Mobile Firefox for Symbian in the works, planned completion in 2009

How long do you think you’ll have to wait until you finally see a version of Mobile Firefox (or Fennec) running on your beloved Symbian device? 1 month? 1 year? Nope, the Mobile Firefox team is already working on it with Engineers from Symbian, and together they plan to finish the project by April 2009.

The two teams are working on the Symbian version while work on other platforms is also carried out. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Symbian port gets the most attention, since if they’re aiming for market presence, Firefox Mobile better be available on the smartphone platform with the largest number of sales.

In a post on his blog, Christian Sejersen also admits this to an extent:

In Q3 2008 Symbian had 49.8% of the total smartphone sales (and 57% in Q2) according to Gartner compared to 11.1% for Windows Mobile and 7.2% for Linux. There are a few other platforms: iPhone, RIM and Android that have or are gaining market share, where we for technical or licensing reasons can’t be deployed. So in order for Mozilla to be relevant in the smartphone space we need to have a presence on the Symbian platform.

The projected date for a full browsing-enabled Fennec for Symbian is April 2009, but a basic/limited browsing feature is also planned for February. We’ll watch out for the first release of this port next year and provide you with more details as we find them.

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Posted on 15 Dec 08 - Filed in Software&Services, Wireless - Comments - Written by David Gonzales

  • Ken
    "The projected date for a full browsing-enabled Fennec for Symbian is April 2009"

    It should be noted that this version isn't even testable. A testable version is planned for some future unknown date after April 2009.
  • Malc
    Agree with Ken, its highly unlikely that they will get a Symbian version out so quickly, I don't think they know what they are letting themselves in for. Terrible tools, poor documentation, non standard C++ APIs, device fragmentation, limited RAM, slow CPUs. If they haven't got a Maemo or Windows mobile version out yet how do they expect to ship Symbian?
  • Noted, thanks for the correction.
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