NEWS
On Friday, Mozilla released Fennec Alpha 3 for Windows Mobile, the latest in Mozilla's effort to put its Firefox browser on a mobile phone.
As with Fennec 1.0 beta 3 for the Maemo platform found on some Nokia internet tablets, Fennec for Windows Mobile makes changes to the mobile browser's theme, and its scrolling and panning performance.
In particular, it's using what's called a tile cache rendering system to hold onto the part of the screen that has already been rendered. As you scroll and pan around, it should take less time to refresh the screen, since Fennec won't be downloading the same content afresh. This is the same type of technology used in Google Maps.
In addition, Mozilla says it has increased Fennec's start-up time, although users will need to reboot the Windows Mobile phone for the difference to take effect. Swiping along the edge of the directional pad on the HTC Touch Pro now controls zooming. In the meantime, Fennec now supports more screen resolutions for any other Windows Mobile phone, so it could potentially look better on devices.
While Mozilla has no hard date set for completing Fennec 1.0 for Windows Mobile it has set a target time for releasing Fennec on the Maemo platform in Q4, which brings us to before the end of December. This fits the timeline of Mozilla's open design competition for the company's Firefox for Mobile campaign, which will cut off voting on 7 October, 2009.
