
Mozilla's 4.5” Dual-Core Reference Phone - cpeterso
http://www.droidreport.com/mozillas-45-dual-core-reference-phone-7383
======
nakedrobot2
DEAR PHONE MANUFACTURERS:

WE DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THIN PHONES. WE WANT BIG BATTERIES THAT LAST MANY
DAYS.

Sorry for an all-caps comment that is only tangentially relevant to this
particular article/phone, but I am goddam sick and tired of NO mainstream
phone manufacturers getting out of this "We'll compete on fractions of
millimeters that you'll never notice, we'll tell you what you want, we'll
condition you to plug in your phone every chance you get like some kind of
direct-current junkie"

Ugh.

~~~
arrrg
Who is “we”? Please speak four yourself.

~~~
hrktb
There's that feeling of loneliness when you want something, but the market
moves away and leaves you with only out of date devices fully matching your
needs. I sympathize.

And if there is a market for 5mm case+battery packs (and really, aren't these
almost only available for iPhones?) there should be a market for a phone with
twice or more battery life from the start, built-in. I don't think nakedrobot2
is the only one wanting that.

~~~
leoc
> And if there is a market for 5mm case+battery packs (and really, aren't
> these almost only available for iPhones?)

For phones with replaceable batteries such battery cases are somewhat
unnecessary as you can just make/use an extended battery with a replacement
back cover. Check out this beauty, for instance: ;)

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/5200mAh-Extended-
GT-I9505-18-Month-W...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/5200mAh-Extended-
GT-I9505-18-Month-Warranty/dp/B00CPLEKTO/)

~~~
hrktb
I had spare batteries when using feature phones. And most of the time I'd want
to use one the spare would be dead, because:

1\. the main battery is dead because I didn't think about charging it. The
chances I would have remembered charging the spare were abysmal as well.

2\. I also need a spare charger for the spare battery. Or I'd need to swap it
in the phone when I have access to an outlet, and it would take twice the time
to charge the main battery and the spare. Again, time and preparation.

All in all, an extension to the phone is clunky, but still the best trade-off
if I needed it.

------
pcx
Android (AOSP) these days is not a functionally complete mobile OS with Google
pushing lots of functionality into their closed apps. Mobile really needs a
complete OS which devs can use as an off-the-shelf product, and mod according
to their needs. FirefoxOS and Ubuntu Mobile are probably the only real
contenders now. Both have their pros and cons, but I sincerely hope that
either of them (if not both) would succeed.

One very important thing Google added to the ecosystem was drivers. Android
using Linux essentially made nearly all mobile hardware work on Linux, even
though some drivers are closed. I remember the days when getting a projector
to work with Linux was a pain, and I am not even 25!

EDIT:

My comment on AOSP is in this context:

[http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2014/02/neithe...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2014/02/neither-microsoft-nokia-nor-anyone-else-should-fork-
android-its-unforkable/)

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-
on-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-
controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/)

I do accept that Google has added great value to the ecosystem with AOSP. It's
just that AOSP is pretty much unusable for people without the resources of
Amazon, Nokia, Mozilla, etc. I want something like Debian/Ubuntu. It's pretty
much possible for a single person to build a customized OS for computers. We
need that for mobile.

~~~
swetland
Dianne's response to the recent "AOSP is unusable" silliness is pretty solid:
[http://www.hnwatcher.com/r/734444/Google-s-Dianne-
Hackborn-c...](http://www.hnwatcher.com/r/734444/Google-s-Dianne-Hackborn-
comments-on-Ars-s-Android-open-sourceness-FUD-piece)

Regarding drivers, we expended a lot of effort to push things as open as we
could. We never shipped any binary kernel drivers for any lead devices,
something which most OEMs and silicon vendors seem to have stuck with. We
insisted on linux-on-the-metal instead of solutions where it would be
virtualized under a closed hypervisor that had the "real" drivers and other
such insanity.

GPU drivers have been the biggest uphill battle -- getting all the vendors to
agree to GPLv2 kernel components to handle resource management and ensure that
userspace is not directly poking the hardware, alongside their "secret sauce"
in userspace was better than nothing and better than closed binary kernel
components, but not ideal. It seems like we're finally seeing some motion in
this area.

Watching Nokia, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and others take AOSP from its git
repositories and build full products on top of it is, I think, among the best
evidence that there's an awfully useful base platform there.

If people were to augment that with open source alternatives to various Google
(or other) cloud services, that would be cool.

And of course folks can take AOSP as a base and extend or modify it however
they like in a fully open way -- follow the model of cyanogenmod that's been
tracking AOSP and adding their own enhancements, goodies, or platform support
on top of it, for example...

~~~
Spearchucker
Your points are noted, and I agree with you. But I'm not convinced by Dianne's
post. Big red flag is what on earth you need cloud for to provide a location
service? And mail? An MTU is a client app by definition. Open implies
supporting popular protocols - that hardly creates a dependency on Gmail. The
biggest issue of all though is how most apps are virtually unusable without an
internet connection. That, in the real world, happens a hell of a lot more
often than people like Dianne care to realise. I call bullshit. Her post is as
biased as the posts she's responding to.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
The reason you need tho cloud for location service is because you can save
user time and battery by doing a lookup based on nearby wifi points, a
database of which is stored in the cloud.

Relevantly, Mozilla are trying to build an open one of these.

[https://blog.mozilla.org/services/2013/10/28/introducing-
the...](https://blog.mozilla.org/services/2013/10/28/introducing-the-mozilla-
location-service/)

Though privacy issues make it complicated for people to just download the
data, rather than make a call to the cloud. Those who object to the whole idea
of this will probably just have to accept slower lookups.

I'm not sure what you're saying with your other points, I would have thought a
GMail app would be expected to have a dependency on GMail. The Email app
(which Ars claimed was abandoned, yet just got a overhaul) is there for
communicating over popular protocols to non-Google services.

~~~
Spearchucker
I use a normal (non-Gmail dependent) MTU for my Gmail. What user need does the
Gmail-dependent MTU from Google fulfill that warrants that dependency? As far
as I can tell, my non-Google MTU adds more functionality to GMail than GMail
has.

As for AGPS - great. But we already know that location services function quite
well without it. Did you know that you can do AGPS and drastically reduce time
to fix just by initializing a GPS receiver using your last known location?
AGPS with a location obtained from a WiFi SSID (via a call to the cloud) is
only faster when your last known location is drastically different to your
current location (another state, or country). I won't believe that Google is
incapable of designing a location API that's extensible. There's a non-
technical reason, and that reason is in conflict with the openness Google
likes to play up.

------
yeukhon
Ah. I recently bought a used iPhone 3GS for $40 on eBay because my old
Motorola Atrix's screen is sort of broken.

I didn't want to get a new phone until I have a budget. I thought about
getting ZTE Open but two things pushes me away from FxOS.

1\. ZTE Open's spec is many times weaker than my Atrix's. I already find Atrix
slow. Spending $70 on a phone in that spec is still not affordable for me.

2\. The FxOS ecosystem is still a lot smaller than iOS and Android. I know it
is new but that a number of popular apps (Instagram, Gmail, GMap) are not yet
available on Mozilla Marketplace.

I understand that the initial launch is targeting at countries where
smartphone usage is low. But what people need is a phone not buggy and laggy.

I want to see a phone with powerful spec so #1 goes away. I can then still
rely on the web interface to do #2, provided that the phone is powerful enough
so I won't lag while opening multiple web pages!

I like FireFox OS and I really want to own one, but right now I am going with
iOS (I will avoid Android) given how rock solid iOS is in my experience.

Keep up the good work, FxOS team.

------
frik
Great news that Firefox OS will be on tablets (VIA Vixen, Foxconn InFocus)
too.

I wonder if there are already plans for Firefox OS release for
desktop/notebook (like ChromeOS). This could be a huge thing.

------
darklajid
I know this came up before in Firefox OS threads, but .. I failed to dig it
up.

Any phone recommendations? Reference devices sounds fine, but

a) where do I get one (and for how much)?

b) what other options do I have to get into Firefox OS?

~~~
kevining
The ZTE Open is probably the easiest route to go, and you can order it on
ebay: [http://www.ebay.com/itm/ZTE-Open-powered-by-Firefox-
OS-3G-un...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/ZTE-Open-powered-by-Firefox-
OS-3G-unlocked-smartphone-orange-eBay-exclusive-/281165818989)

But the ZTE Open C is should be just around the corner:
[http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/23/hands-on-zte-
open-c/](http://www.engadget.com/2014/02/23/hands-on-zte-open-c/)

Alternatively if you have a nexus 4 or 5 you can flash FirefoxOS on top of it.

~~~
darklajid
I looked at that (Open, didn't know about the Open C, thanks!) before and
while that looks like a reasonable (price) entry, I wonder multiple things:

\- how well these devices are supported? Are these FF OS devices really future
proof for a while (think 'supported' upstream, kinda like Nexus devices or
fully supported CyanogenMod builds)? Can I follow FF OS without waiting for
e.g. ZTE?

\- Those are low spec devices. I understand that FF OS wants to target the
lower end of the market and is supposed to work well in that environment. But
is that the case? Will I be able to give these a spin as my primary device for
a time?

The second issue is lower in priority. Even if these things don't allow me to
replace my main Android phone, I'd still love to peek at FF OS and play with
the development environment, but a 'daily driver' would be quite interesting
as well.. Only thing I found so far is the Geeksphone Revolution, but without
testing it first/getting a decent idea of what that can do I don't like to
spend 250-300 EUR (and that doesn't seem to be a high-end device either).

------
lern_too_spel
Nonsense. If AOSP isn't functionally complete now, it was never functionally
complete. Nothing has been removed from AOSP.

~~~
girvo
I know you meant that at 'pcx but while AOSP is functionally complete in terms
of it giving you a base to work from, most would consider the lacking
services, etc that it's missing to mean that it's not what most consider
"Android". Of course, I love hacking on AOSP and it doesn't bother me, for a
ROM that replaces the "missing" Google services, Replicant is the way to go.

