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Mozilla Document Shows Firefox OS Tablet, TV Stick, Router, Keyboard Computer
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this month, Mozilla announced that Firefox OS smartphones would no longer be sold via carriers. Because the company refused to talk about what's next for Firefox OS, aside from saying it will experiment with "connected devices," many were left simply to speculate as to what could be in the pipeline. Today, we have a leaked document, which Mozilla confirmed is legitimate. My favorite of the concepts is a Raspberry Pi-based keyboard.
It's all reverting back to what we had decades ago with the Commodore 64, Color Computer 2, Atari ST, Amiga 500, etc.
Why is Mozilla branching out to these markets? They don't seem to jive with the company's primary products and since they don't really sell anything, that's a big deal.
More shit no one wants...
I think a lot of people would like to get one of those Raspberry Pi keyboard computer.
I'm not saying they'd stay with Mozilla OS though, but the hardware would certainly sell.
But...well....hmm...darn...
Wish AC was incorrect.... But seriously who is steering this company now? Capt. Peter âoeWrong Wayâ Peachfuzz?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
But...well....hmm...darn...
Wish AC was incorrect.... But seriously who is steering this company now? Capt. Peter âoeWrong Wayâ Peachfuzz?
I thought it was Mr. Ignoreouruserstorturedscreams
I've always wanted a lightweight browser with fast JS and page rendering, good memory management, and a well audited code base. Maybe Mozilla can work on something like this?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Mozilla's core is made up of whatever products have the most users. Traditionally, that has been Firefox and Thunderbird, with Bugzilla a distant third.
Bugzilla is ancient history now.
Mozilla has basically tossed Thunderbird into the trash.
So all they really have left is Firefox. Yes, Firefox's share of the market is dropping, but it's because of what Mozilla has done to it, and to its users, for several years now.
They've made one fucking dumb change to Firefox after another, again and again.
The dwindling number of remaining Firefox users scream out in pain, yelling, "NO! DON'T DO THAT! WE DON'T WANT THAT!", yet Mozilla goes ahead and does it anyway.
Since these changes are dumb, like removing the menu bar, or removing the status bar, or fucking up the UI in other ways, or not fixing long-standing bugs, or integrating unwanted shit like Pocket and Hello, no new users are attracted to Firefox, and existing users leave for greener pastures.
Mozilla fanatics will claim that people are leaving Firefox because of "Google advertising Chrome everywhere" or some nonsense excuse like that. But the real reason is that Mozilla has turned Firefox into a steaming pile of donkey shit.
Many of us Firefox-refugees don't want to be using Chrome or Edge or Safari or some other browser, but we have no other choice because of what Mozilla has done to ruin Firefox for us.
Chrome gives a shitty experience, but since Firefox gives an even shittier Chrome-like experience, we might as well just take the least-worst ass fucking and use Chrome directly, which is what we do. We'd use Pale Moon, but it doesn't support the platforms we use!
There's so much else that Mozilla has done that has made no sense. Firefox OS is clearly a dumb idea, and was from the very start.
Why the fuck did they ever think that somebody would want to use a mobile OS that's worse than Android, iOS, and pretty much every other modern mobile OS out there?!
Why the fuck did they ever think that somebody would want to develop for a mobile OS that pretty much limits them to using JavaScript, which is among the worst programming languages?!
Rust is starting to look like a failure. It took them ages to get a 1.0 release out, and aside from some fanatics who likely don't even really use it, people who have tried it have not been impressed. They've found that they're better off using C++11 or C++14.
Servo is starting to look like a failure, too. It has been pretty much unusable when I've tried it. At this pace it'll be 2020 by the time Servo catches up with 2015's Gecko!
Branching out has done nothing good for Mozilla. What they need to do to ensure their future viability is to turn Firefox back into something that users actually want to use.
They need to stop blaming "advertising" for Chrome's success, when Chrome is successful because it's clearly a fuck of a lot better than Firefox is! They need to revert the UI back to what it was in Firefox 3.6. They need to fix its performance problems. They need to reduce its memory usage. They need to get rid of Pocket, Hello, and the integrated tile ads.
And instead of wasting time with Rust and Servo, they need to ditch those failing projects and gradually upgrade Firefox to using C++14, including for its UI. At least then they're building on a real, working project, rather than experimental hypefests like Rust and Servo are.
Mozilla just needs to listen to its users, and do what its users want, and Mozilla will likely find success again. That's what happened in the early and mid 2000s. It could happen again, if only Mozilla tried it!
I think they see the writing's on the wall, and this is one final shot in the dark, all cards on the table.
They can't survive without Google's money, and that's gone.
Even I couldn't mess up this bad.. :)
We can have an internet browser of declining quality, some other failing company as our default search engine and maybe new products that no one asked for or wants.
It's the sad stench of desperation coming from Mozilla. Seriously, none of the products scream "moonshot" or "innovation" to me - they all look like attempts to copy what others (Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft) brought to the market years ago.
Every member of the Mozilla Foundation/MoCo board should read Blue Ocean Strategy (http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/) to understand how to thrive instead of funding these experiments in basic survival. Here's the opener from the book: "Go where the profits and growth are and the competition isn’t."
In other words, Google and friends will steal Mozilla's lunch money on these types of products because Mozilla cannot compete on the same scale. Instead of trying to break into a saturated market, they should heavily invest in areas where the big guys aren't. Come on, guys.. you don't need an MBA to see the writing on the wall.
Mozilla needs to step up their game.
The smartphone situation wasn't much of a success because they did it backwards in my opinion. I understand where they were coming from, and it was noble indeed (if you don't follow, they started selling "affordable" phones in developing countries). If they had gone the other way and shot for the moon and announced a superphone in North America, and did a good job of it, they would be in a better position today in my opinion.
In my experience people want the best specs for their money. I feel the sweet spot is 5-inch+ display, 2-3GB RAM, 16GB+ storage, quad-core CPU in the $300-$400 range. Bonus points if they can get it for $0 on a 2-year contract, but thats not my cup of tea.
Personally, I would have been all over a Firefox OS phone if they offered something with nice spec's and made it easy to obtain in Canada.
I'm sorry, but I installed Firefox on my phone just to have browser options and support Open Source, but it sucked so bad, I knew I would never use it, and was afraid its extreme suction would implode my phone. Thus I uninstalled it.
Mozilla has lost its way.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
They've made one fucking dumb change to Firefox after another, again and again. The dwindling number of remaining Firefox users scream out in pain, yelling, "NO! DON'T DO THAT! WE DON'T WANT THAT!", yet Mozilla goes ahead and does it anyway.
So true, sigh.
Borrowing a line from Blackadder, I've been longing to send the following telegram:
Just imagine how awesome Firefox would be if they stopped wasting time and money on stupid shit. Ditch the buzzword fetishists and focus on your browser!!!
.. I plan on replacing FF on all my PCs.
Brendan Eich had a lot worse stuff that was about to come to light. Mozilla let him get out of there with a cover story.
If I want to use an application, I want to use a real desktop application!
How are you going to do that if the desktop application that you want to use happens not to be ported to the operating system that runs on your device? The advantage of web applications is that one application can run on a Windows PC running Edge, a Mac or iPad running Safari, an GNU/Linux PC running Firefox, an Android tablet running Chrome, or even a PlayStation or Nintendo device running NetFront. Good luck even becoming an authorized developer on all those platforms, let alone porting your app and getting it approved on all of them.
TL;DR: Good luck running a Mac .app on a Windows or Linux PC.
rofl no. What are you? An M$ shill or Google shill? Got a new phone, I've put FF on it and after 2 days I removed Classic Theme Restorer and Classic Toolbar Buttons addons from my desktop. Yep Mozilla is right, times changed. Simply you only need ABP and no other addon. Pocket is lame but Hello is ok. We need alternatives for Hangouts and Skype. You can't ask computer illiterates to install and setup Pidgin.
Can you SJWs stop writing the appallingly unscannable "his/her/zir" and write the perfectly acceptable gender-neutral "their" instead? It's only been in accepted use since forever, and won't make you look like an overbearing prick to boot.
You appear to have replaced your computer with a Mac (starting at $500 from Apple.com) and bought a copy of Parallels Desktop ($80 from Parallels.com) and a copy of Windows ($200 from Microsoft Store) for this Mac in order to be able to run all native apps. But you and others who chose to spend upwards of $780 on a Mac + Parallels + retail Windows are in the minority. Native apps are superior only for this minority case who doesn't have to worry about application platform incompatibility. The rest of us do have to worry about that because we lack the money to replace each of our computers with a comparable Mac + Parallels + retail Windows. This in turn means that application developers cannot assume that their prospective customers will have already purchased a Mac + Parallels + retail Windows. So instead, to target those who have not yet bought a Mac + Parallels + retail Windows, they develop web apps.
Besides, if you are using a computer owned by someone else in your household, you have to wait for the computer's administrator to become available in order to elevate and install the app. With a web app, you can just launch it in your browser.
A canceled HDMI stick named Matchstick (site currently offline) was successfully funded on Kickstarter.
love to see pocketable tablet with good specs hdmi and dual linux!
These are the assholes who said that maintaining the only good GUI open source mail client was a distraction / waste of time.
Now we find out they're working on half a dozen hardware projects? And an entire goddamn OS?
Please help metamoderate.
Seeing the conceptional models... given their coloring and font, it's pretty clear that Mozilla is aiming to be acquired by Tonka.
They're not your users in the first place if the application doesn't run on their system.
What good is an application without users?
So as we continue to clarify the metrics that a developer may consider optimizing, let me rephrase: The potential number of users that can be reached per unit of developer effort is greater with web apps than with native apps.