This weekend GigaOm brought word that Mozilla was working on an iPhone app. Of course, thoughts turn immediately towards their most famous product — Firefox. However, Apple doesn’t allow 3rd party code interpreters and that means no Gecko HTML renderer and no TraceMonkey Javascript engine. And again, I don’t think there’s any need for Mozilla to make a WebView wrapper…
So what else is there? Browser link sync? The iPhone will sync Safari links, or Internet explorer on Windows, but syncing links for Firefox users is thus far unsupported, and no doubt many would love to have that functionality:
Later, I sat around gabbing with Lilly and Jay Sullivan, Mozilla’s VP of Mobile, talking about Weave and the Awesome Bar, which is a way to get access to all your browsing history and bookmarks by just typing them in the URL bar on your browser. And while we were talking about Weave, I asked them if it was going to be part of this new, mysterious iPhone app. Lilly and Sullivan smiled and remained silent. Interestingly, they didn’t correct me.
Malik notes that Weave might be too competitive with MobileMe for Apple’s tastes, but that of course will depend on the exact implementation offered on the iPhone, and how flexible Apple is feeling (more so than ever, it seems of late). And if ever a Weave there was, bringing it to the iPhone certainly makes sense.
While noted Windows pundit Paul Thurrott might be an out-of-the-closet iPhone lover, it seems his experiences with, and feelings for, MobileMe have been more towards the negative.
There have certainly been problems with MobileMe, and Apple has reached out to users as Casey posted yesterday. Now Thurrott has a leaked Apple sales note, reportedly sent out to redefine their language in light of these problems:
MobileMe Messaging Update
MobileMe messaging is being updated effective immediately. In order to set appropriate expectations with our customers, focus your sales discussion on “automatic sync” rather than “push.” Additionally, we will no longer describe MobileMe as “Exchange for the rest of us.”
When discussing the sync features of MobileMe, you may tell a customer that:
Updates between me.com and iPhone or iPod touch will occur in a matter of seconds.
Updates between me.com and Macs running Mac OS X Leopard and Windows PCs may take up to 15 minutes when MobileMe is set to sync automatically (Macs running Mac OS X Tiger may experience longer sync times).
Ouch! Want some double-ouch with a hefty side dish of rant? Check out Thurrott’s complete post where he focuses on lack of IE7 and Firefox support and, in part, takes David Pogue’s iPhone 3G review out for a ride…
Is Thurrott justified given Apple’s painful and still botched MobileMe roll-out? Or is he upset the mass-media is still dissing on Vista and wants to throw some fire Apple’s way? Little of both?
