Mozilla: No Firefox for iOS until Apple opens up

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Jay Sullivan, has said that Mozilla will not offer a browser on iOS until Apple allows third-party rendering engines, a move that will displease many Firefox fans.

Speaking at SXSW, Mozilla's vice president, Jay Sullivan, has said that Mozilla has no plans to introduce a third-party iOS client, until Apple allows developers access to their JavaScript Nitro rendering engine. Currently, Apple forces developers to render web pages through their UIWebView component, which isn't as speedy as their own engine, which is limited to Safari.

Mozilla has recently introduced a new IonMonkey rendering engine, which is used in their desktop and Android versions of Firefox. Mozilla has previously shown a prototype browser for iOS, called Junior, which used Apple's UIWebView rendering component, before saying: "There are a lot of reasons we should be on iOS even though we can't bring our rendering engine there."

Mozilla is currently facing the same problem on Windows RT, where Microsoft doesn't allow access to Win32 APIs, which prevents them from introducing their own rendering engine and achieving the speed of their OS X and Windows 8 versions.

Mozilla recently announced Firefox OS, which may help them regain their foothold in the browser market, especially on mobile. Safari currently rules the roost, with Android's native browser coming in second, while Firefox has failed to build a strong presence on mobile.

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