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.
I read the title... (Score:3, Interesting)
And thought: "What a load of crap." then I read TFA and the other thing and I was like: "Oh wow, this is not a bad idea at all." and then I thought: "Could have done with this earlier, though."
Is there still a "low end" market? (Score:5, Interesting)
It uses standards so should be resistant to patent infringement suits,
You'll be surprised what's patentable lately. And whether something is a standard or not has little to do with it.
it will fit on featurephone-grade hardware,
Running and running well are two different things. I'm skeptical until handsets are actually in the wild.
and it will run HTML5 apps without the restriction of native apps in an app store.
This is how "apps" were done on the original iPhone. There were Apple's apps, and there were 3rd party AJAX applets that generally ran from within Safari. And people complained because the quality of the user experience was hobbled by them not being native apps. The restrictions have nothing to do with whether they're native apps or HTML5 doohickeys. You can make native apps and not have an app store at all. Just let people load them to their phone direct from web downloads anywhere on the web or uploaded from flash memory card or USB sticks, kinda like how actual PCs work (for now).
In other words, it's aiming for the next 2 billion smartphone users, people who can't afford the iPhone/Android model.
Considering the iPhone 4 can be had for free now plus the iPhone has been available on prepaid for years, you could buy an older does-not-support the latest iOS iPhone pretty cheap now unlocked on Craigslist and avoid even the required Data Plan stupidity. If you can't afford one now you probably have things you should be focusing your money on instead (like food).
Re:people who can't afford the iPhone/Android mode (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you're missing the low-end concept here.
you can get one for free
You can be forgiven for thinking that $30-60 dollars a month is no big deal. For some people it's completely untenable. They are actual, literate human beings with rights and stuff. They don't have 'plans.'
buy last years model
Last years model isn't all that cheap, especially if it's unlocked. An unlocked Nexus S from 2010 is $340+, for example.
Today you can get a new, unlocked low power Android phone from LG for about $100. A year from now a new phone with the same power will probably be $75. An unlocked smart phone for the price two month's 'plan' cost. You can get GSM for $0.10 and Skype minutes for $0.019. A full function unlocked smart phone for cheap. Real cheap.
That's what we're talking about. So cheap it's almost disposable. And no 'plan.'
Android does run on those low end phones. The runtime overhead doesn't help, however. There is a place for a really efficient smart phone OS and Firefox OS is aiming right for it.
smart phone data charge
Lack of data does not preclude smart phones. For some people the smart phone is the only web capable device they own. Those people will know exactly where to find several reliable wifi hotspots within a walk or short drive.
People who spend time with seasonal workers get all this. Please try to allow for your own ignorance; there are a lot of other people on this planet.
Not that Disruptive (Score:4, Interesting)
To be disruptive, a device has to attract developers and users. This one hasn't even got a hardware vendor. In any case, the constant screwups with Firefox and Thunderbird make me very skeptical that Mozilla can disrupt a church picnic, never mind find a place in an extremely competitive mobile device market.
I'm betting on HTML5 (Score:4, Interesting)
Let the reader be warned that the two articles linked to from the summary are a gushing review by a Mozilla employee and an interview with the Mozilla CTO.
Even so, how many operating systems announced lately are saying that their API is basically HTML, CSS, or JavaScript? Google Chrome OS, Tizen, node.js, Blackberry 10 (sort of at least?), Windows 8 Metro, and now Firefox OS.
DISCLAIMER: I am a web programmer. (And right now, I'm happy to be one.)
Standard response to the myriad complaints about having to use JavaScript: JavaScript, as a language, is nice. Its history is tainted by incomplete browser implementations, namely Microsoft's. Also, its low level of entry flooded the web with really bad examples. If you really want to learn JavaScript, read JavaScript: The Definitive Guide or JavaScript: The Good Parts.
Less is more (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What a concept! (Score:0, Interesting)
Read the reviews on that $49 Walmart tablet. This is what Firefox OS is trying to do away with. I develop games in HTML5, and even some of the better Android phones out there are still garbage in running them.
Re:people who can't afford the iPhone/Android mode (Score:5, Interesting)
Because there's at least 2 1/2 billion of them, and only 300 million Americans?
One day soon, your country is going to get its economic arse kicked by poor brown people...
Re:Nothing is ever good enough for Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
My favourite is the people on /. who still, consistently, claim the RPi is a giant waste of money and that people should just buy old used x86 machines from a dump. It's even more amusing when these people claim such a plan is suitable for stocking a /computer lab/.
I gave up a long time ago reading the comments here to try and get any sort of useful insight, as most of them are people ranting over and over again about how the glory days of the 90s should live on forever, and how anything else is just not worth bothering with.
Possibly a more contextual example to this story is the comparisons to WebOS and the original iPhone's software stack, and how HTML5 apps were a giant disaster on those platforms, as well as the people who claim that HTML isn't a platform and never will be. Well, aside from the fact that people, you know, learn from history's mistakes, turns out there have been major improvements in the last 5 years in computing:
- Huge optimisations in graphics in general, which is really what 99% of consumers care about in terms of their phone experience
- Huge optimisations in layout engines and rendering engines for HTML
- Optimisations in JavaScript runtimes that are now orders of magnitude faster than they were back then, even on the same hardware
- Huge optimisations in memory management
- Several new revisions of the OpenGL API for embedded systems
- SIMD instruction sets for ARM are now widespread
Whether people here like it or not, turns out the web is already a platform. Is it ideal? No. But it's an accessible platform for any reasonably intelligent person to be able to make something half decent, and it seems that far outweighs any sort of technical superiority for a content delivery platform (which is effectively what the web is). To claim the web is not a platform is just outright denial. Zuckerberg has about 900 million reasons why those people are wrong.
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