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Firefox OS Will Become the Mobile OS To Beat

Posted by Unknown on from the foxes-are-friendlier-than-androids dept.

mattydread23 writes with an opinion piece naming a few reasons Firefox OS is likely to succeed "It's geared toward low-powered hardware in a way that Google doesn't care as much about with Android, it's cheap enough for the pre-paid phones that are much more common than post-paid in developing countries, and most important, there are still 3.5 billion people in the world who have feature phones and for whom this will be an amazing upgrade." I'd push greater commitment to keeping the essential components of the system under FOSS licenses onto the head of that list.

34 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Firefox OS is great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    But it needs a web browser. Does it run Chrome?

    1. Re:Firefox OS is great... by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Informative

      What is wrong with AMD? The dirty little secret of the CPU industry is that chips went from "good enough" to insanely overpowered several years so unless you are doing a job that needs every last drop of power you can squeeze (wave simulation, heavy number crunching) you'd be hard pressed in a blind trial to tell an AMD from an Intel....except when you got the bill and saw how much money you can save.

      Check out the AMD Jaguar quads for example (if you can find one, they are selling like hotcakes) for what you can get for cheap nowadays. We are talking 4 Jaguar cores (the same cores powering the XBone and PS4) with Radeon HD8400 GPU capable of running 1080P video with a board that will hold 32Gb of RAM, all for $150. If you want insanely cheap you can grab an AMD E350 which I've used a LOT of in the shop and which makes a cheap and easy upgrade path for all those aging power piggie P4s, simply slap in a PCI to IDE adapter and they can keep their old drives while getting an upgrade to dual cores that again will do 1080P while using less power under load than a P4 does idling. So I'd say we HAVE a good competitor, frankly the only slot where AMD doesn't have a competing product is in the ultra hardcore market and that is a teeny tiny niche compared to mainstream.

      As for TFA? I'd say its gonna all come down to support. If Mozilla can take control of the update process away from the carriers, who have a vested interest in trying to get you to buy a new phone, so that all MozPhones get say 3 years of updates? Then I think they really have a shot here in the states too as I don't know how many folks I've talked to that are seriously pissed at their Android phones because the carriers are so piss poor when it comes to pushing updates. Hell even the $300+ phones are lucky if they even get a year of support from the carriers and it makes folks feel ripped off, If Moz can get out a decent dual core phone at a sweet price ($150 or less should be doable with a dual core and a Gb of RAM) they could really grab some share away from Android, and this is from someone with an Android that I love but I had to ROM it to get a later version. Offer me a dual core for $150 or less that gets 3 years of support? I'm there.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. Why? by Guspaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The entire premise of this article seems to revolve around the unsubstantiated claim that Android is poorly optimized for low-end devices. I disagree with that claim, so the entire premise of the article seems suspect to me.

    1. Re:Why? by Delarth799 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Your mind is just not properly optimized to receive the slashvertisement in this article correctly. Please step over to the tuning station to receive full mental optimization.

    2. Re:Why? by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      Not to mention its not like you HAVE to take stock android anymore, pretty much any shop now offers changing ROMs which honestly really gives the low end phones a real kick in the ass. hell after ROMing mine I decided to stay with it instead of getting a new phone as the ROM included tethering which the new ones didn't have at the time.

      But as somebody who gets to mess with folks phones as well as PCs (you'd be surprised how many "can you look at this too?" I get in a day when it comes to phones) I have to say...yeah...Android DOES suck OOTB and you can lay the blame at Google themselves. Sure the carrier apps suck but Google has so much shit running in the background that just sucks cycles its not even funny. I got to looking at the third party ROMs and I'd say a good 80% of their speed boosts are merely turning off all the Google shit.

      If Moz actually supports the units and makes say 2 years worth of updates mandatory across the line? hell I'll buy 'em, sell them here. I am so sick of having to find third party ROMs for recent phones because the carriers never bother, bring MozPhone on I say.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    3. Re:Why? by narcc · · Score: 2

      It seems to work just fine. I have a ZTE Open -- which makes low-end phones look futuristic -- running FFOS. There are some pretty impressive games that run just fine on that antique hardware. Asteroid Mania is my go-to example, as it's the only (I think?) 3d game on the platform. It's not something you'd expect would work well in HTML5, let alone on a seriously low-end phone.

      Yeah, I know all the JS sucks memes, but it should be obvious by that that they're simply not true.

      Unrelated, but I feel the need to say it anyway: This whole thing reminds me of all the folks complaining about how old BB apps were all Java while praising Android.

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    4. Re:Why? by maccodemonkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The entire premise of this article seems to revolve around the unsubstantiated claim that Android is poorly optimized for low-end devices. I disagree with that claim, so the entire premise of the article seems suspect to me.

      Android requires OpenGL ES, both in the 1.0 and 2.0 flavors. For devices in developing countries, that's a very high bar.

      That's also not a knock against Android. For higher end devices that's a very sensible requirement. But just looking at the minimum requirements, it's not compatible with low end in the developing world.

    5. Re:Why? by narcc · · Score: 2

      I wasn't commenting on the game, but the tech. It's a fast-paced full 3d game with dynamic lighting. That was the point. JS is not a serious limitation to apps and games on the platform.

      I'm sure that, if we wait long enough, an example more to your liking will pop up in the marketplace.

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    6. Re:Why? by narcc · · Score: 2

      Do you remember the early 90's? Doom, Dark Forces, etc.? I don't recall dynamic lighting in any of the Wing Commander games -- or full-screen action for that matter.

      This isn't an argument worth having. Believe what you want about the game, my point was that the tech isn't nearly as limited as people assume. What I can say is that early 2000's type games are very easily doable on crummy hardware in FFOS. You mentioned the 3GS earlier. A popular game from that era, like Wolfenstein RPG, is well within the capabilities of even a phone like the ZTE Open running FFOS.

      Also, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Is it that my example is crummy or that JS is unsuitable for apps and games?

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    7. Re:Why? by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 3, Informative

      Kitkat has a minimum RAM requirement of 340MB.

      Prototype developer hardware, such as the ZTE Open, has 256MB. Mozilla are investigating running FFOS with 128MB.

    8. Re:Why? by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 2

      Open GL ES is a core requirement of 'Gonk', the UI layer of FF OS.

      Mozilla borrows from the Android project for its device drivers, IIRC.

      Any 'developing world' SoC mass produced in 2014 for the $25 smartphone market will include a GPU capable of running it.

    9. Re:Why? by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've seen this before though and this is the same wheel that everyone goes through.

      "Look we got our system to run with 50% less memory!"

      "Ok, so we sacrificed all of the features people expect these days, and in the last 3 years prices have dropped sufficiently that our product is no longer needed, but just wait for our next version!"

      The better approach is to tackle low end devices like Microsoft and Google are already doing (And WP8 runs very well on low end systems) but not let it be your driving focus. Because inevitably what's a "high end" phone today will be a $5 prepaid phone in 3 years.

  3. Firefox OS Will Become the Mobile OS To Beat by fsck-beta · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Firefox OS Will Become the Mobile OS To Beat

    Flamebait and hopelessly wrong.

    1. Re:Firefox OS Will Become the Mobile OS To Beat by BasilBrush · · Score: 4, Funny

      Of course Firefox OS Will Become the Mobile OS To Beat. Also, 2014 will be the year of Linux on the desktop.

    2. Re:Firefox OS Will Become the Mobile OS To Beat by dnavid · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Firefox OS Will Become the Mobile OS To Beat

      Flamebait and hopelessly wrong.

      I wouldn't go that far. Its entirely possible that Firefox OS could become a major player in the market segment the article indicates. The problem is that saying "...will become the Mobile OS to Beat" implies the major players like Android, iOS, and Windows even want to win that game in the first place. Absolutely there are lots of people who cannot afford the top of the line smartphones out there, and it would be nice if someone serviced their needs, but the problem is time. In time, technology will improve and costs will continue to drop relative to computing power. Its very dangerous to target a market Moore's Law is scheduled to destroy.

      For Firefox OS to be the mobile OS "to beat" requires a lot of things to happen that aren't trivial exercises. First, Firefox OS has to become the dominant player in the low end market. Second, it has to achieve a level of brand loyalty comparable to iOS and significantly higher than Android itself (Android users are typically more loyal to their smartphone manufacturer than the operating system itself in my experience). It then has to be able to parlay that brand loyalty into a way to maintain their hold on those users as the smartphone industry advances to the point where the $20 phone of tomorrow is the $600 phone of today. And it must do this in a way that doesn't give the major players an easy way to encompass Firefox's feature set: if FirefoxOS's major innovations are based on open standards and HTML5 applications, anything it can do today Android and iOS could easily do tomorrow if they wanted to.

      So much has to go right besides "sell a lot of low end feature phones" that to me it would be like predicting that the company that supplies most of the paper to print air travel tickets in kiosks was a threat to take over the entire travel industry in a decade.

    3. Re:Firefox OS Will Become the Mobile OS To Beat by ynp7 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Didn't you get the memo? With the announcement of SteamOS, the "Year of the Linux Desktop" has been moved to 2015 (Valve Time, so maybe 2016 or 2017). Of course the "desktop" has also been moved to the livingroom, so plan accordingly.

  4. Cramming a data plan onto a voice SIM by tepples · · Score: 4, Insightful

    True, but U.S. CDMA carriers still refuse to activate low-end Android phones of today on a feature phone plan. And among U.S. GSM carriers, the one with more coverage still has a habit of automatically adding a data plan to a SIM with voice-only service inserted into a smartphone. These behaviors are why I still carry a tablet and dumbphone. Will carriers perform the same sort of tying on Firefox OS devices, or will they let customers use cellular voice with only Wi-Fi data?

    1. Re:Cramming a data plan onto a voice SIM by Cimexus · · Score: 2

      Indeed, which brings me to the other thing I see 'wrong' with the article (or at least the summary) - the statement "it's cheap enough for the pre-paid phones that are much more common than post-paid".

      Outside the US (not just in third-world countries, but most other developed countries), this is a false dichotomy (suggesting that only 'cheap' phones can be put on pre-paid plans). Many people with 'high end' phones (Galaxy S4, iPhone 5/5S) are on pre-paid plans. Often quite cheap ones. Actually I'd say that's the norm in many places - many Asian countries, Australia/NZ, much of Europe. People caught on long ago that tying yourself into a 2+ year contract for a subsidized phone isn't worth it in the long run, because you miss out on being able to jump to different plans/carriers, who are in competition with each other and generally introduce new, better value plans a couple of times per year.

      Yes, yes I know the market in the US is different. But in much of the rest of the world the phone and the plan are two unrelated purchase decisions. You can have a cheap-ass phone on an expensive post-paid plan, or the most expensive phone in the world on the cheapest $10 pre-paid...

  5. Ode to feature phones by ahziem · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not all 3.5M people want a feature phone. Benefits of feature phones include: cheaper phone, cheaper plan, smaller hardware, longer battery life, less distractions (e.g., email, social media, games), fewer privacy concerns (e.g., tracking, malware), and smaller target for theft. Also, it's much easier to text from my phone's slide-out keyboard than from a touchscreen.

  6. The mobile war is over, Andorid has won by Britz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's over. Android has won. The iPhone will stay around with a significant market share. But current high specs for phones will be the low end in three years. 2GB Ram and a 1.5 Ghz Quad Core CPU with be in entry level Android devices in 2017. Enough to run Android any way you like.

    Android already runs on so many phones. It already is ubiquitous. Microsoft might have a chance in a niche. Same as Firefox, if it comes down to it. The mobile phone market is a billion device market. Why not a couple thousand Windows or Firefox or Jolla or Tizen devices? Or Ubuntu for that matter.

    Android already runs on low spec cheap entry level devices. Granted, it doesn't run them very well, but neither does Firefox atm.

    1. Re:The mobile war is over, Andorid has won by Lennie · · Score: 2

      Really ? In a market of 4.5 billion phones and 1 billion are smartphones ? That still leaves a large part of the world phones not running Android.

      And FirefoxOS is focussing on making it run well on cheap hardware, instead of focussing on other things.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    2. Re: The mobile war is over, Andorid has won by Scowler · · Score: 2

      People said the exact same thing about Windows on the desktop, a decade ago.

  7. The plan costs more for a smartphone by tepples · · Score: 2

    Absolutely there are lots of people who cannot afford the top of the line smartphones out there

    There are also people who can afford the phone but not the plan. Virgin Mobile, for instance, charges $336 per year more for service on an Android phone than for service on a dumbphone. I can keep service on a dumbphone for $7 per month, but if I wanted to activate an Android phone, that'd cost no less than $35 per month. Wouldn't carriers lump Firefox OS with the smartphones that require a data plan even if the subscriber plans to use only Wi-Fi data?

  8. FOSS? Who cares? by rjstanford · · Score: 2

    I'd push greater commitment to keeping the essential components of the system under FOSS licenses onto the head of that list.

    If this really can work for ~3.5 billion people who currently don't have a decent mobile OS (a claim about which I remain skeptical), I guarantee you that at least 3.49 billion of them won't give a damn whether its FOSS or not. Of the remainder, most surely won't care whether its GPL, BSD, or PirateBay licensed.

    --
    You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
  9. Re: they see me trollin... they hatin' by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 4, Funny

    Reminds me of my favorite UNIX joke:

    Emacs would be great operating system if someone just wrote a decent text editor for it.

  10. Re:Why "Funny"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    1.3 build is f'ing awesome. Most of the problems with have been fixed. This is coming from somebody who was extremely critical of it (even though excited initially because of its freedom aspects). After 1.2 and finally 1.3 (on the ZTE open) it actually works pretty well. I'm not this person. I think 1.0 release with ZTE open (I have this version, haven't tried 1.3... which is like a beta release or not even) worked OK, but it definitely has some early-adopter type issues. Lack of apps (not that I'm a big app person), lack of integration (can't sync/backup my notes or pull in Google contacts? or something like that easily, but you can export them for Google and import or something in some hackish way- and that worked good enough for me), etc. The only complaint remaining by the overly critical friend of mine is that he can't connect to his mail server because it has a self-issued ssl certificate and not way to accept it.

  11. Meh... by Nicopa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just for reading the summary I can say this looks fishy. The latest Anroid release 4.4 was mainly dedicated to make Android run on smaller devices, adding tools to debug memory footprint, adding compresion of pages, sharing of things, etc. Google claims that now Android can run on a 512 MB device (which is fairly low end right now). And with ever decreasing memory prices is hard to imagine there's a place for a "lower than lower end" OS.

    The "being open" reason is also not good enough. As a technology (i.e. removing Google services) Android is 100% free software. And the reason some telcos might want Firefox OS is to have a more closed environment which they can control.

    Maybe Firefox could have been working to create its own Android fork, replacing Google service with Firefox services. That would be, IMO, much cooler.

  12. Re: they see me trollin... they hatin' by ichthyoboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    sudo apt-get install woosh

  13. What do they want? by kamapuaa · · Score: 2

    You can easily buy a pre-paid Android phone for $40-$50 today. It's believable to me that with the steady progress of technology, $20 Android smart phones will be available in a year or two anyway.

    --
    Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
  14. Re:Lack of innovation on the low-end by tlambert · · Score: 2

    It's no secret that innovation in the low-end of the market is high on the priority of manufacturers.

    Because everyone wants to compete in the booming low-margin Blackberry/Nokia feature phone market?

  15. Re:The same was said of Firefox for Desktop... by MightyYar · · Score: 2

    But the story with browsers is completely different. They are not marketing Firefox OS to consumers to load on to their existing phones - they are marketing it towards phones which come pre-loaded with the OS, more akin to Macintosh on the PC side - though at the far low end. Maybe Chromebook is a better example, and that is doing nicely at the moment.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  16. Re: they see me trollin... they hatin' by J053 · · Score: 2

    Just for kicks, I booted into Emacs once (init=/usr/bin/emacs in GRUB) - it works, but it's weird...

  17. Self thought by s3cr3to · · Score: 2

    Self thought:
    "Maybe it's time to upgrade my Nokia C2 for a Firefox OS phone.
    I don't care a fancy phone with camera(s) and social netcrap.
    I just need to call, maybe check mails, sometimes play a song and a lot of battery duration.
    The C2 can last almost ~seven days, the mp3 player is a crapy one but usable.
    I want to be cheap on phones... "

    So, yes maybe there is a lot of people like me that only need the basics.
    -
    XP (rotate to see -XP- giving tongue to windows 8-hate.)

  18. Re:Ahh. Yesterdays Quad core chip with 2Gb of Ram by narcc · · Score: 2

    I guess, if the "Linux everywhere" you've been waiting for is little more than a launcher for strangely limited Java apps with an impossibly bad UI.

    Dream bigger.

    --
    Required reading for internet skeptics