Mozilla intends to develop a version of Firefox for
Windows 8.
That should come as no surprise to anyone, considering how
Windows 8 will soon appear on a sizable number of traditional PCs and tablets.
However, Mozilla’s approach to porting Firefox onto the upcoming operating
system neatly summarizes the potential issues facing other companies that wish
to turn Windows 8 into a platform for their products. In order to cover the
full range of Windows 8 devices effectively, it must develop Firefox for two
application environments: “classic” Windows and “Metro.”
The classic version “is very similar to the Windows 7
environment at this time,” according to Mozilla’s official page on Windows 8 browser
development, and thus “requires a simple evolution of the current Firefox
Windows product.”
However, Metro is an altogether different beast. The design
aesthetic, currently found on Windows Phone and the latest Xbox dashboard, has
profound influence on Windows 8: in place of the “traditional” desktop that
defined previous editions of Windows, the newest operating system will open
with a Metro start screen of colorful, touchable tiles linked to
applications. In theory, this will help port Windows 8 onto tablets and other
touch-happy form factors; users will have the ability to download Metro apps to
their machine via an online storefront.
That bifurcation between Metro tiles and the “classic”
interface (the latter accessible through a
single click) demands that third-party developers approach their Windows 8
creations in a more granular fashion.
Mozilla added that any version of Firefox for Metro will
require the ability to “snap” to either full-screen, 1/6th screen or 5/6th
screen mode; to enter a suspended state when not in view; and focus on touch
interaction. “We may want to offer a live tile with user-centric data like
friends presence or other Firefox Home information updates,” explained a note.
“Ideally we’d be able to create secondary titles for Web-based apps hosted in
Firefox’s runtime.”
Microsoft recently unveiled a host of details about Windows
on ARM (for which it uses the acronym “WOA”), designed to offer users a
lightweight experience more reminiscent of an iPad than a desktop. It will help
drive the company’s tablet efforts once Windows 8 actually hits the market
sometime in the latter half of 2012.
“A WOA PC will feel like a consumer
electronics device in terms of how it is used and managed,” Steven Sinofsky,
president of Microsoft’s Windows and Windows Live division, wrote in a Feb. 9
posting on the corporate Building
Windows 8 blog.
But tablet dominance also hinges on a healthy app ecosystem.
Microsoft is apparently working on that, as well: Mobile broadband-class
drivers, printer-class drivers, GPS, sensors (accelerometer, rotation, gyro,
compass, magnetometer) and Bluetooth are all capabilities available to
developers creating Metro-style apps for Windows on ARM.
If developers rush to the WOA platform in large numbers, it
could result in an app ecosystem capable of challenging Apple’s App Store and
Google’s Android Marketplace. In turn, combined with a Metro-specific version
of Office and powerful hardware, that could make Windows 8 a true challenger.
But a lot still depends on the ability of Microsoft (and its hardware partners)
to actually execute its plans in the real world.
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