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Google Invests $22 Million In Feature Phone Operating System KaiOS (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google is turning startup investor to further its goal of putting Google services like search, maps, and its voice assistant front and center for the next billion internet users in emerging markets. It has invested $22 million into KaiOS, the company that has built an eponymous operating system for feature phones that packs a range of native apps and other smartphone-like services. As part of the investment, KaiOS will be working on integrating Google services like search, maps, YouTube and its voice assistant into more KaiOS devices, after initially announcing Google apps for KaiOS-powered Nokia phones earlier this year.
KaiOS is a U.S.-based project that started in 2017, built on the ashes of Mozilla's failed Firefox OS experiment, as a fork of the Linux codebase. Firefox OS was intended to be the basis of a new wave of HTML-5, low-cost smartphones. And while those devices and the wider ecosystem never really took off, KaiOS has fared significantly better. KaiOS powers phones made by OEMs including Nokia (HMD), Micromax and Alcatel, and it works with carriers including Sprint and AT&T -- it counts offices in North America, Europe and Asia. But its most significant deployment to date has been with India's Reliance Jio, the challenger telco that disrupted the Indian market with affordable 4G data packages. "This funding will help us fast-track development and global deployment of KaiOS-enabled smart feature phones, allowing us to connect the vast population that still cannot access the internet, especially in emerging markets," said KaiOS CEO Sebastien Codeville in a statement.
KaiOS is a U.S.-based project that started in 2017, built on the ashes of Mozilla's failed Firefox OS experiment, as a fork of the Linux codebase. Firefox OS was intended to be the basis of a new wave of HTML-5, low-cost smartphones. And while those devices and the wider ecosystem never really took off, KaiOS has fared significantly better. KaiOS powers phones made by OEMs including Nokia (HMD), Micromax and Alcatel, and it works with carriers including Sprint and AT&T -- it counts offices in North America, Europe and Asia. But its most significant deployment to date has been with India's Reliance Jio, the challenger telco that disrupted the Indian market with affordable 4G data packages. "This funding will help us fast-track development and global deployment of KaiOS-enabled smart feature phones, allowing us to connect the vast population that still cannot access the internet, especially in emerging markets," said KaiOS CEO Sebastien Codeville in a statement.
Just when there's some bit of competition on the horizon for the almighty Goog they start investing and possibly taking over soon. Definitely not good Something "fishy" is going on with Sailfish OS as well. Seems impossible to get devices for some reason. I wouldn't be surprised if Google is somehow behind the Jolla Tablet and Youyota tablet failing.
It's not enough Android today be very insecure and their application store that has nearly zero human review for submitted apps. All that justifies keep the OS completely 'open' just to them and those who pay. Now they want and have another OS because the Android base isn't growing as expected and the amount of user data isn't new. Because everybody knows that people usually follow patterns and companies aren't that interested on that sort pf data anymore. They need more and 'different' data.
I will never use any other Google products again.
Another advertising platform, just what we need.
Also, Sebastien Codeville? Seriously? If that's a made up name, yikes. If that's a real name, he should have had the sense to change it by now.
The question is why you're so into Trump.
The problem with Android today is that there are no devices like the Nexus 4 and 5 were: affordable, capable, practically sized, and very usable. Today's Android devices are stupidly expensive, or they're low-end Chinese shit, or they're stupidly large, or they're some combination of those problems making them impractical. To make matters worse, the recent releases of Android don't even support devices like the Nexus 4 or 5. I'm in the market for a new phone, but all of the Android options are rubbish! I might just get an iPhone at this point, although I don't really want one. Google has pretty much done everything they can to make Android a complete non-option for me, it seems! I don't give a damn whether the OS is Android or Fuchsia or this other OS, when there isn't a suitably usable device for me to run it on!
We are still trying to get more funds for OS/2 Warp :) http://www.os2world.com/
Big Brother Google just wants to watch. And listen. And read your mail. You don't mind, do you?
You've been able to buy decent Android phones for £20 for years. I've been using a £20 Huawei phone for about five years and it meets my needs (I prefer to do things on a computer so only use Whatsapp and a few other things).
One advantage of feature phones is they are somewhat more robust, but my Huawei is also damn near indestructible and it survives being dropped regularly (benefits of a plastic screen that doesn't shatter when dropped). I only managed to kill it by dropping it in the toilet, after which I bought the new version of the same phone.
When you can buy a cheap, indestructible smartphone for the same price, what's the point in feature phones now?
If it's open source, secure, and has the option to turn off the Google permissions/integrations, then it should be fine. Just like running Chromium (but not Chrome) is fine and has a lot of benefits.
Remember the $30 Android 'GO' phones? The ones with 512MB of ram and slow processors? The reason why Android aggressively overmanages RAM making it absolutely crap at running multiple apps? The version of Android that was to address this bottom end market?
Well the actual phones arrived. They're just like regular Android phones. There was absolutely no point in all that damage to Android, no point in forking the OS and creating two different brands.
e.g. "Alcatel 1....$89, a 5-inch display with a 480x960 pixels resolution. Under the hood is the 64-bit MediaTek MT6739 quad-core processor clocked at 1.3GHz. It comes coupled with PowerVR GE8100 GPU and 1GB of RAM and 8GB internal that can be further expandable via a MicroSD card. Un terms of optics the Alcatel 1 sports a 5MP camera on the rear with LED flash and a 2MP camera on the front for selfies. It is backed by a 2,000mAh battery. Connectivity options include LTE connectivity up to Cat. 4 (150Mbps down, 50Mbps up), GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and dual SIM. "
how great did it not work out with symbian or what was the name of it. was hreat in theory but doomed to fail and big part of killing of the first nokia. now second one will make it again!
As long as it is not ad subsidized. I got so sick on tired of the over complexity of my S8+, I recently started using an BB Classic. I still use my S8+ for product photography, and while I expect this phone to have a not so hot camera, I'll invest in a "real" camera if I have to. I need:
Dual factor
navigation
Basic web browsing
Decent email and txt apps
A simple, straight forward, no clutter interface
That is getting close to about it.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
If the apps are as usable as the custom scrolling code on their website, I don't expect it to do well at all.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
See, that's a proper desktop OS that uses machine code for apps and draws things in a normal, sensible way. Google only invests in embedded systems that choose ridiculous bloated ways of doing things, like using Java or HTML5 so that even the simplest apps can obliterate your battery.
I have an Alcatel Go Flip with KaiOS. One reason I bought it is because it's *NOT* Google-infested. It's sorta luddite...
* real numeric keypad
* user-replacable battery
* user-replacable microSD (32 gigs)
* media player, including a working FM radio
* to listen to the FM radio, I plug in a stereo jack into the hole that they "didn't have the courage to remove"
* selectable 2G / 3G / 4GLTE
The last item is important to me because the assholes behind https://www.alertready.ca/ have decided that all cellular alerts in Canada go out at "Presidential Alert" level, which cannot be turned off. Even if it's a custody dispute about a kid 16 hours drive away from me. Fortunately, the alert system only works on 4G/LTE. Dropping down to 3G gets me off the alert system, and I also get more bars signal, so the battery lasts longer.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
now they invest in firefoxOS? they should have done that years ago.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.