Mozilla will introduce Firefox for Apple's iPhone "soon," according to a company announcement of an open marketing position.
As the senior mobile marketing manager, the candidate will "lead marketing for Firefox on both Android and iOS," the listing stated, adding that "a new Firefox for iOS application [will be] arriving soon."
Mozilla An early rendition of Firefox on iOS features a "tab tray" that shows open sites in a vertical orientation. (Image: Mozilla.)
Other jobs available at Mozilla also called out Firefox on iOS, including one for a senior product manager and software engineer.
Mozilla, which had previously staunchly declined to create a version of its iconic browser for iOS, changed its tune last December, when a company manager said that the open-source developer would "get Firefox on iOS."
Although
Mozilla confirmed that it was working on Firefox for iOS, at the time
it gave no hint of a timeline. "We are in the early stages of
experimenting with something that allows iOS users to be able to choose a
Firefox-like experience," Mozilla said in a Dec. 2 blog.
The
phrase "Firefox-like experience" was crucial: Apple allows only those
browsers into the App Store that are built atop its own rendering and
JavaScript engines, WebKit and Nitro, which power Safari. Mozilla relies
on its own technologies for both. Firefox on iOS, then, will be a user
interface (UI) layer atop WebKit and Nitro.
Mozilla's Github repository for iOS Firefox confirmed that.
The
reasons for Mozilla's renewed interest in iOS likely stemmed from
Firefox's decline in browser user share. Over the last 12 months,
Firefox has shed 31% of its desktop user share by metrics vendors' Net
Applications count, and now has less than half the share of Google's
Chrome.
Mozilla has put its shoulder behind other mobile
initiatives. But Firefox OS, an open-source mobile operating system
based on the browser, has not yet gained significant traction and its
Firefox browser for Android hasn't moved the needle. According to Net
Applications, Firefox's usage share on mobile was just 0.7% last month,
or about one sixty-sixth that of Safari.
Apple's iOS, while far
behind Android in shipments, has long had a reputation as the operating
system that generates the largest share of mobile browsing. Mozilla
would like to tap into that ecosystem if it could.
According to Techcrunch,
which last week also reported that Mozilla would soon debut Firefox for
the iPhone, Mozilla will launch a marketing campaign next month to get
more people using its browser. The publication also said that Li Gong,
Mozilla's president, and Rick Fant, who heads its mobile group, are
leaving the firm.
posted by and at:http://openmatt.org Last weekend’s Mozilla Summit was inspiring. Here are 7 key recommendations that came out of the “Practicing Open” session David Humphrey and I facilitated in Toronto.
The goal: gather specific suggestions around how to work in the open at Mozilla.
How do we commit to open not just in terms of technology, but in terms of how we work?How
do we embrace transparency, encourage innovation without permission,
design for participation and agility, and empower community? Where is that difficult? Where do we need to adapt or improve?
1) Reaffirm open as our default way to work
Working in the open was a defining part of Mozilla’s history and culture. But do we still believe in it the same way? Is it still practical? Working in the open carries risks. The press closely
follows everything Mozilla does. Sometimes individuals’ blog posts are
mis-reported as official Mozilla policy. Sometimes early prototypes get treated as product releases. And we have grown exponentially, straining our traditional culture and systems. Working open can be messy and difficult — but the message coming from Mitchell and others at the Summit was: it’s still essential to our continued success.
Here’s Mitchell in conversation before our “Practicing Open” session at the Summit:
The hidden costs of becoming a conventional organization — and following the best practices of other organizations — are huge. And maybe a silent killer.
We can’t just adopt what everybody else does, where no one can say
anything publicly. When we do that, we go slow, we lose agility, and we
lose the personality that attracts people to Mozilla.
2) Work in our pyjamas, jeans and dress clothes
Working open is not an either/or, or an all-or-nothing. Mozilla is both an open source project and
a brand that carries weight and needs protecting. The Mozillians we
talked with are very aware of these dual priorities, and hungry to dig
into this issue with greater nuance, complexity and specific detail. Mitchell offered a metaphor that could help us frame this: the “working in your pyjamas vs. bluejeans vs. dress clothes” metaphor.
“When we’re not always polished, we’re taking a risk.
But if we’re always in our ‘dress clothes,’ we risk our authenticity.
We risk going slow. We risk losing what makes us special.” –Mitchell
There are times when Mozilla needs to present a polished, authoritative face to the world.
But there are also times when we need to be more casual, and there are
times when we need to be wide open, unguarded and permissionless. You wouldn’t show up for a job interview in your pyjamas.
But that doesn’t mean you spend your whole life in a business suit,
either. Sometimes you hang out at home in your pjs. Sometimes you put on
a pair of jeans and a t-shirt to walk to the store. And sometimes you
dress up in formal businesswear. As Mozillians, we operate in versions of these three styles every day.
When we disagree about where the lines are, it’s helpful to acknowledge
the need for all three spaces — and then try to get the nuance right
for each. Rather than trying to straitjacket ourselves into working like
a traditional organization.
3) Share updated guidelines and best practices
To put that metaphor into practice, we need more specific team-by-team guidelines.
Many of the Mozillians we talked to would like clearer social
guidelines around when and how to work in the open — particularly in
relation to public relations and media. Its often unclear what
those protocols and best practices are. And when things go wrong, it can
result in frustration or anger from colleagues.
“When you don’t know where the lines are, it costs you agility.” –Coop
Common questions and scenarios included…
“I’ve collected a bunch of data from my research. When can I share it on my blog?”
“I released an early prototype that’s blowing up on Hacker News! What should I do?”
“I posted something publicly that upset some colleagues. They
told me not to do it again. Now I’m unsure of what the rules are.”
These issues are complex, and a natural challenge for an organization as open as Mozilla. But “hand-slapping” or getting mad at people after the fact is not
a strategy — it just leaves people feeling confused about what the best
practices really are. And it can create a chilling effect that costs us
agility.
4) Reinvest in mentorship
“A big part of working open at Mozilla means mentoring and being mentored.” –David Humphrey
Mozillians highlighted mentoring and being mentored as one of the most effective means to put working open into practice.
Newcomers (whether staff or volunteers) need meaningful guidance around
open culture, social rules, and the human element that makes Mozilla
special. Documentation and wikis are no replacement for this human
touch.
Sometimes we talk about this in terms of an “on-boarding process” or
better manuals and documentation. But a big part of the challenge is seeing how its done. And the best way to do that is to have someone show you.
Informal mentorship has always been one of Mozilla’s strengths. But our rapid growth
(how do you provide mentorship to 200 new Firefox OS hires?) and
accelerated release cycles have put a strain on the informal mentorship
practises that used to happen more often.
“The hurdle is learning the social rules….
All organizations have this — but you can’t just follow standard
corporate rules at Mozilla. You are participating in a much different
community.” –Maris, MDN
5) Work out specific guidelines for how we share data
Mozillians often gather various kinds of data in their daily work. How do we collect, report and share that data in the right way?
We’re not really talking about personal user data here, which
of course stays under lock and key. But what about things like
performance data, privacy experiments, Bugzilla contribution data, etc?
This issue seems like a recurring sensitivity and was a frequently asked
question.
6) Seize the risks of working open to tell our story
Occasionally things deviate from the plan. How do we respond when working in the open triggers unintended consequences or unexpected attention?
“Every time we react to a problem, we train the media. We teach them how
to look at Mozilla. We can either train them to look at us as a
traditional ‘software company’ — or help them see us as an open source
community.” –David Eaves
Our reaction to these instances can guide how others understand and report on Mozilla. When we act like a traditional software company, it may train others to treat us like a software company.
But when we lean into the fact that Mozilla is an open source
project, with a broad and diverse community, it could reaffirm the ways
in which we’re different. And challenge ourselves to really tell that
story. It’s harder to do — but probably worth it in the long run.
7) Work like the web we want
Open doesn’t just mean open in terms of using Bugzilla or
GitHub. It’s a frame of mind for both practical market success and
long-term mission success. –Mitchell
At the Summit we talked about building the web the world needs: one that’s knowable, interoperable and “ours” — a web that belongs to people, and that people are able to shape and make their own.
Those seem like great principles for building the Mozilla we want, as well: a Mozilla that is more knowable (transparent, friendly, and well-documented), interoperable (collaborating across teams, locales and projects), and ours (built by and for community).
Other organizations belong to owners and shareholders. As a
non-profit with a mission, Mozilla belongs to people. To make that
meaningful, it’s probably not enough to just serve the public — we have to let them in. That starts at the atomic level, with how we work each week. Next up: Gather more specific case studies, examples and your feedback. What do you think? How can others help?
Let’s compare notes. How do these themes compare with the discussions in Santa Clara and Brussels?
