

Mozilla and Partners Prepare to Launch First Firefox OS Smartphones - rnyman
https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2013/07/mozilla-and-partners-prepare-to-launch-first-firefox-os-smartphones/

======
jwarren
I know that Mozilla aren't on the same realm of level of revenue as Apple or
Google, and that they can't spend a fortune on marketing.

However, that must've been one of the least inspiring product demo videos I've
ever watched. It does nothing on selling me on the virtues of the phone, just
running through some extraordinarily anonymous features. I realise it's
extremely affordable, but that hardware looks like it does almost nothing
well. While I want to develop mobile apps, I don't particularly want to
develop for this device, despite the HTML/CSS/JS support fitting neatly in my
skillset.

The app store is probably the most curious thing, but that's hidden away and
quickly glossed over.

If this starts reaching developing nations, with mobile internet etc, then I
could see the benefit, and that's something that I'd love to engage with. At
the moment it just seems like a weird brand exercise.

~~~
PommeDeTerre
Firefox OS is one of the most obviously-wasteful and doomed efforts we've seen
in a long time.

There is no compelling reason to use it, or for it to even exist. It offers no
tangible benefits that we can't get elsewhere. What it does offer is pretty
lousy.

The only two arguments we see used to support its existence are both badly
flawed:

1) Devices running it are "affordable". Maybe this is true in some absolute
sense, but relative to other mobile OSes and devices this "affordability"
comes at a very steep cost in terms of usability and practicality.

Used Android and iOS devices can also be acquired quite cheaply these days
(even in poorer nations), but unlike Firefox OS and its devices these used
devices are comparatively powerful and much more practical to use.

2) It's "open". This argument is academic at best. We can already use HTML5,
CSS, JavaScript and other so-called "open" technologies on Android, iOS,
BlackBerry OS, and many other of the less-common mobile OSes. Android and some
of the other mobile OSes are already open source software, so it's not like
Firefox OS has any advantage in that sense, as well.

The whole reliance on JavaScript makes Firefox OS even less-open, in my
opinion. When it comes to using Android or iOS, for instance, at least we have
the option of using mature, non-JavaScript languages. No, I don't really
consider CoffeeScript, TypeScript or Dart to be anything but JavaScript with a
prettier syntax and/or slightly better type checking.

The effort put into Firefox OS would have been much better spent fixing
desktop Firefox, or Firefox running on existing mobile devices. Even putting
it toward Thunderbird would've been useful. But it has instead been wasted on
an eighth-in-line mobile OS with limited capabilities and a severe lack of
usability compared to its competitors.

~~~
pestaa
This is one of the worst comments I've seen around here lately. It makes lots
and lots of assumptions, doesn't back them up, and then jumps to stupid
conclusions.

A platform being open is not merely academic. It makes future open source
software exponentionally better just like it did in the past decades. In fact,
if this gets mainstream it will be the first to be truly open. Android has an
open source license, but Google has never been really open about it.
[http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-
sauce/55247-...](http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-
sauce/55247-android-not-so-open-open-source)

And why does relying on a publicly specified language with vibrant ecosystem
make the platform less open? You argued that by using proprietary languages?
Though I completely agree JS needs to mature... a lot.

I trust Mozilla's vision that they're doing the right thing to move the web
forward by putting efforts into desktop or mobile or whatever they find
worthwhile.

~~~
rednukleus
There is a shocking amount of anti-hacker sentiment on this forum. There are
so many people here that are desperate to make money out of the big new closed
ecosystems that they are only too eager to badmouth open alternatives at every
turn.

~~~
embolism
Some of it may be dissonance - people (especially in the open source
community) have been proclaiming Android as open for so long that anything
that challenges that idea must be denied.

~~~
nullc
Though there is no need for dissonance. Openness comes in degrees: Android is
pretty open compared to IOS. Firefox OS seems more open than Android. The FSF
would point out something like that the Firefox OS devices still use binary
blob video drivers.

Without the basic hardware/software ecosystem that android has supported it
isn't clear that Firefox OS could (so easily) exist. Modern smartphones have
substantially reduced platform openeness and freedom compared to the desktops
of old, but the ratchet doesn't only click one way.

~~~
embolism
No disagreement, however the dissonance is that those who have for so long
championed Android, would now have to switch to criticizing it.

~~~
PommeDeTerre
I'd gladly switch to Firefox OS if it were a superior mobile operating system.
I'd gladly criticize Android if it couldn't compete with this hypothetical
version of Firefox OS that's better. I'm sure many others here are in exactly
the same boat.

But we can't do that, because Firefox OS is clearly inferior to Android in so
many significant ways. Its performance appears to be a problem. Its
functionality is quite limited. Its "openness" is overstated. It provides an
awful environment for developers, in terms of language support, compared to
other mobile OSes. Basically nobody is actually using it yet, so there's
little incentive to target it. It appears comparatively hostile toward anyone
wishing to merely recoup the cost of creating an app, never mind make a
profit.

Until Firefox OS gets its act together, it will face criticism and negative
comparisons with Android. I hope that people like you are capable of seeing
what's truly behind this (that is, the inferiority of Firefox OS compared to
Android), rather than misattributing it to "dissonance", or "shilling", or
some other nonsensical reason like that.

~~~
embolism
If you read my other comments, I have made the similar criticisms - I.e.
Firefox OS doesn't bring anything better to the table.

I'm not misattributing anything and putting words like 'shilling' into my
mouth is cheap.

The fact that Android was hailed as open by the community clearly diminishes
the impact of the major selling point of Firefox OS.

Even if Firefox OS was on par with Android in all aspects of performance,
people would still have no reason to use it, and the argument 'because it's
open' is no longer persuasive.

------
slacka
All the previews I've read say that Firefox OS needs high-end hardware to
deliver a responsive UI.

"Its unresponsive screen makes typing a laborious process requiring
painstaking precision. Every action from swiping to tapping onscreen controls
takes a beat until you see results, so using the phone for a prolonged period
steals minutes of your time. Lag carries into the camera, which is slow to
launch, snap, and reset."[1]

For $90, I would rather have a refurbished iPhone 3GS. A 3GS has 16GB of
internal storage vs this phones 512MB and runs Apple's latest iOS 6. With
native performance you get a silky smooth experience from the homescreen to
apps even on budget hardware.

[1] [http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57591716-94/firefox-os-
phon...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57591716-94/firefox-os-phone-
launches-tuesday-in-spain-at-$3-a-month/)

~~~
ohwp
_" For $90, I would rather have a refurbished iPhone 3GS."_

You might be surprised (as I was) but Windows 8 is the most responsive mobile
OS I've ever seen. Maybe it's even the best mobile OS at the moment.

You can get a new Nokia Lumia 521 for about $150. A very underestimated phone.

~~~
EnderMB
I can safely say that Windows Phone is the nicest OS I've casually used. It's
much more responsive than iOS and Android, and it just feels a lot nicer to
use from day-to-day.

My main gripe with Windows Phone isn't the OS, but the phones themselves. They
just don't look that nice, and they retain the old-fashioned "brick" feel of
old Nokia phones.

I have a Galaxy Nexus now, but if Microsoft were to release their own Nexus-
like range of phones that were both high-spec and looked great I'd happily
switch.

~~~
overgryphon
No no no, don't complain about the brick-ness, Nokia may listen. I love being
able to constantly drop my phone all over the place.

~~~
EnderMB
Are the new phones still as sturdy as they were before? I admit that I miss my
old Nokia 3310 at times, and being able to throw it around anywhere without a
single dent.

~~~
overgryphon
I've owned both the Nokia 710 and the new 521 and as an excessive phone-
dropper have had no problems. I have also dropped both of these phones in
water, picked them up, dried them off with a paper towel, and simply moved on
with my day.

------
marban
Releasing only low-budget hardware is probably not the best strategy to break
into the existing market. That is, phones like these are doomed to be used by
people who aren't even aware of what kind of OS the phone uses as long as it's
labeled smartphone and comes with a cheap plan and a facebook app.

~~~
josteink
I don't know. It sounds like a good strategy to gain market-share in a post
economic-crisis, recession-stricken Europe.

You wont get a generation of still-unemployed-at-30 spaniards to buy your €600
phone when they have trouble getting ends to meet. A €60 smart-phone however,
that stands a chance.

~~~
kokey
Also the rest of the developing world, especially Africa, where Firefox OS
looks like a very strong replacement for Blackberry and Nokia feature phones.

------
dombili
Maybe this is me being delusional, but Geeksphone's models were running much
more smoother than this (this being the Alcatel phone in the demo). I think
the OS is fine and it'd work nicely on a good hardware, but it just needs
time. It's gotta be hard to sell a phone that's cheap and has a good hardware.
But I'm hopeful and rooting for Mozilla to pull this off.

------
bsaul
The war with Tizen only get started. Yet, it's funny how those two OS will end
up being almost 100% compatible (at least for webapps), and so in the end, it
won't really matter which one you'll be using. Maybe this will start a new
trend of "web phones", and will push android towards becoming more of a
"chrome os".

~~~
PommeDeTerre
This "war" you speak of is between two mobile OSes making up literally a small
fraction of one percent of all mobile users.

BlackBerry OS and Windows Phone, which are nearly irrelevant compared to
Android and iOS, are absolutely huge compared to Firefox OS, Tizen, and the
other mobile OSes.

Firefox OS and Tizen will have absolutely no impact on Android.

~~~
zanny
I think Chrome OS will have a big impact on Android, though. It seems like
such a silly business model for Google to push web apps on their netbook
platform but put forth Java first on mobile. I imagine Android 5 will probably
have default-Chrome and at least put its app store next to play and try to
push developers that way.

~~~
imissmyjuno
Google has enough cash to invest into both native and web platforms, and see
which one (if any) prevails. At the end of the day, more platforms is access
to more developers and the apps they make, which in turn is more incentive for
end users to buy the devices, whatever OS they happen to run.

Mozilla is leveraging a large existing developer base and relying on the brand
power and capabilities of Firefox that they have full control over. Their
choice of market is interesting too, as it seems to be largely served by low-
cost hardware stuck with outdated Android installs with no upgrade paths on
the horizon. Meanwhile, Google is distancing itself from Android as a product
and instead pushing own devices as "the" Android experience, leaving the low-
cost hardware market with stale software.

These seem like thought-out strategic moves Mozilla is capable of pulling.
It'll be interesting to see how things play out.

------
anon1385
>customized phone experience based on your needs

Can you disable Javascript?

~~~
patrickaljord
The whole UI is written in HTML+JS so that would be like bricking your phone I
guess.

~~~
Stranger2013
But it might get drastically colder :).

------
juandopazo
I'm surprised by the early launch. I've been using a Geeksphone Peak as my
primary phone for a couple of weeks and FirefoxOS is far from ready. There are
bugs, missing features, apps that won't do basic things... Here I was thinking
FirefoxOS needed an extra year of development and they're already launching
devices!

------
Apocryphon
There's still room for an alt, "hacker" OS that's seen as not in the pocket of
Google: a Linux of the smartphone world. Tizen, being Samsung's beast, doesn't
quite fit that description. So between Firefox OS, Ubuntu Mobile, Sailfish OS,
Open webOS, (any others?) I'm wondering which one will capture the hearts and
minds of the hacker community, if not any relevant marketshare.

~~~
abraham
Cyanogenmod seems to be doing a pretty good job.

------
panacea
That demo video made my teeth hurt. Like going back in time to before the
first iPhone was released.

~~~
marban
I think the first iPhone did a better job in smooth scrolling.

------
menubar
I'm in the "You-get-what-you-pay-for" school.

Besides being the phone all others are compared against, iPhone is
standardized to fit a variety of 3rd party components; lenses, camera mounts,
car mounts, etc.

Dependability is another aspect that should not be neglected to save a few $.
If it's something you depend upon every day, you don't want to be disappointed
when it matters most.

I guess a free Firefox OS phone would be great for homeless or families too
poor to afford a decent phone.

~~~
josteink
> I guess a free Firefox OS phone would be great for homeless or families too
> poor to afford a decent phone.

Or people who value freedom over eyecandy. Or people with principles and
ideals. And maybe even people who can see outside the San Francisco hipster
smug.

People with long term visions, like the people who originally created the WWW
had. We definitely need more people like that and we need the tech crowd to
support them.

Your comment adds nothing of value.

~~~
embolism
Android is also free and is far more capable. What does Firefox OS bring to
the table?

~~~
josteink
All Android apps (which most users see) are still closed apps, delivered
through a closed app store, using propietary APIs.

Chances are that all the apps you have invested in and the data you have put
into them will be lost if you migrate to another phone or eco-system.

Firefox OS, by ensuring that _everything_ is HTML-based and pretty much
delivered as web-pages means that you can never have your data and apps locked
in the same way you can on Android and iPhone.

Firefox OS delivers freedom in such complete form that no other platform can
compete. Firefox OS is in fact so open that if you in the end get fed up with
it (for whatever reason), you can still take all your apps, all your data and
move on to whatever you want. You will lose nothing.

You have to admit that is something pretty unique.

~~~
st3fan
"... you can still take all your apps, all your data and move on to whatever
you want ..."

Well, in theory :-)

1) Only to other Firefox OS phones that support the same WebAPIs that your
apps require. Mozilla is working hard to push those APIs through W3C and
encourage others to implement them. But that is a slow process and it remains
to be seen if the other players want to do that.

Until that happens, Firefox OS is just as proprietary as any other platform.
Sure, it is technically more open, but you are still locked in to a specific
runtime implementation where you can't easily move away from.

2) Only if those applications are completely standalone and do not depend on
server side components. Developer goes out of business or loses interest in
the app? Good luck reverse engineering minified JavaScript or reimplementing a
backend that the app depended on.

Firefox OS is great and it is a long term plan. But to claim it solves all
problems we have now with mobile software goes too far in my opinion. Those
same problems will just exist on any new platform.

(Yes, yes, the web is the platform. See point 1)

~~~
Yoric
> 1) Only to other Firefox OS phones that support the same WebAPIs that your
> apps require. Mozilla is working hard to push those APIs through W3C and
> encourage others to implement them. But that is a slow process and it
> remains to be seen if the other players want to do that.

In theory, it will work anywhere, eventually. But today, almost every single
FirefoxOS applications can run unchanged on Android (using Firefox for
Android). Most of them can also work on laptop/desktop (using regular
Firefox). That's already way better than whatever Android or iOS offer.

> 2) Only if those applications are completely standalone and do not depend on
> server side components. Developer goes out of business or loses interest in
> the app? Good luck reverse engineering minified JavaScript or reimplementing
> a backend that the app depended on.

On this point, I agree with you. The parent post was overpromising.

> Firefox OS is great and it is a long term plan. But to claim it solves all
> problems we have now with mobile software goes too far in my opinion. Those
> same problems will just exist on any new platform.

I, for one, don't claim that. But I am convinced that Firefox OS is a great
step forward, and that's all we can ask, really.

Caveat: I am a Mozillian.

~~~
embolism
This is all true, but it's too late. The open source community (and HN)
proclaimed Android as open for years, and frankly shouted down anyone who
suggested otherwise as an iOS apologist (which clearly some of them were),

People believe they are getting something free and open when they buy Android.

These fine distinctions aren't going to make a difference in anyone's mind
since the Geek vote already went to Android.

~~~
Ygg2
Really?! The gist was that Android was more like eventually open, because real
development lags behind the OSS version?

~~~
embolism
Are you seriously trying to pretend that general consensus on Android wasn't
'it's better than iOS because it's open'?

Now that wolf has been cried, it's too late.

~~~
Ygg2
I'm not pretending anything. Both of those statements are true. Android is
more open than iOS, FxOS is more open than Android.

And in every Android topic there is at least one commenter saying that Android
isn't truly open.

~~~
embolism
That one commenter is usually drowned out to the point that the desire for
'open' is believed to be satisfied by Android. Now that a real open
alternative comes along, it's too late.

~~~
Ygg2
We'll see I guess.

------
frozenport
I am always confused by the race to the bottom approach in electronics. These
are device that people will spent hundreds of hours on, what is $60 dollars of
savings stretched over the course of a 2 year contract?

I understand that in developing nations like Ethiopia or India this might be
significant but in Spain?

~~~
dhs
44 percent of all Spaniards under 25 are currently jobless.

~~~
frozenport
Certainly, but they aren't living in poverty. For example,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits_in_Spain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits_in_Spain)
Person with no children: 497.01 / 1087,21 euro which is $650 for doing
nothing.

~~~
jotaass
Nevermind the fact that in order to qualify for unemployment benefits you must
have worked and contributed in the last few years. As it turns out, most
unemployment in Spain, and countries in the same situation, is from fresh out
of college students who never had a chance.

Well, you can argue that there is always a choice. And most of them take it,
by leaving everything behind and moving to Germany or other central european
country. Until they don't want them there anymore.

------
particlewave
Google doesn't charge you to use Android and Mozilla doesn't charge you to use
FF OS. So how will FF OS be able to deliver cheaper phones?

It seems if they are able to bring down prices by introducing this "no-
contract cheap phone option" into the market (which may be a good thing), then
nothing stops the same exact manufacturer from releasing the same exact
hardware running Android for the same exact price sine the OS doesn't play
into the cost in either case.

~~~
Yoric
I may be wrong, but I seem to remember that Google does charge the companies
that build these devices, so that cost is propagated somewhere to the
consumer.

However, the real cost saver is the fact that, in my experience, FirefoxOS
largely outperforms Android on many tasks, and generally is usable on hardware
that is much cheaper than anything Android requires to run these days.

------
karussell
Could someone explain me how one can implement offline features like
navigation etc for this phone? Is there an API besides HTML+JS?

~~~
Yoric
You can find everything here: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/Apps](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Apps)

~~~
karussell
Thanks!

Hmmh, but all I see is WebApp, WebGL, JavaScript, HTML, ... I don't see
'native' -> How would I implement an offline navigation? (which is currently
really not possible in JavaScript)

Or is it just not possible to create a resource intensive or tricky
application in FireFox OS?

~~~
csuwldcat
"How would I implement an offline navigation? (which is currently really not
possible in JavaScript)" \- wow, just wow. Beyond the fact that this is just
plain wrong - there are packaged apps that ship all assets on install, as well
as great offline JS libraries - you do realize these things (offline,
telephony, etc) are _APIs_ right? No _language_ Just Does™ offline or
telephony - for instance, C++ is not somehow magically self-aware of internet
connectivity, it's simply a language used by developers to code against device
hardware/firmware which then provides _APIs_ for these capabilities.

JavaScript is no less capable of supporting these APIs, look at Node.js for
instance, it has most of the server _APIs_ you find in other server
implementations that use different languages as a base (and the Firefox
platform has many of them already, with many more to on the way!)

~~~
karussell
Yes, I was wrong: you can create offline navigation with JS! (sorry, for the
incorrectness I really like JS, especially on the server!)

But you cannot - please correct me when I'm wrong - create offline navigation
on a FireFox OS when using only the provided APIs. At least I don't see a way
how it should scale beyond a smallish city.

~~~
Yoric
I'm not sure I understand where you see a limitation that could block you. See
my other reply for a more elaborate discussion :)

------
andrewcooke
telefonica chile: you work with alcatel; if you released that here on pay-as-
you-go then i'd buy one in a heartbeat...

------
elehack
Does anyone know how feasible it is to use a Firefox OS phone with no data
plan? Using GSM for voice calls and SMS, but forcing it to only do data over
wifi?

~~~
Yoric
I've been doing that for ~6 months, without problem.

------
anoncow
Any info on country-wise availability, especially India?

------
andylei
if i'm in the US, how do I actually buy one?

------
pjmlp
Following WebOS footsteps...

~~~
garysweaver
With two big differences:

1\. Knowledge resources available to team and experience of the organization
in the subject matter far exceed what the WebOS team had.

2\. Was free/open and somewhat collaborative almost from the beginning. I say
"somewhat collaborative" because the priority of the team was to create an
operating system for a phone, with other forms (like a computer connected to
other devices) taking a far backseat.

However, I agree in that, despite optimizations, it has a long way to go to
compete with Android which almost "owns" the market it is after.

Politically, the timing is fairly good this announcement, though. Right after
Google's black eye over privacy concerns, people might be slightly more likely
to embrace Mozilla products. But, who knows. Competing in Android's turf is
going to be a serious uphill battle.

It will succeed if:

1\. They really embrace community input and provide incentives for people to
get involved. That is part of being Mozilla. They don't need to be Apple or
Google.

2\. They need a charismatic leader with the vision of Jobs, someone with the
design talent of Jony Ive, and someone that is capable of recruiting and
organizing community talent like _______ (a name doesn't come to mind).

~~~
smacktoward
There's also four years' worth of hardware advancement that they get to ride
on for free. Mobile hardware is a lot more sophisticated now than it was in
2009, so making an HTML+CSS+JS interface that feels performant is easier today
than it was then.

~~~
pjmlp
Let me know when then run at _same_ speed as native apps, otherwise I can use
existing mobile OS and their respective browsers.

------
lurchpop
So is this going to be like android where facebook app is compulsory?

