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Mozilla won’t bring Firefox to iOS until Apple changes default browser policies

Published Mar 11th, 2013 8:40PM EDT
Firefox iOS Conflict

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iPhone users who miss having Firefox on their devices shouldn’t get their hopes up that it will arrive anytime soon. CNET reports that Mozilla vice president of product Jay Sullivan told a panel at South by Southwest this weekend that the organization would not design any new versions of Firefox for iOS until Apple (AAPL) allows users to set it as their default browser and allows Mozilla “to carry over its sophisticated rendering and javascript engines to iOS.” The issue for Mozilla, as CNET reports, is that it “doesn’t feel like it can build the browser it wants to for Apple’s platform.” The tricky thing for Mozilla, however, is that there doesn’t seem to be all that much demand at the moment for Firefox on mobile platforms, especially since the latest numbers from NetMarketShare show that its share of the mobile browsing market is less than 1%.

Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.