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Mozilla has been working on a mobile version of its open source Firefox browser for some time and now the company has taken the wraps off some of its initial design ideas, offering a sneak-peak of the interface that will drive Firefox Mobile for both classic and touch-screen phones.

The touch screen interface looks remarkably similar to Apple’s mobile version of Safari with a stop / reload button, and an address / search bar, plus the same star-bookmarking button found in the Firefox 3. As with mobile Safari, the page navigation is at the bottom of the screen with back / forward buttons as well as zoom controls and a tab switch button. For non touch screen devices, a virtual cursor is provided and controlled with the keyboard navigational keys, while other actions are performed through menus and submenus.

As a Firefox user on the desktop I believe the real appeal of Mobile Firefox will lie within the extensions, though so far the mockups don’t reveal any details on this. In any case, the XUL mockups are available for download in both touch-screen and classic versions so you can see how Firefox Mobile is shaping up.