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Google Targets Low-Cost Android One Phone At African Markets
jfruh writes: In order to meet its goal of bringing Android to five billion users, Google needs to get smartphones into the hands of people in the developing world. The company's Android One program aims to do just that. Already active in India, the program is now bringing an $88 smartphone to West Africa. “The software on Android One devices automatically updates to the latest version of Android and will get the Android M release after release. The goal is to provide a consistent and uncompromising smartphone experience, for everyone,” Google VP of product management, Caesar Sengupta, said.
This puts to rest the final argument that Firefox OS supporters had to justify its existence: that Android phones were too expensive in third world nations.
Of course, that argument was quite weak to begin with. Low-cost used Android phones are already plentiful in such regions, and already widely used. And now new Android phones will be available and affordable, too.
Since Android phones can already run HTML/JS/CSS web apps, they should be able to run Firefox OS apps, too. Although in practice, there aren't really any Firefox OS apps worth using elsewhere.
Mozilla, it's time to shut down the Firefox OS project. Firefox OS has already gotten some of the most scathing reviews of all time, and it's seeing pretty much no adoption at all.
The worst thing about Firefox OS is that it has taken resources away from improving Firefox, the only product from Mozilla that really sees any use (although its market share is dropping, too). If Firefox OS was cancelled, the money and people involved could be moved over to working on Firefox instead. They could strip out Pocket, Hello, Australis, and all of the other completely unwanted changes that have been made lately. After that is done, and Firefox's UI is usable again, they could tackle some of the decade-old bugs and performance problems that have yet to be fixed.
It's a real shame that Firefox OS wasn't cancelled sooner. It was clear from the onset that it was a failed project. The resources wasted on it could have been put to much better use elsewhere.
Have you ever considered learning how to test stuff, you shitcock?