
Sony jumps on the Mozilla bandwagon, will launch Firefox OS device in 2014 - cooldeal
http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2013/02/25/sony-jumps-on-the-mozilla-bandwagon-will-bring-launch-firefox-os/
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LandoCalrissian
With Mozilla and Canonical getting involved in the phone space things are
starting to get interesting again. I'm glad to see more alternatives to the
Android/iPhone paradigm that we have been living in for the past few years. If
we could get more devices that are OS agnostic and allow users to choose what
they would like on purchase would go a long way to expanding the mobile space
for the better.

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dman
Anything that breaks the programming language monoculture per platform is
welcome in my book. That includes things like Mono and platforms like
Canonical.

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eknkc
I'm wondering; both android and ios restrict apps from using the javascript
vms (v8 and nitro respectively) because of security concerns (being able to
generate code and mark their pages executable). The embedded webkit
implementations use JSKit interpreter as far as I know. (Correct me if I'm
wong)

How does FF OS handle this? I believe if there is absolutely no native code
execution involved, it should not be a security concern. Is that so? Is it
currently possible to have fast js execution in UIWebView iOS apps?

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mtgx
You might be confusing Android with WP8. Both iOS and WP8 do that. Android
doesn't. You can embed V8 in your app in Android.

The security reason is mainly BS to keep off competing browsers from the
platform.

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juiceandjuice
I'd argue it's to keep developers locked in to Objective-C and iOS. Facebook
tried going the HTML5 route in the native iOS app, but everything was too slow
(it was comical how much faster facebook.com was in Safari vs running the app)
until they ultimately switched back to Objective-C.

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cpeterso
It's ironic that Objective-C was an albatross on the neck of Mac OS X, a
platform with small marketshare and an uncommon application framework. Now,
Objective-C is a key advantage for Apple's vendor lock-in keeping iOS
developers from (easily) porting to Android.

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untog
Given that it's proven to be incredibly difficult to make any money as an
Android manufacturer I'm not surprised to see Sony taking a different tack.
Question is whether it was a careful considered move or a desperate bid for
something new.

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cpeterso
I wonder if Nokia's decision to go Windows Phone instead of Android is looking
smarter now than it did then? <:)

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untog
Yes, this is a point often overlooked when people say that Nokia going with
Windows Phone was a huge mistake. The Android market really isn't that great a
place to be in, and there's no guarantee that Nokia would have made an impact
there.

I'm not saying that WP was definitely the right choice, but it's not a simple
calculation, especially when you factor in the money MS is giving Nokia.

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icebraining
Android wasn't the only choice, though. I still wonder how would they have
fared with Meego, especially if they had finished the Android compatibility
layer (to ease porting).

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stcredzero
If they could have curated the best of the Android experience, they could have
come up with a compelling, differentiated product.

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cpeterso
A good example is Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets. Amazon has a curated Android
experience (and even avoids using the term "Android"). Of course, Amazon has
lots of media content to pair with their Kindle Fire ecosystem that Nokia
would not have.

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fpgeek
I think Nokia could have built a good-enough content ecosystem. Nokia had a
decent music service in many countries. I've even bought from them (for a song
that wasn't available in the US stores I normally use). Finding a partner for
books wouldn't have been hard. Kobo would probably have jumped at it, among
others. Video would have been hardest, but Google was also struggling with
video back then so it wouldn't have been a relative disadvantage.

