Firefox OS: Disruptive By Aiming Low 286
judgecorp writes "As Apple launches a new slightly-improved iPhone 5, Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich says if you want a really disruptive phone you should look to Firefox OS. It's a low-cost low-end device — and that's the point. It uses standards so should be resistant to patent infringement suits, it will fit on featurephone-grade hardware, and it will run HTML5 apps without the restriction of native apps in an app store. In other words, it's aiming for the next 2 billion smartphone users, people who can't afford the iPhone/Android model." Reader rawkes has some (very warm) thoughts about Firefox OS, too, which helpfully includes both screenshots and a video demo.
Web as an OS (Score:5, Informative)
The model of the web as an OS has been passed around since the turn of the century. The dot com bubble tried it. Oracle has tried it, repeatedly. Microsoft tried it. Every attempt so far has failed, and it was by people with far more resources than the Firefox team. I could type out a long list of reasons why this is, but what's the point? History tells us that no matter how promising it looks, and how pretty it is, it's destined for the scrap heap.
Re:people who can't afford the iPhone/Android mode (Score:2, Informative)
Looks like someone has never been to the developing world.
Chrome is for ICS/JB only and requires Gapps (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not that Disruptive (Score:4, Informative)
To be disruptive, a device has to attract developers and users.
The developers and applications already exist. It's easy to make existing HTML5 applications installable to Firefox OS. Just add an app manifest [mozilla.org] and an application cache manifest [mozilla.org]. It would be easy for ZeptoLab, for example, to make Cut the Rope [cuttherope.ie] installable to Firefox OS.
This one hasn't even got a hardware vendor.
You should read one of Telefonica's press releases [telefonica.com]. Firefox OS has both operators and hardware manufacturers.
Re:What a concept! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I read the title... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Web as an OS (Score:5, Informative)
(Firefox OS developer here) This is a common misconception, but Chrome OS is a lot different from Firefox OS, at least from an architectural perspective.
Chrome OS is, as you say, an OS that boots into a browser. You're running a full desktop Linux client, including a window manager.
In Firefox OS, the window manager is an HTML page. Gecko (that is, Firefox) shows the window manager. All your apps, are iframes (with special attributes on them). The browser is an app (a special iframe). The browser's tabs are more special iframes inside the browser iframe. There are a lot of iframes in Firefox OS.
Also note that Chrome OS is not targeting smartphones (afaik). It's really quite different.