18 Carriers Sign Up for Firefox OS Phones 107
Several readers sent word of a Mozilla announcement that 18 carriers have committed to launching phones running Firefox OS. The carriers are primarily from markets in South America and Europe. They include Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, and Sprint. The devices running Firefox OS will be made by LG, ZTE, Huawei, and Alcatel, and all will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. The new mobile operating system is built to allow HTML5 apps to run directly on the device, a solution Mozilla thinks will give it an edge when playing catch-up to all the software available for Android and iOS devices. "Developers are busy and don't have time to learn a new programming language. We believe that the only remaining eco-system is the web and there are more developers for the web than for any other platform in the world," said Jay Sullivan. According to Reuters, "Mozilla will initially look to compete in so-called 'emerging economies' in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia, where many people still use older phone models and have yet to upgrade to more expensive smartphones that feature touchscreens and high-speed Internet connections."
And then... (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPhone killer. (Score:1, Insightful)
It is finally here. Goodbye, Apple.
Re:Seriously.. no. (Score:5, Insightful)
No-one is talking about allowing random web pages complete access to the device. They're talking about letting people write apps in HTML5/JS. Still a bad idea, but not for any reasons related to browser security.
Bad news (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think running HTML on a device is a security hole, I have some bad news for you...
liars (Score:5, Insightful)
the only remaining eco-system is the web
Right. Which is why there is about one million apps for iOS and Android.
The Web is not, never was and never will be the only eco-system. What about the many, many non-web Internet applications? Not everyone uses webmail, and even webmail uses SMTP, not SOAP or REST to deliver its messages. There are calender services, bittorrent, games and thousands of other protocols and services, none of which have anything to do with the web.
There's a lot that is a website these days, granted. But you are a total idiot if you think that nothing that is not a website exists, that HTML/JS is the only programming language left etc.
Heck, Apple even tried this already when they released the original iPhone and told us that Web Apps are where it's at and we don't need native apps.
How about a little more realism and modesty? The web is one eco-system, and a very strong one. Why this obsession with being "the only", this desire for monopoly and dominance? WTF is wrong with being one among many?
Re:Why is there so much interest in Firefox OS ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not just fork Android ?
Because then they would still beholden to the Microsoft tax [computerworld.com].
Why its Firefox OS, I have no idea. From this article here it sounds like its just doing what WebOS did. And given Mozilla's history, this is exactly something Netscape would do. Thinking like a telecom CEO, I could see them being slightly afraid of Meego as it came from Nokia, and it didn't save them. Firefox is probably something they have heard of and used as opposed to the likes of Ubuntu or Tizen.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is there so much interest in Firefox OS ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:BUT (Score:2, Insightful)
And how is that different from the Dancing Pwnies native app, that the user clicked through the permissions screen on without checking and downloaded?