Smartphone apps have exploded in popularity, so launching a tool that helps users create their own s...

1. Mozilla’s Webmaker app will make it easy for anyone
to create Web apps on their smartphone
Smartphone apps have exploded in popularity, so launching a tool that helps users create their own
sounds obvious. But Mozilla's ambition for an open Web - combined with the long-winded process of
publishing native Android and iOS apps - makes its decision to focus on Web apps hardly surprising.

2. Mozilla is working on an app for Android, iOS and Firefox OS that gives smartphone users the ability
to easily create and share Web apps.
"It's taking this idea of the app, but applying a more long-tail type of distribution - peer-to-peer
distribution - that's endemic of how the Web works today," Sliwinski said as Mozilla gears up for
MozFest 2014. "We're taking the distribution of the Web and then applying it to the app ecosystem."
Most of Mozilla's existing Webmaker tools are designed for desktop browsers. X-Ray Goggles, for
instance, allows anyone to "remix" their favorite sites and webpages - changing text, images and
other clearly defined elements.

3. These tools are freely available and used every summer during Mozilla's Maker Party festival. But
with the growing number of smarpthone users - particularly in developing markets - the nonprofit
needs similar resources for mobile.
The home feed offers a series of template options aimed at "personas" or particular professions, such
as teachers, medics, journalists and small business owners. Users can customise any of them with
Webmaker "blocks" which include text, forms, geolocations and more. "Basically, everything that you
would need to build a rich, simple Web app," Sliwinski explained.
Mozilla hopes to launch the Webmaker app simultaneously on Android and Firefox OS early next
year. Sliwinski said a rough iOS prototype does exist, but there's no word on when it will be
available to download.
Read Next: Teaching the Web: The lasting impact of Mozilla's Maker Party campaign / Mozilla's
Firefox Hello feature lets you make video calls from the browser
It's called Webmaker, after the initiative that Mozilla created to promote Web literacy. The app is
still in development and won't be released until early 2015, but Mozilla's Andrew Sliwinski gave me
a short demo of the current build.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla