
Google Leads Series A Investment Round in KaiOS to Connect Next Billion Users - bobajeff
https://www.kaiostech.com/google-leads-seriesa-investment-round-kaios-connect-next-billion-users/
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cosmojg
>KaiOS is a web-based mobile operating system that enables a new category of
smart feature phones. It is forked from B2G (Boot to Gecko), a successor of
the discontinued Firefox OS. [1]

I'm curious whether they'll stick with Gecko considering Google's influence
over the project. I also wonder how they plan on succeeding where Firefox OS
failed.

[1] [https://developer.kaiostech.com/](https://developer.kaiostech.com/)

~~~
Eridrus
They have a much clearer plan than Mozilla. They're not trying to make an
Android or iOS competitor, they are trying to make a feature phone OS. Firefox
OS actually had some success in poorer markets, but that wasn't considered
successful enough to continue investment. KaiOS is actually already
successful, they are on the JioPhone which is almost being given away by Jio
in India.

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ashraymalhotra
Adding some more relevant information:

India is having a digital revolution since the launch of Reliance Jio. They
had launched a phone called as JioPhone [1]. This is powered by KaiOS, hence
the market share of KaiOS in India has significantly increased. KaiOS is the
second most popular mobile OS in India (ahead of iOS)[3].

JioPhone sold nearly 40 million units in the last quarter[2]! This is a huge
market for Google to build apps for as well.

[1] [https://www.jio.com/en-in/book-jio-phone](https://www.jio.com/en-in/book-
jio-phone) [2] [https://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/jio-phone-sales-at-
nea...](https://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/jio-phone-sales-at-
nearly-40-million-units-so-far-report-1842725) [3]
[https://yourstory.com/2018/05/kaios-powers-jiophone-
indias-n...](https://yourstory.com/2018/05/kaios-powers-jiophone-indias-
no-2-mobile-operating-system-ahead-apple-ios/)

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bcheung
Why are they developing so many different mobile OS platforms at the same
company? Android, Fuchsia, and now KaiOS?

They mention it is a web based OS. That might lead to less fragmentation
though if it takes off. The browser API's are very close to native and it
sucks having to develop for Web / iOS / Android. If mobile phones adopted Web
technologies and they were extended with a few more hardware APIs development
would be much easier.

~~~
privacypoller
>> If mobile phones adopted Web technologies

Sigh. I must be old.

I've already lived through 2 major initiatives to do just this first with Palm
OS and more recently FireFox OS. We all see the benefit from a developer
standpoint but as an absolute, positively web-first proponent I really don't
see the motivation for the device manufacturers. Why would it be in the
interest of any incumbent to increase app portability? Also, the vision of the
web OS as the "great leveler" really breaks down when you start trying to
utilize things like location and the camera and NFC, etc. Even within just
Palm OS devices this was a major problem. Each new model needed new APIs to
the underlying hardware, app updates and a bunch of checks for functionality.
It was the worst parts of web development, all the time.

~~~
bcheung
Yes, I think Apple has been slow to implement web API's into Safari for that
very reason. It took them forever to get Service Workers. Also, if the browser
can do it, why would people pay them 30% of the app?

I don't know about NFC but I know bluetooth and camera is not that much of an
issue in mobile browsers. They are decently supported.

~~~
djrogers
Service workers on mobile have been resisted for data use, performance, and
battery life reasons. There’s no great conspiracy, it’s sunpky that your
average user isn’t going to be happy if a random website sucks up half their
data allowance for the month and kills their battery in 2 hours even after
they ‘closed the browser’

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Also privacy concerns; every one of those features can help track you.

------
culot
I've seen some commits on CAF regarding KaiOS's involvement, but where exactly
are they hosting the source for their projects? Do they have _any intentions
whatsoever_ to release the sources?

Firefox OS goes from open-source to closed-source KaiOS, now funded, in part,
by Google. Sad.

edit: Oh darn:

"Many parts of B2G (especially Gaia) are under a permissive (Apache) license
which allows modified code to be released under another license, so not all of
B2G necessarily has to remain open source. It’s made of many components though
so the legal situation is probably quite complex, there are likely some parts
that Kai OS Technologies should provide the source code for."

Oh well.

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jpalomaki
"KaiOS originates from the Firefox OS open-source project started in 2011, and
has continued independently from Mozilla since 2016" [1]

[https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2qihtgrzllws8ki/AABmo9X1KMT6lHnvh...](https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2qihtgrzllws8ki/AABmo9X1KMT6lHnvh4Em7dpWa?dl=0&preview=KaiOS+Technologies+-++Company+and+Product+Profile.pdf)

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rahimnathwani
This looks very promising for people like my parents, for whom using a touch-
screen device is much more difficult than using one with hard buttons.

They each have an iPhone/iPad to look at photos and read/send emails, but
their mobile phones are low-end Doro devices with nice large text and a
comfortably-sized numeric keypad.

The Wikipedia page lists the Nokia 8110 (coming out in the UK in a few days),
a Doro phone, and a couple of others.

Can anyone with experience using one of these as a daily driver share their
thoughts?

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jillesvangurp
A few years ago, there were several promising alternative mobile operating
systems. WebOs, Ubuntu mobile, SailfishOS, Tizen (a continuation of Nokia's
Maemo/Meego), and of course Firefox OS. Nokia also had another in house OS
that was killed off before it got a chance to ship called Meltemi.

Most of these had a few things in common:

\- they were linux based \- they were aimed at cheaper form factors where
Android made less sense \- (mostly) web based development kits \- all of them
struggled to get traction/market share \- at the core of their failures was
the success off the android and apple app stores.

So, what has changed? App stores are less relevant than ever. People still
install apps of course but mostly apps are struggling to compete for
attention. It requires a huge marketing budgets to get anywhere near the top
hundred of apps and if you are not in there, people won't find you. So, a good
mobile web experience is key for a lot of services out there and with stuff
like progressive web apps (which Firefox OS sort of pioneered) you can get
away with not having a fully native app. Many 'native' apps are in fact
partially web based these days.

So, KaiOs makes sense. Android is still expensive to run and producing
hardware platforms in volume based on chipsets that were considered state of
the art ten years ago is really cheap. Android never really ran well on those.
Which is why you see these operating systems targeting cheap platforms. Web
based development kits make total sense. Of course, mobile linux makes a lot
of sense since it basically runs on all of these platforms and there is a huge
existing investment in things like drivers.

Google investing in this also makes total sense. Android is not going to run
well on these devices but they still want people to buy into the Google eco
system. Fuchsia is not aimed at this space either and instead intended to
replace Android, eventually. It may scale down better than Android of course
but everything I'm reading about it suggests that's not the main goal. So
investing in this is a low risk, high reward type situation for Google.

Apple of course never really cared about low end. The margins are too small
for them. They only do high margin products.

~~~
throwaway412432
Sailfish had its chance with Intex. They hugely underestimated the opportunity
they had with the launch of Jio, and pushed off on supporting VOLTE. Sailfish
tanked despite being a great OS on a relatively cheap handset (< $100); lost
the opportunity to gain a foothold.

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wiradikusuma
Wouldn't expensive smartphones today be as cheap as feature phones tomorrow?
E.g. Samsung Galaxy Note 3 now only $100. The point is, hardware will be
cheaper and faster, and eventually smartphones will be affordable, no?

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baybal2
Feature phone is kinda dead when you can buy a "Chindroid" for $20 bucks

But it is easy guess why Google still wants to place this bet

~~~
tfolbrecht
Google doesn't want to sell hardware. They want to pull the next billion into
their platform. Did you catch the Google Assistant icon in the article?

