

Firefox OS Developer Preview Devices Announced - robhawkes
http://www.geeksphone.com

======
hosay123
Damnit Mozilla, I want a web based mobile platform to succeed so badly and
you're the company for it, but you keep killing your own fire with these
repeated false starts. A 600 word blog post to announce the availability of a
_holding page_? My credit card is burning a hole in my pocket! The approximate
specs for the lowest end device were available on the B2G wiki for months.

Looking forward to holding this in my hand. For a few cents per unit, they
might have made it even more compelling by adding dual SIM slots, certainly
Chinese vendors seem to be able to manage this on <$100 Android handsets.

~~~
adamkochanowicz
The developer preview is an actual phone, not a webpage.

~~~
notatoad
Currently it's just a webpage, because you can't actually buy the developer
preview phone yet. It _will be_ a phone, but it isn't yet.

------
metabrew
No buy link, what a wasted announcement. They unveiled... a holding page.

~~~
ksec
They should have at least had a a announcement mailing list for me to
enter....

While i am a Mozilla Fans, i hate to admit it is just not a well run company.

~~~
zabraxias
The parts that matter are quite well run but the marketing side of things
could apparently use some polish. For what it's worth this is simply a dev
phone announcement and not meant to be a consumer device announcement.

I am quite excited for this not because FxOS will take over android/iOS but
because it will give people a trusted organization behind their private data.
This has less impact on the North American market but more in other countries
that tend to value privacy.

------
girvo
I'm stoked that they partnered with geeksphone. I adored my geeksphone one.
The pricing is what will be important here, as the low end android handsets
are still lacking in the low-end market, in terms of performance anyway[0].

If they beat Androids performance, and development is easy, then it has a shot
in my opinion. I mean, your basic apps are there already (such as
<http://x.Facebook.com>), and if it's simple enough to port my mobile web apps
over, I know I'll take the plunge.

[0] Source: I sell phones in Australia

------
nicpottier
I loaded up Firefox OS on a Nexus S a few months back and the performance was
really really poor compared to Android 4 running on the same hardware.

Their low end device looks similarly specced, so I'm a bit worried about how
it will come off. Haven't gone through loading up the latest builds so perhaps
performance has improved a lot.

Before Android 4.* (especially 4.1 and Butter) I think there was room for
another competitor in the market, but I'm having a hard time believing
FirefoxOS is going to be able to make significant inroads.

Android has finally grown up and contract-free low end phones are now
available for $60. I would expect the 2013 ultra low end handsets will be 4.*
which is really going to be a game changer.

~~~
robhawkes
The performance of Firefox OS today on 800MHz hardware is many times better
than it was on the Nexus S devices back in the day. This is partly due to
hardware but mostly due to the OS maturing.

In short, today's build of Firefox OS will run very fast on these developer
specifications.

~~~
Vaanir
Any hint on the prices?

No doubt they will be priced cheaper than the Nexus 4.

~~~
zokier
Developer preview probably means very small production run, which in turn
means high unit price. Final, mass produced devices of course should be
significantly cheaper.

------
trotsky
Is that an officially endorsed dev platform by Mozilla? It sure seems to imply
it, but I can't see anything on the website that directly says so. I have no
doubt it'll run the builds, but when you're buying a pre-launch dev platform
it makes a big difference if it's the one the core devs are going to be using
and be an official platform target. I'm not suggesting it isn't, but its not
on the site.

~~~
wmf
Is this official enough? It's on the front page.
[https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/01/announcing-the-firefox-
os-...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/01/announcing-the-firefox-os-developer-
preview-phone/)

------
densh
I'm going to buy a device just to support their initiative. For some reason I
think it might become a raspberry pi of phone segment. Everything is open
source so it's possible to tweak it as much as you heart desires.

Considering specs of the lower gen phone it should cost about $100.

~~~
pekk
A $100-to-consumers, thoroughly hackable phone would be a bonanza for geeky
hobbyists, feature phone users and Chinese companies selling to the developing
world. Let's see if they can get prices down to where people will not think
too much about how they'd rather have Android.

------
luisivan
I know Javier, the 20-yo entrepreneur behind Geeksphone - he's a brilliant
mind, simply outstanding. I also know the CEO, really nice guy. They knew it
was gonna be a risky move, but I think they just nailed it. Congratulations
Javier and the Geeksphone staff!

------
firefoxman1
Aww come on! I just ordered an N9 so I could run Firefox OS (and several other
phone OSes coming out this year) and now this comes out?

------
panacea
The masses: "Should I buy an iPhone or a Galaxy?"

~~~
truxs
On the other hand it's a dev preview, not something designed to be used by
high end customers.

~~~
PommeDeTerre
I think the important point is that consumers don't care about Firefox OS
today, and likely won't in the future, even if it ever becomes widely
available.

Right now, Firefox OS is extremely far back in line. It's behind Android, iOS,
various mobile versions of Windows, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, MeeGo, and several
others.

If it offered something special, then there's the remote possibility that it
could succeed. But it really doesn't. It's quite unremarkable, and the
emphasis on using HTML5 and JavaScript for app development will likely repulse
many good developers who'd prefer to use a language like C, C++, Java or
Objective-C.

It just keeps looking more and more like a dead end, even as they make
progress.

~~~
untog
_the emphasis on using HTML5 and JavaScript for app development will likely
repulse many good developers who'd prefer to use a language like C, C++, Java
or Objective-C._

But it will attract developers who use HTML5 and Javascript, of which there
are a great number.

FirefoxOS is clearly aiming itself at low-end devices in emerging markets.
None of the other players have done a great job here, so yes, there is a
market. We're just not in it.

------
cageface
It's too late in this generation for another serious competitor to emerge in
mobile. Microsoft might be able to muscle its way into double digits but
everybody else is just too late to the game now.

Better to focus on what comes after phones & tablets, whatever that is.

~~~
jackalope
There is still a lot of dissatisfaction with mobile, and plenty of room for
improvement. The leaders want you to marry their platform at the expense of
services offered by competitors. A newcomer might make inroads just by making
it easy to use various competing services out of the box.

~~~
cageface
That describes Apple well enough but Google's stuff is everywhere and best in
class in most cases.

~~~
jawngee
It's certainly best in class in touch parallax and mediocre usability.

~~~
cageface
Because nothing defines usability like a crap soft keyboard, broken voice
search, broken inter-app sharing, tiny, static notifications, and junk stock
apps, right?

Take away Gmail, Google maps, and Google search and all your iphone has left
to brag about is smooth scrolling.

------
NanoWar
One thing that keeps bothering me are circular app icons. I don't know, it's
different but I just disagree. That facebook logo in a ... bubble :)

~~~
kibwen
It's all just CSS! A quick

    
    
      border-radius: 4px;
    

will bring back the rounded rectangles you know and love.

------
dbcooper
Looks like it is an ARM v7 CPU in the cheaper device (ARM v6 S1 SOC CPU cores
don't go up to 1GHz), which is good to see as the baseline.

~~~
mtgx
It looks like the single Scorpion core that was in the Nexus One, based on
ARMv7 and a competitor to Cortex A8.

~~~
astro1138
I still use a Nexus One class (HTC Desire) which seems to have specs that are
on par. I want Firefox OS but why would I buy another device with the same
functionality?

------
Millennium
There's a phrase that has been going around the usual meme-heavy sites for
some time that I think would be useful here: "Shut up and take my money."
Strutting around while making announcements of something people already know
about, only to have those announcements lead to a holding page rather than a
buying opportunity, only irritates people. Give them something they can buy,
and they will.

------
adamkochanowicz
Couldn't they have done this design without ripping off the water droplet
background from Apple? <http://www.geeksphone.com/#slider-peak>

~~~
jrockway
The windows in my 1850s-era apartment do this automatically when it rains, so
I'm guessing Apple didn't come up with this idea alone.

------
zobzu
irony: this site looks bad on firefox for android

