Firefox OS: Disruptive By Aiming Low

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.

Comments

Web as an OS

[girlintraining]

The model of the web as an OS has been passed around since the turn of the century. The dot com bubble tried it. Oracle has tried it, repeatedly. Microsoft tried it. Every attempt so far has failed, and it was by people with far more resources than the Firefox team. I could type out a long list of reasons why this is, but what's the point? History tells us that no matter how promising it looks, and how pretty it is, it's destined for the scrap heap.

Re:Web as an OS

[jlebar]

there's this little company called Google that has this thing called ChromeOS. it is EXACTLY [Firefox OS] ... an OS that boots into a browser. it's not lighting the world on fire either.

(Firefox OS developer here) This is a common misconception, but Chrome OS is a lot different from Firefox OS, at least from an architectural perspective.

Chrome OS is, as you say, an OS that boots into a browser. You're running a full desktop Linux client, including a window manager.

In Firefox OS, the window manager is an HTML page. Gecko (that is, Firefox) shows the window manager. All your apps, are iframes (with special attributes on them). The browser is an app (a special iframe). The browser's tabs are more special iframes inside the browser iframe. There are a lot of iframes in Firefox OS.

Also note that Chrome OS is not targeting smartphones (afaik). It's really quite different.

Re:people who can't afford the iPhone/Android mode

[Anonymous Coward]

And who are they? If you get a contract ( like most people do)...

Looks like someone has never been to the developing world.

Chrome is for ICS/JB only and requires Gapps

[tepples]

The last time I checked, Chrome required an Android 4.x device that comes with the Google Play Store, while Firefox could run on any Android 2.2/2.3 device with an ARMv7 CPU and enough RAM. Not all devices are officially upgradable to Android 4, and not all devices come with Google Play Store.

Re:Not that Disruptive

[theweatherelectric]

To be disruptive, a device has to attract developers and users.

The developers and applications already exist. It's easy to make existing HTML5 applications installable to Firefox OS. Just add an app manifest and an application cache manifest. It would be easy for ZeptoLab, for example, to make Cut the Rope installable to Firefox OS.

This one hasn't even got a hardware vendor.

You should read one of Telefonica's press releases. Firefox OS has both operators and hardware manufacturers.

Re:What a concept!

[similar_name]

After a quick look here's a $69 android phone from Wal-Mart. And while I wouldn't expect much from it, I have to mention this $49 tablet that also came up in the search for cheap androids. I mean for $49 you certainly won't be worried about damaging it. You could get one just for the bathroom.

Re:I read the title...

[symbolset]

Not really. 1GHz ARM SOC chips are going for $5-7 these days, capable of supporting full HD and Android 4.0. By this time next year that $40 tablet for India might actually be quite interesting. We don't really need an OS that targets much lower than that, since it's not likely to be necessary for long enough to launch before hardware progress obsoletes it.