Google Invests $22 Million In Feature Phone Operating System KaiOS (techcrunch.com) 28
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google is turning startup investor to further its goal of putting Google services like search, maps, and its voice assistant front and center for the next billion internet users in emerging markets. It has invested $22 million into KaiOS, the company that has built an eponymous operating system for feature phones that packs a range of native apps and other smartphone-like services. As part of the investment, KaiOS will be working on integrating Google services like search, maps, YouTube and its voice assistant into more KaiOS devices, after initially announcing Google apps for KaiOS-powered Nokia phones earlier this year.
KaiOS is a U.S.-based project that started in 2017, built on the ashes of Mozilla's failed Firefox OS experiment, as a fork of the Linux codebase. Firefox OS was intended to be the basis of a new wave of HTML-5, low-cost smartphones. And while those devices and the wider ecosystem never really took off, KaiOS has fared significantly better. KaiOS powers phones made by OEMs including Nokia (HMD), Micromax and Alcatel, and it works with carriers including Sprint and AT&T -- it counts offices in North America, Europe and Asia. But its most significant deployment to date has been with India's Reliance Jio, the challenger telco that disrupted the Indian market with affordable 4G data packages. "This funding will help us fast-track development and global deployment of KaiOS-enabled smart feature phones, allowing us to connect the vast population that still cannot access the internet, especially in emerging markets," said KaiOS CEO Sebastien Codeville in a statement.
KaiOS is a U.S.-based project that started in 2017, built on the ashes of Mozilla's failed Firefox OS experiment, as a fork of the Linux codebase. Firefox OS was intended to be the basis of a new wave of HTML-5, low-cost smartphones. And while those devices and the wider ecosystem never really took off, KaiOS has fared significantly better. KaiOS powers phones made by OEMs including Nokia (HMD), Micromax and Alcatel, and it works with carriers including Sprint and AT&T -- it counts offices in North America, Europe and Asia. But its most significant deployment to date has been with India's Reliance Jio, the challenger telco that disrupted the Indian market with affordable 4G data packages. "This funding will help us fast-track development and global deployment of KaiOS-enabled smart feature phones, allowing us to connect the vast population that still cannot access the internet, especially in emerging markets," said KaiOS CEO Sebastien Codeville in a statement.
Not good (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: How about offering a good phone?! (Score:1)
Moto 5G Plus and such?
Samsung J7 or whatever it's called?
Re: Another OS from Google (Score:2)
You probably hate-click leftist articles to rage as liberal crazies, then Google takes this to mean you want to see more.
Oh great ... (Score:4, Funny)
Another advertising platform, just what we need.
Also, Sebastien Codeville? Seriously? If that's a made up name, yikes. If that's a real name, he should have had the sense to change it by now.
Google invests a $20 Google Play Coupon in OS/2 (Score:2)
Re: Google invests a $20 Google Play Coupon in OS/ (Score:1)
See, that's a proper desktop OS that uses machine code for apps and draws things in a normal, sensible way. Google only invests in embedded systems that choose ridiculous bloated ways of doing things, like using Java or HTML5 so that even the simplest apps can obliterate your battery.
Big Brother Google (Score:2)
Big Brother Google just wants to watch. And listen. And read your mail. You don't mind, do you?
Re: Why is there a need for feature phones? (Score:1)
Android Go real specs (Score:1)
Remember the $30 Android 'GO' phones? The ones with 512MB of ram and slow processors? The reason why Android aggressively overmanages RAM making it absolutely crap at running multiple apps? The version of Android that was to address this bottom end market?
Well the actual phones arrived. They're just like regular Android phones. There was absolutely no point in all that damage to Android, no point in forking the OS and creating two different brands.
e.g. "Alcatel 1....$89, a 5-inch display with a 480x960 pix
I'm interested (Score:2)
Dual factor
navigation
Basic web browsing
Decent email and txt apps
A simple, straight forward, no clutter interface
That is getting close to about it.
apps (Score:2)
If the apps are as usable as the custom scrolling code on their website, I don't expect it to do well at all.
Please... Noooooooo (Score:1)
I have an Alcatel Go Flip with KaiOS. One reason I bought it is because it's *NOT* Google-infested. It's sorta luddite...
* real numeric keypad
* user-replacable battery
* user-replacable microSD (32 gigs)
* media player, including a working FM radio
* to listen to the FM radio, I plug in a stereo jack into the hole that they "didn't have the courage to remove"
* selectable 2G / 3G / 4GLTE
The last item is important to me because the assholes behind https://www.alertready.ca/ [alertready.ca] have decided that all cellular alerts
too late? (Score:2)
now they invest in firefoxOS? they should have done that years ago.