
Mozilla: The problem is mobile, not money - aphtab
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57550227-93/mozilla-the-problem-is-mobile-not-money/
======
binarymax
_Mozilla can't bring its full browser technology to iOS, Windows Phone, and
Windows RT_ Does this give other people the willies, or only me? Its scary
that 2 of the 3 big players in mobile effectively lock out so much. In so many
ways, the mobile wars are much more significant than the browser wars. Having
a machine that is completely locked down and only runs 'authorized' software
is chilling indeed.

~~~
bad_user
I've been saying it ever since the iTunes App Store launched and have been
saying it again when Windows Phone launched - I'm not interested in platforms
that won't allow me to run Firefox.

Of course, you'll see yet again opinions trying to rationalize it as being "
_in the name of user experience_ " and " _safety_ ".

But then, a couple of years from now, when those people finally realize what a
big mistake this was, they won't blame it on themselves.

~~~
flyinRyan
When you run around shouting the sky is falling, you can't expect most people
to take you seriously. Apple is winning (profit wise) because they just have a
simpler experience.

IMO, they are doing everything right except adding an "advanced" mode that
people who really know what they're doing can use. But I know why they don't
do that: because a lot more people will think they know what they're doing
than actually do.

If they start turning into the locked down 1984 world you're worried about,
someone else will come out with an alternative, _show why it's better_ and
most people will move over there.

No one cares about moral ranting. Show people a tangible, relevant benefit to
them (that is, tangible like "cheaper" not abstract like "you're more free!")
and they'll buy in. Brow beating has never been an effective way to affect
change.

~~~
bad_user
There are lots of tangible benefits of openness, problem is most concrete
examples do not resonate with most people, because people in general have
different needs, even though those same people will run into the same problems
at some point, so it's inevitable that discussions end up filled with
anecdotes and philosophy, not to mention that coming up with comprehensive
case-studies from our history is time consuming and soul sucking, so people
that understand the issue just go on with their lives.

But here, I'll give you an example - 1 and a half year ago I was literally
stocked by 2 people that thought I owed them money. And so I was receiving
lots of SMS messages and phone calls with threats, because that's all they
could do - but it was annoying to me to have my phone ring several times per
day. Then my phone number ended up on some kind of marketing list and I
started receiving daily messages with special offers.

So I had a problem and an iPhone 3GS (received as a gift) and being a _smart_
phone I expected from it to solve it, because otherwise my phone number was
becoming unusable and I didn't want to change it (hey, I've got a nice,
memorable number). I wanted to completely block SMS messages and phone calls
for certain numbers. And I'm not referring just to make my phone silent when
receiving stuff from certain phone numbers - but also a cleanup of the logs.
And after all, my _smart_ phone is primarily a phone, where a phone is a
device used for communications - I don't care how smart it is, if it's not
smart about the most basic functionality it should provide.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that Apple was actively blocking such
apps from its App Store. So I jail-broke it and installed something from the
Cydia store, which was a painful process. Then Apple released a major update
to iOS that I wanted, so I updated the device, but my previous method for
jail-breaking it wasn't working anymore.

THE ONLY REASON people put up with this is because they don't know a
smartphone could solve this for them, otherwise spamming through phone calls
and SMS messages is a really common problem.

Out of frustration I went out of my way and got a Galaxy S device. There were
several apps on Android Marketplace (now Google Play) that dealt with blocking
SMS and phone calls. Several were not working on my device, because the APIs
for doing that are not public and so dealing with it is hard. But I found one
that worked extremely well. Even in the case of Android's Marketplace also
blocking such apps, it's extremely easy on Android to install apps from third-
party sources, not mentioning the ease with which you can develop for it,
without setup fees or bogus certificates.

And I've been blocking unwanted SMS messages and phone calls ever since.

Now, some day Apple will finally wake up and provide this functionality. I'm
sure that it will be polished and better than all the alternatives. However,
it will be several years too late for me. And if a _smart_ phone can't provide
such basic functionality that should be a no-brainer in this age of spam, then
for me it's just a shiny and expensive piece of crap. And remember when they
blocked Google Voice from their store because " _it duplicated existing
functionality?_ ".

I also own an iPad. It was a gift (for some reason people like giving me Apple
products, thinking that I love them). I also have a 3G plan for it, that I got
separately, so this device is not subsidized or bought from my mobile carrier.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that I couldn't do tethering with my
otherwise expensive 3G plan and expensive device, yet my 1 year and a half
Android could - and an iPad could do better tethering because of its bigger
battery. And get this ... the functionality is available, but it depends on
the settings the mobile carrier are wiring to your device. So they are
basically controlling your device, deciding for you what you can and cannot
do.

So now I'm dreaming of a Nexus tablet as my next device, because while the
iPad is useful for browsing and stuff, I don't really "own" it and there's so
much more it could do.

And I have no doubt about it, the sky is going to fall, because the writing is
on the wall. Considering our increased dependency on smart technology, if you
don't " _own_ " your devices (or your data, or the software you depend on),
the service providers are owning you.

You may not notice it right now, but remember that old anecdote about how you
should boil a frog alive - slowly, otherwise it jumps out.

And the blame will fall partly on us, the developers that supported these
closed platforms. Because we helped them grow.

People also like to point out how Android is more popular because it gets
promoted more by carriers - isn't it funny how openness is good for everybody,
including carriers and phone makers?

~~~
flyinRyan
>I was literally stocked by 2 people

Stalked? :)

> I'll give you an example - 1

I agree that Apple should provide a "hacker" setting that lets you step
outside the bounds. They don't want to do this because so many non-techies
imagine themselves as highly technical so they would press this button, mess
something up and then shit all over the forums about how awful _apple
products_ are. Granted, Windows got to 95%+ market saturation with the latter
approach, but Apple cares about imagine even to the point of shooting
themselves in the foot over it. It's their right.

What irritates me are all the "they're just trying lock you in because they're
evil!". There's no reason to believe they're evil. It's more likely they care
about imagine to a point many might consider a fault.

> Imagine my surprise when I found out that I couldn't do tethering with my
> otherwise expensive 3G plan

iOS, and other OSes for that matter, send data back to the carrier when you
use the built in tethering capabilities. Since Apple is perceived to have
tight control of their market, carriers expect them to keep apps out that
bipass this. Android is perceived to have a less tight market so even though
the built in offering would have had the exact same restriction, you could
easily pick up an app that didn't.

Currently, I sold my 3G iPad and use my iPhone 4 to do tethering. It's not
blocked for me and I don't pay anything for it. This changed when they changed
to "wireless hotspot" instead of "tethering" in the options menu.

>So they are basically controlling your device, deciding for you what you can
and cannot do.

This is a carrier issue. I'd love to see someone make an open carrier (dumb
pipe, that's what we all want!).

>because while the iPad is useful for browsing and stuff, I don't really "own"
it and there's so much more it could do.

The iPad concept is that it's an appliance, _not_ a general purpose computer.
If you feel that means you don't "own" it, do you also not "own" your
microwave since you can't do general computing on it's embedded OS either?

>And I have no doubt about it, the sky is going to fall, because the writing
is on the wall.

And here's where you go David Icke. What writing is on what wall? Companies
are trying to exploit us and maximize profits at our expense. Just as they
always have. They've had us in much worse positions in the past and we've
escaped. I'm confident that if phones become to restrictive we'll break out of
it again. After all, I don't _have_ to have a smart phone. It's convenient and
really helpful, but I'm not going to be the monkey trapped by a banana in a
bottle.

>You may not notice it right now, but remember that old anecdote about how you
should boil a frog alive - slowly, otherwise it jumps out.

I think if you actually try this, you'll find that the frog will jump out when
it reaches the right temperature regardless of how slowly you turn up the
head.

>And the blame will fall partly on us, the developers that supported these
closed platforms.

We support them because it's most profitable for us. When it's not, we won't
support them. Simple.

>People also like to point out how Android is more popular because it gets
promoted more by carriers - isn't it funny how openness is good for everybody,
including carriers and phone makers?

Haha! Carriers don't give a shit about "openness ". They'd happily used a
closed OS as they have in the past, so long as they get it cheaper than any
alternative and have a mechanism to put their shovelware shit on it.

~~~
bad_user
Sorry for my grammar, wrote it in anger and English is not my main language.

I'm not paranoid and I don't categorize companies in "good" and "evil". If I
did, I would label them all as being evil. Some of their actions are good, but
some are evil and will have consequences, even if their goals are not evil. In
fact I'm pretty sure that many people working at companies such as Microsoft,
Google or Apple genuinely believe that their actions are for the common good.

But technology is scaring me a little, because of our symbiosis with it.
You're saying that your phone is just a phone and you can't get rid of it.
I'll have to disagree. If you can indeed get rid of your phone, then you're a
rare individual.

Also - yes I own my microwave. It's a pretty dumb and cheap appliance that
doesn't even have a clock. However, my examples were for issues that I expect
these mobile devices to do and yet they don't, not because they cannot, but
because Apple doesn't allow it. That's like wanting to cook pork in your
microwave, with the manufacturer not allowing it because it considers it an
unhealthy practice. Now wouldn't that be something?

------
tmister
I think Mozilla have made a big mistake by not complaining about bundling
Safari in iOS devices. It looked jokingly funny when they attacked Microsoft
for IE bundling Windows8 RT when they had 0% market share. Now look at the
market, Android have almost 70% of market share and iOS took other. So where
does Firefox stands now? This situation forced Mozila to write a new mobile OS
which I think does not stand a chance against other big contenders. In 3/4
years I think Firefox will be like what Opera is currently right now, small
niche market share. I am sadly saying this as die-hard Firefox user. This is
what you get when you compromise openness.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
For monopoly type things it's not your power in the new market that counts,
it's your power in the old market. People are often confused about this
because the last time Microsoft was so succesful in extending its monopoly
from desktop to browser that it nearly wiped out every alternative browser and
peaked at something ridiculous like 90% market share, so there's longstanding
confusion about which monopoly they were punished for abusing.

(Just checked Wikipedia, apparently several sources pegged them at about 95%
share around 2002-2004).

~~~
tmister
Isn't the same thing happening right now even if there is no visual monopoly
situation? Do you really think people will switch to Firefox and Opera when
default offering is good enough? Also, though I haven't used IE6 at that time
but several commenter here and reddit says that IE6 was ahead of completion at
that time, netscape was also partly to blame for their demise. So what was the
point of blaming Microsoft for bundling a Better browser at that time, while
same thing is perfectly acceptable now?

~~~
pyre
IIRC, Microsoft took active steps to cripple the Windows platform if your
application happened to be Netscape.

~~~
tmister
Yes, that may be the case. I am not taking side of Microsoft. I agree that if
Microsoft have won antitrust lawsuit we would not be in current highly
competitive situation. I am pointing the fact that people should have
complained same way as they have complained for Microsoft's case.

------
programminggeek
The thing is Mozilla exists to promote the open web and open source and yet
you have Android which is open source and WebKit which is open source both
basically supplanting Mozilla on mobile and people act surprised somehow.
FirefoxOS is interesting, but gosh, why would a company push a Firefox phone
when there's already Android?

~~~
jrl
FirefoxOS might make the mobile web better. It will give web developers more
access to the device's hardware, unlike a website running stock Android
browser. Everybody has been saying it for years, native apps can do more than
web apps in iOS and Android. I wish that FirefoxOS changed that, similarly to
how Chrome pushed HTML5 on the desktop.

------
winstonian
Their expenses are nuts. Over $100 million?! What's going on there?

~~~
thirdtruck
Comparing that with the profits from a _single opening weekend_ of iPhone
sales (a much larger number), I think we're getting a pretty good deal.

~~~
nolok
This makes no sense, those two things have nothing in common, might as well
compare their annual expenses to apples and oranges sales in the year.

~~~
kibwen
I couldn't find global stats, but at 2.72 billion[1] and 3 billion[2] USD
respectively, the apple and orange industries have revenues far in excess of
Mozilla's.

[1]
[http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/fruits/apples/com...](http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/fruits/apples/commodity-
apples)

[2] <http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/default.aspx?indid=23>

