Mozilla To Sell '$25' Firefox OS Smartphones In India 82
mrspoonsi (2955715) writes Mozilla, the organisation behind the Firefox browser, has announced it will start selling low-cost smartphones in India within the "next few months". Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, the firm's chief operating officer suggested the handsets, which will be manufactured by two Indian companies, would retail at $25 (£15) [note: full article paywalled]. They will run Mozilla's HTML5 web-based mobile operating system, Firefox OS. The firm already sells Firefox-powered phones in Europe and Latin America. Firefox OS has come a long way even in the year since we saw a tech demo at Linux Fest Northwest.
Any chance at getting one? (Score:5, Interesting)
A mobile OS that isn't Apple's Garden of Pure Ideology, or linked directly to the mothership in Redmond if you actually want to do much of anything would also be nice to see.
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I predict they'll never be available in the US/UK for anything like that little money. There'll be taxes and import duty and this and that and....and it'll end up being 3 times that, and for the money you'd be able to buy something which less horrific performance. There's no profit in this for anyone - why bother in the first place?
Because there's more to live (Score:1)
Re: Because there's more to life... (Score:1)
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Sure. There are many people working to ensure that people in developing countries have access to education, water, immunisation etc. And now, uh..mobile phone? I mean, let's be honest - that's usually done for profit, so that the guys in suits get money, and so that the company sticks around long enough to fix the inevitable bugs, release a second version etc.
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Well 3 x $25 = $75. At that price I still agree with the PP, I'd pay it just to see what Firefox OS is like.
It would have to be over two hundred before I'd decide it wasn't worth it.
Re:Any chance at getting one? (Score:4, Interesting)
+1 on this one. Mozilla should not commit the same mistake as the OLPC project in restricting sales to selected Third World regions. It should sell the phone wherever there are buyers, if not at your local telco or Walmart, then online. More sales in the West means more phones falling into the hands of geeky bums with the potential and time to tinker/mod the phone into something just a wee bit cooler than the default factory-shipped OS. Will the phone have more juice than the Raspberry Pi? Maybe it could sell to the maker crowd.
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Interfacing a GSM module with anything from a microcontroller on up isn't all that hard (Hayes Ain't Dead, just extended a lot...); but a bare SIM900 module will run you a
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Searching for "LCD TFT SPI" on eBay.ca gives me quite a list of 2.2 inches displays with built-in SD/microSD socket, for only 6.00~6.50$CAD per unit (shipping included). Going up, you have 2.8" displays with touch screen for less than 20$CAD with shipping.
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Mozilla aren't selling these.
They have merely attracted the interest of *Indian* entrepreneurs to produce phones for the *Indian* market. Nothing stopping these guys from certifying these phones to worldwide standards and opening a webstore to ship internationally. Or partnering with Walmart to import 20,000 of them.
Re:Any chance at getting one? (Score:5, Informative)
How about $100?
Announcement post; https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/... [mozilla.org]
US store: http://item.ebay.com/291125433... [ebay.com]
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Thanks! My Android phone is starting to fritz out and this would be fun to play with.
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You have a house in 2014? You're rich.
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Think you got it bad? Here in Brazil they sell a Firefox phone for $150, and any half-decent Android one goes for about $250.
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Think you got it bad? Here in Canada they give us the phones for free but it requires a three years contract with a minimum monthly package of 80$.
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Also, all the fauna is out to kill you.
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Surely you jest, Tony is making a splash with O'Bama as we speak. :)
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So why anyone get this instead of an Android device? There are plenty of usable Android devices for less than $100 (unsubsidized).
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Exactly. And if you're getting one of these to play with, you've probably already got another one. And if you dont...well, these are going to seriously suck, just like all the other cheap Android tablets/phones have always sucked, with in the area of screen size, resolution, old version of android, insufficient ram to ensure speedy (even for the price) operation, crap build quality so you have to go through 2 or 3 to get a working one, etc. So you're going to regret it.
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Ah, for the OS? None of those sub $100 Android devices, by definition, come with Firefox OS preinstalled.
If you're asking why anyone would be curious to try Mozilla's platform, well that's a different question entirely.
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I never used a smartphone before this one. Would you care to explain what killer features I'm missing out on?
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Application compatibility may or may not be an issue, depending on which ones you want.
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"Why do ordinary users buy newer, more expensive Android phones?"
The old one is broken.
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Anyway, half of them (accelerated UI, TRIM support) are "phone go faster" and the rest are all under-the-hood and your average pleb wouldn't know or care.
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2.3 is fine. Google Play Services still gets updated. Security risk? What security risk? Just don't download stuff from outside the Play Store, and don't root your phone if you're paranoid, and you'll be safe in the sandbox. All that other stuff is lost on most people (where most people = people who'll surf, email, phone, text, facebook etc).
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I use Android 2.1 on a rooted Barnes & Noble Nook Simpletouch and I'm trying to get the same version working on a B&N Nook Glowlight. I love it, it is perfect for running simple applications such as Anki, which I use to study.
Re: Any chance at getting one? (Score:2)
I got the Motorola e ink phone (with 12 segment characters by 8 or so across) for $25 on Amazon as a back up phone a few years ago, it was a $15 dollar phone for India too.
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People can get a decent smartphone for under $80 here already, this one with no plan:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/T-Mo... [walmart.com]
I've seen it under $70 just a while back but Walmart must cycle the prices every so often.
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No plan but it's a "T-mobile", does that mean you buy a locked phone upfront?
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No plan but it's a "T-mobile", does that mean you buy a locked phone upfront?
someone needs to brush up on their reading comprehension skills! ...
what part of
do you fail to comprehend??
http://item.ebay.com/291125433... [ebay.com]
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What part of
T-Mobile Pre-Paid Nokia Lumia 521 4G Smartphone
did you fail to read?
I think you mix up this thread with another one.
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I predict they'll never be available in the US/UK for anything like that little money. There'll be taxes and import duty and this and that and....and it'll end up being 3 times that, and for the money you'd be able to buy something which less horrific performance. There's no profit in this for anyone - why bother in the first place?
Nah .. at under £20 GBP it is under the import tax threshold.. so no import tax on this puppy for Scotland or the UK
Your wish is available now (Score:2)
A mobile OS that isn't Apple's Garden of Pure Ideology, or linked directly to the mothership in Redmond if you actually want to do much of anything would also be nice to see.
Good morning, Mr. Rip Van Winkle. There are mobile phones that run an OS called Android that you seem not to have heard of but exactly meet your criteria. You might want to check that out. You can actually buy those in the USA right now.
Re:Your wish is available now (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps you missed the story yesterday where Google was making the app security on Android even less secure, and in such a way as to prevent users from disabling components which would block ads.
Sure, you can install apps from other locations ... but there are some apps you can't install unless you root the phone.
Google is no saint in this regard either. They have some illusions of open-ness, but they also ensure their advertising services and the like can't be selectively disabled.
Hell, the very act of turning on the GPS in my Nexus 7 causes Google to prompt me to say yes to their own location services.
Android stuff are almost as directly linked to that particular mothership as Apple or Microsoft.
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Perhaps you missed the story yesterday where Google was making the app security on Android even less secure, and in such a way as to prevent users from disabling components which would block ads.
Perhaps you missed that Android is open source and there are many distributions that are not tied to Google. Are there iOS or Windows Phone distributions that are not tied to Apple or Microsoft? No.
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A friend wanted to record trips with the GPS, installed the official Google application ("MyTracks") and then the software demanded to be linked to one of two listed email addresses (xxxxx@gmail.com)
So we uninstalled it and he forego'ed using the GPS (except for that "navigation in google maps" thing). Huh, that is fucking ridiculous. Even a non technical user sensed there's something wrong to require all your GPS readings be sent to a third party. Next time Google will sell pornography that plays only if y
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Unless you hack around and run bare AOSP, possibly with certain 3rd-party customizations, the percentage of 'Android' that is actually 'Google Play Services' increases with every version bump. A nontrivial percentage of even non-Google apps also build against Google-specific APIs, rather than the relatively impoverished Android ones (
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A nontrivial percentage of even non-Google apps also build against Google-specific APIs, rather than the relatively impoverished Android ones (the rule of thumb seems to be that, once a role is added to GPS, the AOSP implementation more or less freezes at whatever state it was in and remains there), so incompatibility, even with the absolute freshest AOSP, is quite common.
Or the TL;DR version: Embrace, extend, extinguish. Companies are not your friends, they're temporary allies as the underdog seeks to become top dog but will abandon you when they no longer need your support. They make more money that way.
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It's an open source project backed by a non-profit that as it's only goal is: keeping the Internet open and accessible by anyone by improving, promoting the open web.
Mozilla isn't perfect, but it might be the best we've got right now ?
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Whether or not they turn on you later, if they gain power, is a matter of disposition or institutional culture; but making enemies and alienating people when you really can't afford it is something that only the stubborn and the doomed do.
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Ofcourse, but what is the alternative ?
Multiple non-profits ?
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1. Technically they didn't implement closed DRM, they let others build a closed part and allow it to be run from Firefox
2. You mean Android ? the Google services are getting more closed by the day and the open source components are lagging. Samsung is creating their own replacements. This seems like a good idea to you ?
Re:Your wish is available now (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, you know you are right! I confused my Samsung with an iPhone because of the rounded corners.
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If it's a SIM based phone, and you destroy the phone and your SIM ... are you any better off?
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Not something you want to deal with the hassle of; but not as bad as losing an expensive phone with the SIM in it. (Plus, if your phone is cheap junk, you can still lose/destroy it on your own; but it is less likely to be stolen, which h
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There are Nokias available for 25$ or lesser in most countries without any plan. Which are sturdy as an ox and have absolutely no problems.
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But they are not smartphones, they are feature phones.
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Do you think Dell produces it's products in the US ?
Is Dell a US company ?
There is your answer.
But in Brazil they do get produced locally, because import taxes are really high.
What about Apps ? (Score:3, Informative)
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If you never learnt HTML5, CSS, Javascript and the DOM etc. then you still have to learn them.
Hell, web development has all that, plus one or more back end languages (PHP, Python, Node.js etc.), plus paying for a host and setting up a server. It's a lot more complicated than say, Visual Basic.
It's probably worth it if you want to write an "app" and its back end and have the stuff accessible from a desktop PC as well (or the browser on other kinds of mobile phones)
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Webapps don't need a server.
All you need is for it to not depend on a server (by using the HTML5 Offline cache) and add a manifest file:
http://davidwalsh.name/firefox... [davidwalsh.name]
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thanks for that link
For the Fi-curious (Score:5, Informative)
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It's a phone built for Indians by Indians. If you reside outside of India, you'll have to find someone within that country to post it to you.
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I own an Open C. But at $25. Even I would want to get another phone just to have more stuff to fool around with. For example, trying to get Ubuntu or Sailfish running.
FireFox OS (Score:2)
FireFox OS is an ok OS.
Pity it lacks a decent browser...
(Sorry, but that HAS to be written)
Both manufacturer are not worth of good hardware (Score:1)