — Apple has begun approving third party web browsers for use on the iPhone/iPod Touch. Several web browsing applications have recently appeared in the App Store, and some of the original submission dates go as far back as October, suggesting this “group” of applications were on hold for a while pending approval.
Similar delays were experienced on the recent range of fart machine applications that were recently approved by Apple. Once allowed a backlog of these applications made their way in to the App Store, introducing us to titles like Pull My Finger and iFart Mobile.
The reason I was surprised to see third party browsers in the App Store was because of Apple’s view on applications that offer “duplicate functionality,” i.e. apps that are largely similar to those already installed on the iPhone/iPod Touch. Other web browsing application such as Opera have previously failed to reach the App Store and this was believed to be the reason why.
With this move we may see the Opera browser in the App Store in future, maybe along with others such as an iPhone-friendly Firefox?
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The new 3.2, beta 2, of Firefox for Mac takes advantage of the multi-touch gestures available on recent MacBooks. Users of Safari will know finger gestures are already present in this browser and can be used to navigate backwards and forwards through previously visited pages, and pinch and push to increase or decrease text sizes. The new Firefox is to include all these gestures, plus some more — twisting clockwise and anti-clockwise on the trackpad will cycle through your open tabs.
Firefox is one of the most popular web browsers available and I for one will welcome the multi-touch gesture support. On my Mac, the broswer I use most is Safari, however I do use Firefox for some things, including posting to Mactropolis. Being used to Safari, I often find myself trying to use finger gestures within Firefox and I get frustrated when they don’t work.
Other improvements in this version include:
- “private browsing” mode
- faster JavaScript engine
- improved rendering
Mozilla, the creators of Firefox, have warned that the Beta 2 of Firefox is intending for testing only. At present, there is no word on when Firefox 3.1 will officially become available.
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Opera Software, developers behind the well-known Opera Internet Browser have developed a browser for the iPhone entitled ‘Opera Mini’. However, don’t expect to be downloading it from the App Store anytime soon — NYTimes have released an article that claims Apple will not allow the browser to be distrubuted through the App Store because it ‘competes with Apple’s own Safari browser’.
It is speculated that the rejection from Apple could be due to the application’s Java script interpreter, or just that Apple is restricting anything that competes with their own applications already built-in to the iPhone. Recently they rejected an application called ‘MailWrangler‘ because it ‘duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion.’
Those of you expecting an iPhone version of Firefox or Thunderbird anytime soon are going to be disappointed.
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