Just to recap, the idea of Firefox Home is simple.  It uses the Firefox Sync service to keep your desktop history, bookmarks and open tabs accessible via your iPhone or iPod touch.

How to Setup

First, make sure you have Firefox Sync set up and running via your desktop Firefox installation. Next, go to the App Store on your iPhone or iPod Touch and search for Firefox Home (you can also install Firefox Home via iTunes). Then, all you have to do is launch the application on your iPhone or iPod Touch, enter your Firefox Sync account information and your secret phase.  You are finished.  Now you can take your Firefox browsing history with you, anywhere you go.

iPad Support?

So will we see iPad support soon for Firefox Home?  According to the Firefox Home FAQ page:

Firefox Home 1.0 for the iPhone will work on the iPad, but it is not optimized for the iPad.

So, sounds like it works – but might have to wait till a later version before it works really well.

Firefox Home brings your Firefox history, bookmarks, open tabs and the Awesome bar to your Apple portable products.  Not only are the sync features handy, but overall it is more convenient to browse using this great tool because you avoid having to type and re-type long and painful URLs or spend time trying to find that website you know you have bookmarked in your browser.  Firefox may not be allowed on the iPhone (due to Apple’s multiple browser rule) but Firefox Home is the next best thing.

If anybody has tried it out, please feel free to leave your own experiences in the comments.  Being an iPhone and iPod Touch-less person – I am waiting to see what your experiences are.

Well, we all know we are not going to see Firefox on the iPhone.  Then again, we might get the next best thing with Firefox Home.  Using the technology behind Firefox Sync, this iPhone app with give an Firefox user access to their browser history, bookmarks and tabs from their recent browser session. In other words, you are kind of getting Firefox – but exactly the way you use it in your day to day life now.

Want to see it in action?  Check out this short video tour of the unbranded version:

It it still looks a little rough, do not worry.  Mozilla promises to polish it a ‘bit more before submitting it to the Apple App Store.

Even though I do not have an iPhone, I think this “next best thing” project they have going on here is pretty nice.  You can learn more about Firefox Home and development process on the Mozilla Wiki.

How do you make it happen?  Drag this link to your bookmarks bar:

• iPhone iGoogle Homepage

Now, right-click the bookmark, and select Properties.  Click the check mark box for loading this bookmark in the sidebar, and then click on the Save Changes button.  Now when you click the bookmark, it should open up the iPhone version of the iGoogle Homepage.

If you have RSS items on your iGoogle page, they show up very nicely (you can see them in the screenshot above) and some items, like weather will be click-able to show you more information on whatever they are about.  The search box is about useless (due to it being so small) but other than that, another fine iPhone/Google/Firefox hack-around bookmark.

Bonus Tip – drag this link (iGoogle mini) to your bookmarks bar to make it a popup version instead.  If you like that, you can read more about the Top 5 Google Popup Bookmarklets on Mitchelaneous.

How do you make it happen?  Drag this link to your bookmarks bar:

• iPhone Google Reader

Now, right-click the bookmark, and select Properties.  Click the check mark box for loading this bookmark in the sidebar, and then click on the Save Changes button.  Now when you click the bookmark, it should open up the iPhone version of the Google Reader.  The buttons are a little funny, but everything should pretty much work like it does on the iPhone. 

If you want to read more about any story, click on the title, and then to go to the web page for the story or post, click on See original.  This will load up a lightweight version of the site where the story came from.  Not perfect, but still fun to play with and semi-functional to use.

Bonus Tip – drag this link (mini reader) to your bookmarks bar to make it a popup instead.  If you like that, you can read more about the Top 5 Google Popup Bookmarklets on Mitchelaneous.

How do you make it happen?  Drag this link to your bookmarks bar:

• iPhone Google News

Now, right-click the bookmark, and select Properties.  Click the check mark box for loading this bookmark in the sidebar, and then click on the Save Changes button.  Now when you click the bookmark, it should open up the iPhone version of the Google News. 

To use it, click on Front Page to get all the big news stories of the day, and then click on Sections to find specific news about a certain topic, such as World News, Sci/Tech, and more.  The search is also usable, to find news about anything you might be thinking about at the time. 

Bonus Tip – drag this link (mini news) to your bookmarks bar to make it a popup version instead.  If you like that, you can read more about the Top 5 Google Popup Bookmarklets on Mitchelaneous.

The team over at Wired have posted a very interesting article with Mozilla’s CEO, John Lilly about a number of topics.  One of the topics that came up was iPhone and the easy somebody like Mozilla would have developing for it:

Wired: Are you going to develop a version of Firefox for the iPhone?

Lilly: No. Apple makes it too hard. They say it’s because of technical issues — they don’t want outsiders to disrupt the user experience. That’s a business argument masquerading as a technological argument. We’re focusing on more important stuff. The iPhone has been influential, but there’s not that many of them. We’re part of the LiMo Foundation — Linux on Mobile. The Razr V2 is a LiMo phone, and you’ll see more in the next year or so.

I do understand Apple’s need to “control the experience” with the iPhone, and hey… who knows, this could really open some doors for other phones and mobile devices.  Also Apple isn’t going to want to take away from Safari which for me as a Windows user has not been much than bundle-ware with iTunes. 

Check out the full interview with Lilly:  The Mozilla CEO on His Firefox Strategy, His Google Gambit, and Working With Apple

Firefox’s sidebar is and odd place to load a web page, however if you manage your bookmarks, there will be an option to load any bookmark in your sidebar. The good news is that some iPhone applications can load and work in Firefox’s sidebar!

I have to admit some of them look pretty cool.

• Facebook
• Digg
• YouTube

Check out the iPhone Application List for more suggestions to try too.

Found another iPhone application that looks good in the Firefox sidebar?

Is it true? Nah – but you have to admit it is a pretty creative picture. (link via informationcommunication) You have to wonder though if it will happen one of these days.