
KaiOS – A Smartphone Operating System - fstephany
https://www.kaiostech.com/
======
garganshum
I have actually developed for this platform. KaiOS powers Jio Phone and
Reliance JIO is by far their largest customer (and also an investor from what
I know).

The thing I like about this platform is that it runs most web technologies.
You can thank Firefox OS for that. We used React ecosystem to develop apps for
KaiOS and they worked well enough. Jio Phone ships with Video and Audio
streaming apps which are all built on either React or Angular and use HTML5. I
think all of that was possible on Firefox OS as well and they haven't really
changed anything substantially. We were given links to archived FirefoxOS
documentation pages when we asked for documentation.

They have managed to package FirefoxOS for enterprise customers. From what I
know the KaiOS team comprises of people who worked on parts of Firefox OS (but
not the core FirefoxOS team). This makes me wonder why FirefoxOS shut down and
why did it not try to market itself like KaiOS has managed to do.

~~~
randomerr
I think it was combination of factors that shut down FireFox OS:

* The foundation was bleeding money and had to limit it's focus

* The Matchstick on KickStarter made FireFox OS look like a non-viable product

* Not a lot of chimerical interest outside from outside the community

~~~
yayana
I think there actually was and is a lot of outside interest in a open and web
stack oriented phoneOS.

The firefox OS website tried to divide visitors into hardware vendors,
consumers and app writers. Imagine the success of Linus's first announcement
if he told people which lines they could stand in to appreciate Linux when he
was done writing it..

Digging deeper than you appeared to be welcome would get you into setup tasks
with AOSP.. There is no better way to lose help then to ask them to learn
about a more complete competitor.

------
Eridrus
It seems like folks aren't aware that KaiOS is that runs on the JioPhone, a
super cheap & popular feature phone in India, bundled with a super cheap data
plan:

[https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/jiophone-...](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/jiophone-
deliveries-likely-to-start-over-weekend/articleshow/60783048.cms)

To get some sense for the importance of this phone, this is the only feature
phone you can get the Google Assistant on:
[https://www.androidauthority.com/google-assistant-coming-
fea...](https://www.androidauthority.com/google-assistant-coming-feature-
phones-starting-indias-jiophone-820110/)

------
jpalomaki
Looks like the new HMD-Nokia "banana" is powered by KaiOS [1].

[1]
[https://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones/nokia-8110-4g](https://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones/nokia-8110-4g)

~~~
djsumdog
Ugh...school wheel hijacking in the middle of the page ... still not has bad
as the KaiOS page.

~~~
DiThi
Is it scroll wheel hijacking when the scroll itself works as intended (as
configured by the user) but some part of the content "locks" to the viewport?
I'd say it doesn't touch the wheel at all.

------
djsumdog
I'd really like to see a truly open alternative on the mobile space. The
biggest issue is the hardware. It's just not standardized and there's no
incentive to do so. It's really preventing the way Linux took off on
developers desktops back in the late 90s/early 2000s.

FirefoxOS and Ubuntu Touch looked promising, but they lacked good hardware to
run on. I'd really like to try Plasma, but I don't like any of the devices it
supports.

PostmarketOS is just a way to turn an old phone into a Raspberry Pi type
device, but maybe that's the first step in a truly unified mainline kernel for
all mobile devices.

~~~
blitmap
Speaking as someone not at all involved in this space, I'd love for Google to
take smartphones waaaay more seriously. I feel like in an effort to make
Android easy to adopt and customize they have let the "feel" of Android
suffer. I hate bloatware on every new phone. I hate that phones differ so
greatly. Something invaluable to me on an iPhone is the switch to silence
alerts.

I wish Google would define a "standard" like Intel has with what is and what
isn't an "Ultrabook". As in, to be a "Nexus" phone it must have a minimum
resolution of ..., it must last for x hours of video playback and x hours of
wifi use, it must have the damn alert-killing side switch, it must have a
camera of a minimum quality (megapixel/zoom/can record at 1080p@60hz), etc...

Google should be defining what an Android phone is in terms of hardware;
define a brand other makers can adopt so customers can trust the standard to
at least cater to those needs. And that isn't even getting into how fucking
awful the Google Play store is. What a malware magnet.

Sorry this is somewhat off-topic, I just feel this is how Google has lost us
and why we seek alternatives.

~~~
TickleSteve
That's exactly what the Android One (and previously Android Go) standards
where all about, they set minimum hardware standards and experiences. They
then guarantee updates for two years, etc...

~~~
k_sze
Guaranteeing updates for X years is an empty promise unless they also
guarantee the maximum delay in adopting upstream (security) updates and
releasing them, with reimbursement in case of failure to comply.

~~~
kopijahe
The first generation of android one's phones (the ones that released in India
and Indonesia, powered by mediatek mt6582) have this. They even sometimes have
the monthly security update early (for example, the November update is rolled
out in late October).

Sadly, the newer generation does not have that. Google given up the update to
the vendor, which in turn do what they do best, not updating the goddamn
phone.

------
squarefoot
A chromatic nightmare paired with zero information, and that zero is stretched
to fit a multi...thing I can't scroll properly. I sincerely hope whoever made
that website isn't involved with the operating system. Please give us back the
web made by people for people, not these abominations made by designers for
investors.

------
msoad
Let's face it, web on mobile has failed.

Web abstraction layer for UI is too heavy and very limited. Even today we
can't have multithreaded scrolling or manage painting with the latest web
standards.

Native platforms don't have to worry about "other browsers" so they can
optimize their UI abstraction layer specific to their target devices. They
also don't have to wait for ever to get consensus for new APIs and
architectures firm multiple parties that don't specially care about your
platform.

No wonder native apps are so much better for the user and with recent
developments in tooling they are as easy to work with as th eweb technologies

~~~
yesimahuman
That's not even remotely true. We are seeing significant, growing app
development on the "hybrid" stack at Ionic, and strong interest in Progressive
Web Apps.

~~~
msoad
How many of top 20 apps in App Store are web apps?

I agree that web apps are faster to iterate but the user experience is
guaranteed to be worse.

I've worked on some of the web apps that are usually featured as "see web can
do this". I'm not an outsider. I'm just observing how any app that is
successful is either native already or they are making it native asap

~~~
yesimahuman
At the risk of sounding flippant, what the top 20 consumer apps in the app
store use and what the rest of the market use are very different things,
especially when factoring in the enterprise. I say that as someone building a
business and making money from these customers.

At any rate, we have a number of well know brand flagship apps built on Ionic,
though they might not have usage patterns like Facebook/Snapchat. By far the
most mobile development happening right now is outside of the well known
consumer social app space.

------
shams93
To me the mistake that was made with Firefox os was going after android
instead of going after chromebooks. If firefox os had been designed to run on
commodity x86 hardware like chromium os it would not have fallen so hard
because a lot of people would be able to run it on an old laptop even if no
one was making official hardware for it. Because these run html5 web apps the
lack of appstore depth would have been a non-issue as well.

------
protomyth
From the FAQ

 _Can I develop apps for KaiOS?_

 _KaiOS is a curated platform for apps and we are working closely with app
developers to provide the best experience for our users. At the moment we are
not accepting submissions into the Store, but will do so in the future._

 _If you are interested in developing apps for KaiOS in the future, leave your
email in our developers section. We will notify you when of important product
updates. You can also follow us on Twitter to stay up to date._

I'm not sure if this is really a good way to get developers on board given the
ease of starting and experimenting on iOS and Android.

~~~
beeflaw
It's a good way to _not_ get developers on board. Yes, you can easily develop
for iOS/Android and as a result the respective stores are drowned in crap.
Merely publishing on there will give you zero visibility. On curated
platforms, there's the benefit of being a big fish in a small pond.

~~~
indymike
This is what Apple did in the beginning, too. I felt as you did about it at
the time. Six months later things opened up and the rest is history.

~~~
beeflaw
Apple didn't start out with a curated store, they started out with "open"
HTML5 apps that couldn't do shit.

Today, Apple barely can do quality control on the iOS store, Google
essentially _doesn 't bother_, why should a small shop deal with the issue
right off the bat?

------
sandov
I couldn't find a link to the source code. Then I found this:

>KaiOS is based on the Firefox OS open-source project and we are committed to
abide by the rules of the applicable open source licenses. Therefore, we’ll
make the source code available to the extent required by the applicable open
source licenses.

Haha. Good luck with your OS. Next.

------
Jhsto
I'm on a high horse (I'm able to afford an iPhone), but what kind of problem
does this solve? To me, it looks like Nokia now has Android, their own
operating system, and this to upkeep. Does anyone else remember what happened
when they last time partnered with an experimental mobile operating system? I
think it was Microsoft last time.

Would love to hear some reasoning from the folks from HMD about this.

~~~
throwaway7645
Windows Phone is discontinued, but sure as heck wasn't experimental. I've used
it flawlessly since about 2011 with rock-solid stability and battery life.

~~~
Jhsto
What I meant was that I don't follow why does Nokia rock the boat with their
choices of operating systems. They already have their own software running on
the likes of the renowned 3310, so why not spend the engineering time to
extend that instead of risking another platform becoming discontinued? That's
what I would want to hear more about.

~~~
throwaway7645
Ah, understood. I hope I didn't sound offended, just confused until I read
your reply.

I agree that it is similar to Google in that they seem to hedge their bets too
much (like how Google has two OS, two languages...etc etc). I would really
like a third popular OS...there are so many out there, but with no steam
(this, firefoxOS, sailfish...)

------
tty7
This website is terrible for providing information

------
yosito
This is definitely a promising OS. The fact that they have a maps app is
extremely important. I think they'll also need a WhatsApp app to be truly
competitive. They could use a few other mainstream messaging apps too. The
mbasic Facebook messenger should work fine on this OS.

------
l1ambda
I'd like to see [https://www.redox-os.org/](https://www.redox-os.org/) ported
to mobile phones and perhaps integrated with this or FirefoxOS somehow.

~~~
djsumdog
Do they have any mobile work in the Redox tree yet?

~~~
chc4
No, and they said several times that they had no plans for it (which might
have changed, to be fair). Their roadmap was to target servers, which have a
use for secure OS and sane driver requirements.

([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15293436](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15293436)
is the only source I can find, but I'm sure I've seen it elsewhere)

------
nkkollaw
I don't know. I really liked Microsoft's phones, but there was no Google Maps,
no Google Inbox, and bunch of other apps that I use daily were missing.

Software is the problem for these OSes. The only way to be able to compete
IMHO is to make it compatible with APKs, installable via a store.

Otherwise, it's a nice effort but you'll never reach the adoption necessary to
make it worth continuing working on the project.

~~~
beeflaw
Remember all those feature phones with a plethora of custom operating systems?
Almost none of the users cared (or knew) what the OS was. This is an OS for
that kind of device. Nokia is shipping it right now.

~~~
nkkollaw
The target market might not care or know what the OS is, but they'll want to
use software they're used to: Google Maps, Facebook, Facebook Messenger,
Snapchat, Tinder, Skype, games, etc.

I'm just saying that whatever OS will be useless to a lot of people if it
doesn't run what they want it to. One way to do that is to make it compatible
with Android apps, which have already a version of virtually every major app.

~~~
YSFEJ4SWJUVU6
Are you sure you know the target market you're speaking of? They're not coming
from Android world, so they're probably used to exactly the kind of services
these phones support.

~~~
nkkollaw
No, not really. I'm just thinking about my mom--she doesn't know anything
about phones or technology, but she'll ask right away if Whatsapp works.

Also, in my original comment I was speaking more in general rather than about
KaiOS alone.

------
JD557
From the website, it appears that all apps are written in HTML5+CSS+JS,
however they target feature phones with 256MB of RAM and claim to have a long
battery life.

Considering how much resources some electron apps need and how battery hungry
they are, what's the "secret" here? Is it a subset of HTML? Is Firefox that
much more efficient than Chromium?

~~~
hacker_9
Electron isn't a good benchmark here because every app spawns it's own Chrome
renderer process. In the case of Kai, I'd imagine they'd only need to spawn a
single instance, and just add/remove view handles as needed.

------
danbolt
Even if I had to tune for low-end hardware, I’d love to own and hack around on
a simple device with this sort of OS.

------
cwyers
Competing with the Android/iOS duopoly was a war of attrition the Microsoft,
Firefox, Canonical and Samsung (Tizen) all lost. If you don't have the
resources that those companies do I have a hard time seeing how you survive,
and I have no interest in investing in a platform that has an extremely high
risk of being orphaned. I wish it was otherwise - earlier today I was
lamenting that my Samsung Galaxy S7 is laggier and less responsive than the
$100 unlocked Lumia I bought myself years ago was. But I don't see another
platform succeeding here.

~~~
beeflaw
How do you define success? This is not a competitor to iOS/Android, it's for
cheap low-end devices, which is still a sizable market. Try running Android on
256MB of RAM...

~~~
thescriptkiddie
My first Android phone only had 192 MB of RAM.

~~~
beeflaw
Funny story, so did mine. It was a nightmare. That was almost a decade ago. If
you want an experience as bad on modern Android, you need 512MB ram.

------
di1eep
This is actually based off the Mozilla project - 'boot to gecko'

~~~
abrowne
... more well known as Firefox OS.

------
chicob
I hope "discoverability" doesn't mean "easily trackable".

------
erikb
It seems to offer less than the average Android or iOS? Why should I use it?

~~~
beeflaw
If you have to ask, you probably shouldn't. It's for people who buy a phone
for its low price, who don't care what the OS is.

~~~
erikb
If I buy a phone for ~60 bucks there is already Android on it. If I don't care
why would I even install another one?

~~~
beeflaw
End users aren't supposed to install KaiOS, vendors are supposed to ship
handsets (like the new Nokia 1) with it preinstalled.

------
magicfractal
Can I install it on a phone?

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abrowne
Nice: it looks like the system font — for the Alcatel Go Flip and Nokia 8110
4G at least — is Open Sans. I've been using Source Sans Pro for most things
lately, but I did always like Open Sans.

------
gsnedders
What version of Gecko is it based on, and what's the story with security
patches from upstream?

