Mozilla’s mobile application software developers have finally rolled out their Firefox OS (operating system) apps tailored to run on the Android OS. Henceforth, droid owners could get their hands on the much fawned upon Firefox OS applications that eluded them for so long. As per a report by the Telecoms.com, Android owners could now download and install native apps that were designed and developed especially for the Firefox OS. The apps can be downloaded from the Firefox Marketplace app store and run like native apps would on Android devices. It would be quite exciting to see how the Android community receives new and mysterious Firefox apps, which wasn’t a reality before.
It has been affirmed that mobile app software vendors can now develop their own products for the Mozilla Firefox operating system. The right terminology would be “Open Web App” designed to run on devices that operate on the Firefox OS. Using the same platform, application software producers can now reach millions of droid users that use Firefox on their devices. This makes it all the more exciting as when you develop your Open Web App, it gets a bigger audience, including both Android and Firefox OS.
James Middleton form Telecoms makes it easier to understand, “build their Open Web App for Firefox OS devices ..… (and) reach millions of existing Firefox for Android users without having to change a single line of code.”
As per the official Mozilla blog, “Now, with Firefox for Android 29, Mozilla is extending this open Open Web Apps ecosystem to Android. Over the past few months, we have been working on providing a “native experience” for Open Web Apps. What this means is that as a user, you can now manage your web app just like you would a native app. You can install/update/uninstall the app and the app will also show up in the App Drawer as well as the Recent Apps list.”
“We built Firefox OS as a mobile OS that puts the Web and Open Web Apps at the centre of the mobile experience. The efforts to reduce the performance gaps between the Web and native are paying rich dividends and our work on exposing device capabilities to the Web via WebAPIs, have made web first app development a viable alternative to native platforms.”
With the new development, Android becomes the first mobile operating system to be able to run Firefox apps just like its native apps, and experience those things that were especially designed for Mozilla users. This could open the market for both Android and Firefox app developers, besides opening more room and windows for innovation as the two technologies (app development) confluence.
Experts believe that it is still too early to comment on the viability of web apps running on Android that were supposedly developed for Firefox OS at large scale. The Firefox apps may not provide the complete Mozilla Firefox OS experience, but still exploring that front is exciting from the point of view of app developers.