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Telefonica Shows Prototype Firefox OS Phone
judgecorp writes "Telefonica has added some detail to the Firefox OS picture, following the announcement of phones by two manufacturers earlier this week. The Qualcomm-built handset shown by Telefonica in London ran the HTML5 OS and showed multitasking as well as a range of HTML5 applications. Firefox-maker Mozilla receives a lot of funding from Google, but Telefonica sees Firefox OS as a way to achieve independence from Google. It will be more open than Android, and will run on lower-specification hardware, according to the company's director of products."
A common reaction to Firefox OS over the past few days has been to say that it's doomed from the start. But Mozilla's stated goals are to 'promote openness, innovation, and opportunity on the Web for users and developers,' rather than to compete with Android and iOS. What do you think they need to do in order to achieve that in a meaningful way?
I'm not sure it's all so doom and gloom like TFA suggests. Telefonica needs a niche, or a gimmick, and this might be the right choice. At the very least, it might be enough to make a respectable ROI before the curtain closes. And, yes, it's fledgling, and being the first on the bandwagon would work out really well if the bandwagon (metaphorically) becomes a limousine.
I would add: stop the rape and pillage of privacy. I wouldn't mind Upset Birds, rather than the Angry ones that want to know how much sugar is in my coffee, and my longitude while drinking it.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Allow me to store .html/.js files on the sd card over usb, and still open them in the browser. This is too advanced for my Blackberry Torch 9800.
(I know this is by design - RIM makes a cut on your data plan.)
Wifi tethering, it acts like my mobile internet connection. I make the occasional call and send the occasional text. But other than that tethering FTW.
The Firefox phone isn't in prototype stage, it's currently at version 28. Version 29 is supposed to be shipping this weekend.
Mozilla is one of the organisation which doesn't try to compete with others, but still strives to improve user experience, to bring innovation even if people care or not. I love Firefox. This new OS is definitely not gonna die like HP or RIM(almost dying) because goals of Mozilla are different from Android, IOS etc.... One more major thing is, it will be completely open unlike androids semi open software. waiting eagerly for their first release in India.
If they can make it usable at a lower cost and still run Angry Birds and Netflix and be halfway decently secure, they should have a winner, as long as they can get the rest of the must have apps people want!
IMHO, Mozilla OS and the phones it is stored on will stand or fall on it's promises of better performance and longer battery on low end phones.
As to the negativity towards the OS. Firstly, about coming to the market too late. If the OS lives up to expectations, there is a niche in the market. It doesn't matter it is in an overcrowded market competing with companies with much larger resources. If they can achieve a low market share, it will be a good thing considering the size of the current market and the growth it will expect in the coming years. As to Goggle dumping Mozilla due to it being a competitor, say Mozilla puts a HTML wrapper around Google Maps, Gmail and it's other services and ships it with phones, then Google wins. The way I see it, Google doesn't make money from Android, they give it away free. They make money from the Services that is used accessed via the OS. Alternatively Mozilla could do the same with MS or another content provider.
Compete with Android and iOS.
Sometimes things that aren't your goal are prerequisite to it.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Then such a device might be livable. The fact is, it keeps getting worse. Compatible? I keep having to use Chrome to access all features on major sites like AWeber. Stable? It crashes and stalls often. I upgraded to every new version, and it just kept getting worse.
I don't think I know anyone that would want a Firefox phone. Maybe 5 years ago, but now the brand image just means memory leaks and bloated browsing. Your perception may vary, but I think the core audience that would support such an endeavor is increasingly turned off by the browser and brand itself.
I was a proud supporter of FireFox on the desktop, promoted it all the time....untill it got so bloated that pc's hard a hard time running it, so i switched to Chrome. I still had it on android, it ran slow, crashed every once in a while but it was still my favorite browser, then i tried opera on android. Haven't looked back. I'm sorry Mozilla but you dropped the ball a long time ago, and in this market if your not bleeding edge, your shark bait, and you are getting swallowed up by all your competitors.
Just to dispel the myth, due HTML5's offline capabilities, Mozilla OS doesn't need an internet connection to work. You can think of the OS as Microsofts HTML applications on a phone.
blackberry, i, android, windows, java, and now firefox. all ensuring I loose all my software if I make the wrong choice and wish to move at a later date. All for the low low price of ass raping forced dataplans, and giving all my personal information away to any douche that asks for it.
The Betanews article is wrong in almost every paragraph, so let's just point out the biggest hole in the authors understanding:
Mozilla should stick to where they’re good at, which is the browser market.
Mobile devices are the fastest growing web clients market. There *is no browser market* on iOS, on Windows 8 RT or on Bada. It's not even fully clear yet if there's really a "browser market" on Windows 8.
The only way to get a browser market now is to have an OS out, too. The alternative is to die a slow and certain death. Google search money isn't going to keep coming if there's no devices on which Firefox can even be installed.
There are loads more fundamental misunderstandings in the article, such as the idea that Mozilla will make money on those phones. How can they do that, it's free software... They'll likely just make a deal about who the default search providers are and make money off that. They don't have to care about the margins on the phones at all...
A little boy jumps into a fight between two big bully boys and wants to whip both of them. It's all well defeating a monopoly, but a duopoly? Any case studies in that area?
That phone looks exactly like Android but with a slightly different skin. It even has the same four hardware buttons on the bottom like Android 2.x devices.
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/telefonica-firefox-os-smartphone-prototype-85340/attachment/photo-06-07-2012-12-11-38
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Having used BlackBerry, iOS and Android I have a few real world suggestions.
App Market:
- Don't tie it to any "services".
- OpenID to log in.
- Should not have to log in for free apps.
Search:
- Dont tie to specific search provider. As much as I like Google, I've found myself using DuckDuckGo lately.
General:
- Include native SIP client
- Don't half ass the native Email client. I like how BlackBerry broke each account out into their own icon.
- Live Icons - even just little notification indicators on the icon would be great. Would be excellent if it could indicate now many n
ew E-mails I have.
I might as well buy one, if it proves open, fast and stable. What's wrong with the idea behind it? Competition is good. Openness is good for the customers too.
Brazil has a 200+ million headset market, roughly split equally between 4 major carriers (Vivo, Oi, TIM and Claro). This phone doesn't need to be the iPhone or Android killer - it just needs to be cheap and useful. I
f they're able to get 10% of Vivo's market share, it's a success - I mean, 5 million phones in Brazil alone meanss a lot of phones. I suppose other emerging markets would also have such similar characteristics, so a successful launch here in Brazil would pave the way for rolling this out to other South American countries and then, later, to other Asian emerging markets.
An current-gen iPhone here costs US$1000. If they're able to bring something that has good usability at a local US$200 price-point, they'll sell a lot of headsets, since the Android phones you can get here in Brazil in the US$200 are only fake Chinese crap (lower-end from Samsung start at US$250-300).
Faster, better, AND cheaper?
I'm getting sick of this. Linux + GNU utils are the OS.
Firefox OS, Chrome OS? seriously
Can I write a hello world app, toss together a quick unetboot linux system and say I wrote a Hello OS?
Figure out some way to set us free from U.S. cellphone carriers. That is the only way Firefox OS phone could make a difference.
Here's a theory: They are listening to what the users want. It's just that they don't want the same things you do.
Dolphin browser on Android gave a direct support for Apache Cordova (Phonegap) API with new Dolphin Garage. It allows user to just download a page from the net, and that page can use all functions of your phone like an native app: camera, compass, local SD card. Probably Garage will support iPhone in the future.
As there is already a lot of Phonegap based native applications for iPhone/Android/Blackberry, by using Phonegap API for support for native functions of phone would make Firefox OS get (new) applications fast. And that's only thing that users want - flexibility in using/buying applications they like.
IMHO lose Market if you can. I never understood why one needs a market if phone supports third party installations (like Android does). Having several different Android markets is terrible. It would be easier to just point to a webpage of app maker and that's it, in worst case make Market like an app aggregation/bookmark site.
RIM should abandon QNX, and run either Android, WebOS, or even Firefox OS instead. Maybe Firefox OS is exactly what RIM needs to both go-to-market faster (since QNX still isn't ready, and this arguably is more so) and ingratiate itself with a development community.
that it will not be like ChromeOS.
More than a niche, an ecosystem. The good thing about being browser based is that the very web should give one. Of course, in some way that was the reasoning behind WebOS, or Tizen. Maybe the right factors joins at a good time and it is enough to impose that kind of solutions. http://chiasetructuyen.com/@home/showthread.php?t=50820
Open is all good and well - but how about taking the plunge and making it 3 laws safe like Eben Moglen among others suggests? That would really make a difference.