Firefox OS Simulator 3.0 Now Available

Late last year, Mozilla released Firefox OS simulator 1.0. The preview software would give developers an idea of how Firefox OS looks when running on a mobile device while allowing them to develop app...
Firefox OS Simulator 3.0 Now Available
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  • Late last year, Mozilla released Firefox OS simulator 1.0. The preview software would give developers an idea of how Firefox OS looks when running on a mobile device while allowing them to develop apps for the HTML5-centric platform. It’s only been a few months since then, and Mozilla has already pushed out two new versions with the latest being made available this week.

    Mozilla announced that Firefox OS Simulator 3.0 is now available to developers. What sets this apart from previous Simulator builds beyond the obvious new features is that it’s a really early build that’s still “rough around the edges.” Still, Mozilla wants you, the developers, to have a go at it to help the team build the best product they can.

    Here’s what you can expect to see in version 3.0 of the Firefox OS Simulator:

  • Push to Device
  • Rotation simulation
  • Basic geolocation API simulation
  • Manifest validation
  • Stability fixes for installation and updates to apps
  • Newer versions of the Firefox rendering engine and Gaia (the UI for Firefox OS)
  • The most helpful update in version 3.0 is probably the ability to push apps to a device loaded with Firefox OS. Sony has recently released an experimental version of the mobile OS for its Xperia E smartphone. With the latest version of the simulator, developers can now test apps on these devices to make sure they properly work in a true mobile environment.

    If you want to try out the latest version of Firefox OS Simulator, you can grab it for Windows, Mac or Linux. Be aware that it acts as an extension of Firefox so you’ll have to keep the browser open to play around with it.

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