

Two Huge Companies Betting On Firefox OS - mxpxpx
http://fastcolabs.com/3024539/screw-android-here-are-two-huge-companies-betting-on-firefox-os

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kumarm
I have used G1 and have ZTE Firefox OS phone. G1 performed better 5 years back
compared to ZTE Firefox OS phone today.

As much as everyone of us want Firefox OS win, It has long way to go in a
market that is already dominated by Big Players with great talent and
motivation to win it.

~~~
PeterWhittaker
_everyone of us want Firefox OS (to) win_

We do?

I'm not sure that I care one way or another. Does the device work as expected?
Does it do useful things? Does it do the fun things that I actually want it to
do?

Then I don't care much one way or another.

On a related but possibly tangential digression, I'm showing my age, yes, but
I want my TV to be a TV - a device for showing for moving pictures provided
via a suitably optimized device of another ilk (I'm quite happy to accept the
second function of OTA tuning, just 'coz it's pretty much always there and
saves me buying another device - what with having cancelled cable about 18
months ago).

So I neither want nor need it to have an OS.

There's an AppleTV sitting below my TV. It has an OS. I don't give a damn - it
works pretty darned well, thanks.

I don't know what's inside my receiver to give it Internet capabilities, and
don't care - I use them very little, when my 20 year old receiver died, I
bought the best value receiver that had the features I wanted: 7.1, AM, FM, CD
in, Aux in.... Yeah, that was about it. AirPlay is nice, glad to have it, use
it occasionally, didn't want or need it, but its presence was no deal breaker.
Internet radio? Don't use it at all. DLNA? Didn't even know what it was when I
bought the thing. Don't use it at all right now (don't have a media server,
why would I want one? I have Netflix and AppleTV and all of our Airs can
stream to AppleTV directly).

I never want to buy or receive media again, they take up space, gather dust.
I'll read books when they are given to me, or when they are the best form for
the content, e.g., books that are image-heavy, but otherwise Google Play Books
serves me quite well, thank you.

Did I mention OS in any of that? Hmm, nope.

Don't know. Don't care.

And the OS won't prevent any of the ills that come with any of the above,
e.g., DRM-enabled-yank-back, unless you the user are going to pirate to get
around the DRM.

Technology cannot solve that problem, only the law and the market can, and
they need us - all of us - to realize that technology is not the solution and
to get out there in front of the issue and agitate for changes in the law and
market.

Why sure I care which OS wins? I'm pretty sure I don't. But I am willing to
entertain serious answers to a serious question. Fire away.

~~~
mikegioia

        Does the device work as expected? Does it do useful 
        things? Does it do the fun things that I actually want 
        it to do?
    

Those aren't the only questions that people can ask about a phone or a mobile
OS. I particularly would like a mobile OS that isn't tied to an advertising
company (Google) and isn't a black box (iPhone). I don't even have full
comfort over everything running on my Android device. I have no way of knowing
which companies can access the data on that device and the ways with which
they can access it.

If those are things you don't care about then yea, you certainly shouldn't
care if FirefoxOS "wins". However, them "winning" shouldn't be looked at as
them gaining dominant market share in mobile OSes, but rather (a) the open web
prevailing and gaining development resources, (b) having a legitimate option
for people who DO care about what software is running on their devices.

~~~
kllrnohj
> I particularly would like a mobile OS that isn't tied to an advertising
> company (Google) and isn't a black box (iPhone).

[http://source.android.com/](http://source.android.com/)
[http://www.cyanogenmod.org/](http://www.cyanogenmod.org/)

Plenty of choices of Android builds that have no closed-source Google code
whatsoever.

> I don't even have full comfort over everything running on my Android device.
> I have no way of knowing which companies can access the data on that device
> and the ways with which they can access it.

That has nothing whatsoever to do with the OS. You think just because it's
Firefox OS suddenly OEMs are going to open source their drivers, ship unlocked
bootloaders, etc...? If so, I've got a bridge to sell you.

------
eonil
Mozilla vs Google competition is always a lot better than Google monopoly on
open-source OS market.

------
jay_kyburz
I would just like to say that getting paid to work on Firefox OS all day long
is my dream job.

If there are any Firefox OS devs reading, I would love to chat about what I
should be doing now to improve my chances of joining the team towards the end
of the year.

------
al2o3cr
As a current owner of a Panasonic "smart" TV, replacing the current OS with
literally ANYTHING would be an improvement.

When it's not being annoyingly convoluted to operate, it's being horribly
_slow_ to operate. The Youtube app looks like what happens when management
signs off on the design as static mockups - it's gorgeous on screen, but
scrolling is a laggy mess. Using the search function (complete with a
"keyboard" that is 1D) is so clunky that even the app encourages you to pair
your smartphone to avoid it.

------
V-2
The underdogs are sort of in the same boat: Firefox, Ubuntu and Tizen... if
apps developed with HTML5 are cross-platform (well, easily portable between
the three), it would certainly be a good booster.

On the other hand if there's no talks carried out behind the scenes adressing
this aspect, it's not a good portent.

------
ricardobeat
Submission title originally matched the linked article's headline. De-
editorialization?

------
voidr
> Developing an app for Firefox OS really is as simple as building an HTML5
> web app.

Building a high quality HTML5 web app is hard and complicated.

> Despite its many benefits, there still just isn’t a whole lot of excitement
> for the Firefox OS. That may change though if LG, ZTE, or especially
> Panasonic can create compelling hardware to show off the open source
> software.

Despite what benefits? What does Firefox OS do better than everybody else? If
Mozilla wants consumers to adopt it's OS, it should focus on features that
actually matter to users, otherwise, it will be just a platform for
vendor/carrier crapware.

------
mrbill
The ZTE Open is noticeably better/faster/more responsive after manually
installing the FFOS 1.1 update.

Not keeping me from giving it to a friend, though - I was not as impressed
with FFOS as I thought I would be.

------
dded
> On the phone front, LG showed off its entry level phone, the Fireweb

Interesting, given that LG just announced WebOs on their TVs:
[http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-01-06/lg-unveils-
inter...](http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-01-06/lg-unveils-internet-
connected-tv-running-webos-acquired-from-hp)

~~~
Apocryphon
I have to wonder if there's any level of compatibility between Firefox OS and
webOS. The app development process for both would be pretty similar, I'd
imagine.

------
schmichael
> Despite its many benefits, there still just isn’t a whole lot of excitement
> for the Firefox OS.

What are its benefits other than not being controlled by Apple, Google, or
Microsoft?

The only benefit the author cites is HTML5 apps which can be built for any OS
using a variety of different platforms.

~~~
wahnfrieden
You can't really use HTML5 and feel like a native app on iOS at least.

------
_random_
As someone has written before, Microsoft caught the last train with its WP.
It's too late for non-revolutionary mobile OS to win a reasonable share of
market (and no, crappy ubiquitous script language is not a revolution).

------
skz
Any hope of using this phone in America with Sprint?

