Mozilla released an early build of its mobile browser, codenamed Fennec, for Android phones this week. The browser is described as a pre-alpha build, meaning it’s still heavily under development and far from being a final product.

The app, as such, isn’t a complete representation of what’ll eventually hit Android’s App Market. But it is an interesting glimpse into what Mozilla has on the way for Google’s Android platform. Here’s a sneak peek at what you can expect.

The Android Firefox Experience

If I were to describe the early edition of the Firefox Android app in three words, I’d call it “rough but promising.” This pre-alpha build, just announced on Tuesday, is missing a great deal of functionality. The on-screen keyboard doesn’t pop up automatically when you tap on a text field, for example, and the app doesn’t seem to recognize the phone’s hardware “Back” button (pressing it while browsing a Web page didn’t do anything at all for me).

But that kind of thing is to be expected in a piece of software that’s not even at the beta, let alone alpha, level of development. So from here on out, I’ll focus on what the Firefox Android app does have, and what potential it shows for the future of Android Web browsing.

Firefox typically handles multiple tabs with ease, and its Android edition looks like it’ll be no exception. Scrolling to the far left of a page while browsing on Firefox Android brings up a vertical tab panel. The column shows tiny thumbnails of every page you currently have open; tapping on any thumbnail takes you to that page within a second. At the bottom of the panel sits an icon that allows you to start a new tab.

Scrolling all the way to the right brings up another panel, this one featuring options to mark a page as a favorite, navigate forward or backward, and open a preferences menu. The basic preferences themselves are pretty straight-forward: You can set your start page, enable or disable JavaScript, and manage your privacy settings. The most impressive part of Mozilla’s Android browser, though, comes in via a secondary preferences menu — one entitled “Add-ons.”

Android Browsing Add-Ons

Like the Firefox desktop edition, the Firefox Android app appears to be primed for expansion and customization. Nearly a hundred mobile-specific add-ons are already available for download, and that number is likely to grow exponentially as the browser starts reaching more and more users.

The most exciting add-on available for the Android edition so far is undoubtedly Mozilla’s own Weave Browser Sync. It lets you sync your bookmarks, saved passwords, and browsing history between your desktop and your Android phone. It can even sync your current set of active tabs, meaning you could open the app on your phone and see the same exact pages you had open when you left your computer. Pretty sweet, eh?

Other add-ons I found in the Firefox Android pre-alpha pool included a YouTube Enabler tool that lets you watch Flash-based YouTube video directly in the browser; a Near Me utility that puts location-based searching into the program; and a TwitterBar plugin that allows you to send tweets by typing into the browser’s address bar.

Some familiar Firefox add-ons are already available for the mobile edition, too, including GreaseMonkey, IETab, and Adblock Plus. You can browse the full list for yourself at Mozilla’s mobile add-ons page.

Firefox on Android: Final Thoughts

It’s hard to say much about the actual browsing experience with Firefox’s first semipublic Android offering; aside from the missing elements I mentioned early on, Mozilla’s developers are upfront about the fact that this pre-alpha version hasn’t been optimized for memory usage just yet. Not surprisingly, then, pages are slightly slow to load, and things aren’t always working quite perfectly.

The promise, however, is definitely there. One thing that remains to be seen is whether multitouch pinch-to-zoom functionality will be added in before the browser’s final release; as of now, you’re stuck using the old tap-tap method of zooming in and out of pages. If pinch-to-zoom is ultimately supported, I could see this becoming a very compelling option for the Android platform.

For now, though, I wouldn’t recommend installing this build for any kind of regular use; it’s simply too rough to be useful on a practical level. If you’re curious to see it first-hand, though — and willing to bear the occasional system crash — you can find a link to download it here. Android 2.0 or higher is required. And be sure to read the warnings on the page before proceeding; as with any pre-release build, some minor risks are involved.

While it may not be quite ready for primetime, Mozilla’s Firefox Android browser is certainly an app to keep an eye on. For now, the Dolphin Browser will remain the default on my personal Android phone — but once Mozilla’s Android offering is finalized, I suspect I’ll have a difficult decision on my hands.

Resource:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/195180/firefox_for_google_android_a_handson_tour.html

A new report by mobile ad company AdMob measures the amount of ad traffic sent from different smartphones in March — and the Droid’s blinking red eye is going to be very pleased with what it found.

AdMob and the Android Lineup

First up, let’s be clear about what exactly we’re discussing here: AdMob measures the number of ad impressions served by applications and mobile Web sites using its platform. In nondipstick speak, that means it’s counting the number of times its little ads show up on apps — you know, the ones that are free and thus ad-supported — as well the number of times they pop up on smartphone-specific versions of Web pages.

That said, here’s what AdMob discovered: The Motorola Droid accounted for nearly a third of all the company’s Android-oriented traffic during the month of March. No other handset even came close to matching the Droid’s 32 percent stronghold: The HTC Hero came in second place, with 19 percent of the traffic. The HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) and HTC Magic (myTouch 3G) tied for third, with 11 percent each.

Next came the Motorola Cliq, with 10 percent of the total March traffic. Then you have the Samsung Moment, at 6 percent; the Samsung Behold 2, at 2 percent, and the Nexus One, also accounting for only 2 percent of all Android-based AdMob traffic.

Android’s Expanding Options

What’s interesting about this data is how it shows the increasing spread of popular options within the Android ecosystem. Just seven months ago, two handsets were responsible for nearly all of AdMob’s Android-based traffic. Now that same traffic is divided among nearly a dozen different options.

This is truly the key to Android’s inevitable mobile market dominance: choice. I’m not talking about the choice to customize a device and use it the way you see fit (though that’s certainly relevant, too). What I’m talking about here is choice in hardware: Whereas certain unnamed platforms present you with only one basic form, Android devices come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors; there’s something to meet practically any desire.

Case in point: keyboards. Turns out more than half of AdMob’s March Android traffic came from devices with physical QWERTY keyboards — namely the Motorola Droid, Motorola Cliq, and T-Mobile G1. The physical QWERTY keyboard is one reason why I personally prefer using the Droid over newer and more technically impressive handsets such as the HTC Incredible. It’s all about the options.

The Android-iPhone Comparisons

Now, I like a good Android-iPhone smackdown as much as the next guy — but one thing AdMob’s data doesn’t do, contrary to what some reports floating around the blogosphere suggest, is imply that Android has now surpassed the iPhone in overall Web traffic.

In addition to the Android-specific data, you see, the AdMob report breaks down March ad impressions based on mobile operating systems. For the first time, Android does come out ahead of the iPhone, with 46 percent of all U.S.-based traffic compared to the iPhone’s 39 percent. But let’s consider what that really means.

AdMob, as I pointed out early on, measures the number of ad impressions served by applications and mobile Web sites using its platform. The important phrase to take away from that: “using its platform.” When you’re looking within a single operating system like Android, you can draw some general conclusions by treating the data as a broad sample. But when you’re looking from one platform to another, it’s just not a consistent comparison.

AdMob, after all, very well could serve far more apps on Android than it does on iPhone. Developers have options as to whether to include ads and — if they do go the ad-supported route — which mobile ad provider they want to use. Differences in the number of and popularity of AdMob-using apps on each platform would clearly skew any meaning a cross-platform comparison would have.

So, sorry to disappoint, but there’ll be no crown-changing bragging rights awarded here today. That doesn’t mean Android and Apple fanboys can’t still call each other names, though, and mock each others’ platform limitations. Just don’t do it in Apple’s App Store; I hear uttering the word “Android” there can get you banned.

Resource:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/27/google_backtracks_on_nexus_one/