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Firefox OS 1.3 Arrives: Dual SIM Support, Continuous Autofocus, Graphics Boost
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla today released Firefox OS version 1.3 to its partners for implementing in their smartphones. There are many new features for both users and developers, and the first phone to feature them is the ZTE Open C, which is available for sale as of today on eBay. First and foremost, Firefox OS users can expect dual-SIM dual-standby (DSDS) support, which gives you two lines on compatible phones, a popular feature in emerging markets. DSDS lets dual-SIM devices individually manage two different SIMs for calling, texting, or data through the 'SIM Manager' interface."
company phone & personal phone?
Mod parent up
Having lived in an emerging market (Romania) for six years, I knew several people who would carry around multiple feature phones, or a smartphone and a feature phone, just so they could use prepaid SIM cards from two different networks, so they could call all of their friends and family "in network".
I was using a prepaid SIM from Orange, and for 5 Euros/month, I had 3000 minutes/month to other Orange numbers and 100 minutes/month to other networks/landlines. As it happens, everyone I wanted to call was on Orange, so I was fine. However, I knew people who would pay 5 Euros/month to Orange, and another 5 Euros/month to Cosmote. For 10 Euros/month, they had effectively unlimited calling to everyone they wanted to call, but needed to carry a second phone (or swap SIMs to call on the correct network).
Today we have quad core multi-ghz CPUs with gigabytes of memory and 1080 displays. Having installed Linux from floppies on hardware orders of magnitude less capable is it now really too much to ask to have UI execute from a real non-nerf'd operating system?
Why can't I compile and run whatever software that will run on desktop on my phone?
I know this seems like a rather basic question, but why did Mozilla decide to create B2G? I mean, "everything is a web app"? So fucking what, does that give every app some more intrinsic value because it has "web" in the title?
The way I see it, they've taken valuable resources away from supporting useful projects like a standalong mail client (Thunderbird) and internet suite (SeaMonkey) and pissed them away developing Yet Another Mobile OS. I'm probably going to go for an Android phone for my next phone. Why would I go with Firefox OS? It's less mature, and I see nothing about its fundamental nature that makes it better than Android.
More "open"? Look at who wrote most of it's specs - it's Mozilla and Google. At the end of the day, if Mozilla stop supporting it, you're screwed. Just like if Google stop supporting Android, you're screwed. Why B2G ever got off the drawing board is a mystery.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
This is an honest question. How does the overhead of having all apps written in Javascript affect battery life? There are tools to compile Android apps to native indtead of Dalvik, and the perormance boost is substantial. I’d expect that the performance comparison between Javascript and native would be orders of magnitude. Now, I realize that most of time, phones are either idle or asleep, but all that extra CPU time for every interactive event has got to add up.
The real performance bottlenecks have to do with RAM, and just-in-time compilations (though that is often cached). Even number-crunching apps can use asm.js to approach native performance, and even if the gap isn't fully closed there just aren't many apps that require that much performance for a simple smartphone. If you wanted the best possible performance you'd be wasting much time, because it's not JS that's causing most of the performance issues on something like FirefoxOS, but simply the RAM usage and the graphics stack being a bit slipshod in places (though both aspects are being actively improved a lot in FirefoxOS).