Mozilla is opening up its Open Web Apps platform to Android. The company announced that not only will Open Web Apps developed for Firefox OS be able to run on Android, but they will run natively.
“Now, with Firefox for Android 29, Mozilla is extending this open Open Web Apps ecosystem to Android,” wrote the company on its blog. “Over the past few months, we have been working on providing a ‘native experience’ for Open Web Apps. What this means is that as a user, you can now manage your Web app just like you would a native app. You can install/update/uninstall the app and the app will also show up in the App Drawer as well as the Recent Apps list.”
Open Web Apps are built using standard open Web technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The difference is the apps’ ability to be installed on a device, work offline, and access advanced APIs. According to Mozilla, Open Web Apps are intended to be standardized and could prevent the Web from becoming fragmented. Currently, not all parts of the Open Web Apps platform are standardized, and the Mozilla implementation is specific to Firefox and other Mozilla technologies.
“If successful, OWA should eventually work on all browsers, operating systems and devices,” Mozilla wrote on its developer website.
Developers won’t have to change a single line of code for their Firefox OS apps to run on Android; Firefox for Android will automatically convert their Open Web App into a native Android app.
More information can be found here.
