Mozilla is developing a new browser for iPad, it’s not the popular Firefox browser. Apple’s policy doesn’t allow browsers using rendering engines other than WebKit on iOS platform, so Mozilla is using WebKit rendering engine and developed a prototype called “Junior”.
“Junior, an iPad browser makes browsing more fun, more ergonomic and re-thinks browser experience from the ground up”, According to Mozilla site, they also posted a presentation from Mozilla’s Product Design Strategy team that discusses about the Junior. In the presentation Alex Limi, Product Designer, Mozilla calls Safari on iPad “a miserable experience” and says they wanted to make something entirely new and reinvent the browser for a new form factor.
Junior prototype fills the entire iPad screen real estate, giving a magazine like browsing experience. The traditional search / address bar have been removed from the top but they are easily accessible from the screen though. There are two buttons overlayed on the screen, on the left a back button, that is for going back as the name suggest. Long pressing the back button reveals Forward and Reload functions. On the right there is a plus button, clicking on will allow you to see recent sites list, reveals a search / address bar.
“We wanted to make something entirely new. We wanted to look into how we could reinvent the browser for a new form factor,” Firefox product designer Alex Limi said in the video, calling Safari on iPad “a miserable experience.”
It is not clear from the presentation when this browser will be available to users, since this is just a prototype we can assume this will take quite sometime to get your hands on it. iPad already has several browsers other than Safari including Dolphin, Atomic, Opera Mini and the newly launched Yahoo Axis Browser.
