Fennec 1.1 ships on Maemo as MeeGo heats up

By Eric Brown
2010-07-07

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Mozilla announced version 1.1 of Firefox Mobile "Fennec," debuting on Maemo Linux, while also releasing a beta of the Firefox 4.0 desktop browser. Meanwhile, Intel and Aava Mobile released images of the Aava phone reference design running an early version of MeeGo 1.1 for Handsets, and Movial announced Flash 10.1 integration services for MeeGo and Android.

This week, Mozilla announced version 1.1 of the open source Firefox for Mobile web browser, otherwise known as Fennec, debuting on Maemo, one of the two main sources for MeeGo along with Moblin. The release allows users of the Nokia N900 smartphone (pictured below) and earlier N810 Internet Tablet to be the first to try out Fennec 1.1's new browser features before it moves on to MeeGo and Android.

Nokia N900

Firefox for Mobile 1.1 enhancements include the ability to browse in landscape and portrait mode, smoother zoom displays, autocomplete features for forms, and a save-to-PDF feature, says the Mozilla project.

Other improvements are said to include:

Using volume rocker to zoom in and out
Personalized Start page
Auto-update for add-ons and ability to view full add-on gallery
"Smart Tapping" to let users "tap on links, widgets and other web content with accuracy"
Context menu enables Open in New Tab and Save Image functions by long tapping and holding a link
Forget Password feature in Site menu to instruct website to forget private data
Add Search Engine in the Site menu for quickly adding a new search engine to the Awesome Screen

Mozilla announced its fifth beta for the Linux version of the Fennec mobile web browser in April 2009. In early January of this year, the open source group released the final release candidate for the Maemo version, which was made available in final form at the end of January. In April, Mozilla announced a pre-alpha version for Android.

Firefox 4 beta released

Yesterday, Mozilla also announced its first beta of its Firefox 4 desktop browser for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. The Firefox 4 Beta 1 release offers a new UI for Windows, with tabs moved to the top of the screen -- a look that will be available "soon" for Linux and Mac versions as well. Firefox 4 also provides a new Add-Ons Manager, HD video support using HTML5, privacy improvements, crash protection, and faster start-up and page-load performance, says Mozilla.

Developer-focused Firefox 4 features include an HTML5 Parser, a "WebSockets" feature for building real-time online game and chat interactions, and an IndexedDB feature for using structured storage in web applications, says Mozilla. Other developer features are said to include a Web Console, and simpler add-on development.

New images released for MeeGo 1.1 on Aava mobile phone

As shown in screenshots released last week along with MeeGo for Handsets -- preview source code for a mobile-oriented version of MeeGo 1.0 for Netbooks -- the handset version incorporates Fennec 1.0, as opposed to the Chrome browser used in the netbook version.

MeeGo 1.1 with Handsets UI on Aava Mobile handset reference design
(Source: Carrypad)

Now, Carrypad has published some photographs from Intel (above, and below, right), showing MeeGo 1.1 with the Handset environment running on the Aava Mobile handset reference design.

The Aava phone runs on Intel's Atom Z6xx ("Moorestown") processor. It is one of two MeeGo handset reference designs along with the yet to be completed Nokia N900 reference design, which runs on an ARM Cortex-A8 based OMAP3x processor from Texas Instruments.

Around the same time as the Handsets UI release, Intel showed off a preview of the tablet environment for MeeGo. Both are expected to reach fruition in October when MeeGo 1.1 will be released, supporting touch-enabled handsets, tablets, and in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) devices, says the project.

The first MeeGo developers conference will be held in Ireland in November, says the Carrypad story, which suggests that Europe will be a major focus for the early MeeGo for Handsets market. Nokia recently indicated it would shift all of its future N-series smartphones from Symbian to MeeGo.

Movial announces Flash 10.1 services for Meego and Android

Movial today announced enablement and certification services for Adobe Flash Player 10.1 on system-on-chip (SoC) and mobile platforms for Meego and Android. The company also revealed that it is already working with five unnamed, "major chip and mobile platform players" to conduct integration, testing, and certification of Flash Player 10.1 across mobile devices including smartphones and embedded devices such as tablets, e-readers, and netbooks.

A "scaling partner" in Adobe's Open Screen Project, which has aimed to spread Flash technology across the embedded device world, Movial also offers systems integration services, including services tailored for Android.

Last month, the company announced Movial MeeGo Services for cross-device and cross-architecture development using MeeGo. At that time, Movial also announced MeeGo versions of its Qt WebKit-based IXS Browser, its IXS Widgets multiplatform widget runtime, and its Movial Communicator application suite.

Stated Wade Vesey, CEO of Movial North America, "Movial is proud to have been selected by five of the industry’s leading chip and mobile platform vendors, as well as a number of device manufacturers that use these platforms, to integrate, test, optimize and certify Flash Player 10.1 across MeeGo and Android on their respective chipsets and device platforms."

Stated Anthony Haag, director of business development, Open Screen Project at Adobe, "Flash Player 10.1 sets the groundwork for innovation and having a scaling partner like Movial means that chip and mobile platform vendors have a reliable, expert team at hand to support their optimization and hardware acceleration needs to bring the performance and new features of Flash Player 10.1 to market as quickly as possible."

Availability

The Firefox for Mobile 1.1 release notes for Maemo may be found here, and the Firefox 4 beta release notes should be here.

The CarryPad story with more MeeGo for Handsets photos should be here.

More information on Movial's Flash integration services may be found here.

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