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Will there be a Firefox app for iPad/iPhone?

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  • 18 have this problem
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  • Last reply by philipp

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Is see an app for Android. Will there be a Firefox app for iPad/iPhone?

Is see an app for Android. Will there be a Firefox app for iPad/iPhone?

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hello Sid1, due to apple's restrictive policies it is unfortunately not possible to implement & offer independent third-party browsers for idevices.
mozilla is prohibited to bring the rendering & javascript engine of firefox onto iOS, since apple is only allowing the use of its own webkit in the terms & conditions for developers - as long as this is the case, firefox and its addon ecosystem cannot be ported to iOS devices unfortunately.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2416461,00.asp

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Chosen Solution

hello Sid1, due to apple's restrictive policies it is unfortunately not possible to implement & offer independent third-party browsers for idevices.
mozilla is prohibited to bring the rendering & javascript engine of firefox onto iOS, since apple is only allowing the use of its own webkit in the terms & conditions for developers - as long as this is the case, firefox and its addon ecosystem cannot be ported to iOS devices unfortunately.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2416461,00.asp

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Thank you for answering. Other browsers such as Chrome manage to work within Apple's guidelines. However, I know that it's a free market and Mozilla is not obligated to provide a Firefox app for iOs, though I'm sure it would great.

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Mozilla did have a experimental browser for iOS over two years ago called Junior. Of course thanks to Apple's restrictions on the browser and JavaScrpt engines used, it did not use the same as say Firefox does.

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Chrome was originally developed on the WebKit layout engine software component (designed by Apple, Adobe, and others) - using the same "base" as Safari uses or used to use. So having a version of Chrome for iOS isn't as hard as making a version of Firefox for iOS.

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to add to what others have said, chrome on iOS is in essence a skinned safari browser. i personally don't think that this is a route that mozilla would or should go. there are some concepts going on to bring firefox sync back to idevices though, so maybe something develops from this in the not so distant future: https://www.soeren-hentzschel.at/wp-content/uploads/p105-settings.png