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No, what is making or killing a mobile OS is whether some key apps are available or not. Many people don't really mind using an OS or the other, but they absolu

No, what is making or killing a mobile OS is whether some key apps are available or not. Many people don't really mind using an OS or the other, but they absolutely need eg. WhatsApp. The unwillingness or WhatsApp to write a mobile web app - or to let a 3rd party do it - made more damages to FirefoxOS than anything else writing in the comments so far.

AnthonyMouse 11y ago
But that's true of any platform ever. You need third party developers to either target your platform or a platform your platform is compatible with (like the JVM). Mozilla wants to use the web as that platform exclusively, which is fine if everybody is already making everything for the web and there is nothing of importance you can do with native code that you can't do from the web. But neither of those is true so their strategy fails.
- pcwalton 11y ago
  > Mozilla wants to use the web as that platform exclusively, which is fine if everybody is already making everything for the web and there is nothing of importance you can do with native code that you can't do from the web. But neither of those is true so their strategy fails. There are things you can do on iOS that you can't do on Android (e.g. Apple Pay), and vice versa (e.g. Google Now). iOS fails the "there is nothing of importance you can do on Android that you can't do on iOS" test, and Android fails the "there is nothing of importance you can do on iOS that you can't do on Android" test. Yet here we are, with two successful platforms. I think the truth is a lot more nuanced, and in particular I think the emphasis on "native code" is a convenient red herring. (Android isn't really native code for anything but games, and iOS Objective-C is technically native code, but that Smalltalky object system is not up to C++-level performance, so the distinction doesn't mean much.)
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > iOS fails the "there is nothing of importance you can do on Android that you can't do on iOS" test, and Android fails the "there is nothing of importance you can do on iOS that you can't do on Android" test. Yet here we are, with two successful platforms. At which point you have to ask whether the missing things are actually that important. > I think the truth is a lot more nuanced, and in particular I think the emphasis on "native code" is a convenient red herring. "Native code" in this context is as distinguished from aggressively sandboxed javascript received over the network in real-time. It's not only about performance. It's about the app still working where there is no wireless signal, or being able to read or write device-wide settings or files, or make a VPN work, etc.
    - pcwalton 11y ago
      > At which point you have to ask whether the missing things are actually that important. Right. And the choice of programming language isn't. > "Native code" in this context is as distinguished from aggressively sandboxed javascript received over the network in real-time... It's about the app still working where there is no wireless signal, or being able to read or write device-wide settings or files, or make a VPN work, etc. Firefox OS had all of those capabilities (maybe excluding VPN depending on your definition--but if your definition of "making a VPN work" excludes Firefox OS it excludes iOS apps too). Firefox OS was based on locally installed apps.
      - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
        > Right. And the choice of programming language isn't. The platform isn't just the language. > Firefox OS was based on locally installed apps. Then I have no idea what we're talking about. So the point of Firefox OS was supposed to be what, you make the UI using HTML and javascript but then it runs locally and exposes system call wrappers through javascript? That's not actually so bad of a concept, but then you have the opposite problem. Nothing that does anything you can't do in a traditional web page is portable outside of Firefox OS so you have no user base to attract developers. It seems like they're trying to compete with Android when they should be trying to compete with Java. Make a runtime that runs the Firefox OS apps on Debian and Android and Windows. That would be interesting.
        pcwalton 11y ago
        > That's not actually so bad of a concept, but then you have the opposite problem. Nothing that does anything you can't do in a traditional web page is portable outside of Firefox OS so you have no user base with which to attract developers. Yes, I'd agree that is/was much more of a problem than the technology stack itself. > Make a runtime that runs the Firefox OS apps on Debian and Android and Windows. That would be interesting. There is such a thing: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Marketplace/Options/Open_web_apps_for_desktop https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Marketplace/Options/Open...

AnthonyMouse 11y ago

But that's true of any platform ever. You need third party developers to either target your platform or a platform your platform is compatible with (like the JVM). Mozilla wants to use the web as that platform exclusively, which is fine if everybody is already making everything for the web and there is nothing of importance you can do with native code that you can't do from the web. But neither of those is true so their strategy fails.

pcwalton 11y ago
> Mozilla wants to use the web as that platform exclusively, which is fine if everybody is already making everything for the web and there is nothing of importance you can do with native code that you can't do from the web. But neither of those is true so their strategy fails. There are things you can do on iOS that you can't do on Android (e.g. Apple Pay), and vice versa (e.g. Google Now). iOS fails the "there is nothing of importance you can do on Android that you can't do on iOS" test, and Android fails the "there is nothing of importance you can do on iOS that you can't do on Android" test. Yet here we are, with two successful platforms. I think the truth is a lot more nuanced, and in particular I think the emphasis on "native code" is a convenient red herring. (Android isn't really native code for anything but games, and iOS Objective-C is technically native code, but that Smalltalky object system is not up to C++-level performance, so the distinction doesn't mean much.)
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  > iOS fails the "there is nothing of importance you can do on Android that you can't do on iOS" test, and Android fails the "there is nothing of importance you can do on iOS that you can't do on Android" test. Yet here we are, with two successful platforms. At which point you have to ask whether the missing things are actually that important. > I think the truth is a lot more nuanced, and in particular I think the emphasis on "native code" is a convenient red herring. "Native code" in this context is as distinguished from aggressively sandboxed javascript received over the network in real-time. It's not only about performance. It's about the app still working where there is no wireless signal, or being able to read or write device-wide settings or files, or make a VPN work, etc.
  - pcwalton 11y ago
    > At which point you have to ask whether the missing things are actually that important. Right. And the choice of programming language isn't. > "Native code" in this context is as distinguished from aggressively sandboxed javascript received over the network in real-time... It's about the app still working where there is no wireless signal, or being able to read or write device-wide settings or files, or make a VPN work, etc. Firefox OS had all of those capabilities (maybe excluding VPN depending on your definition--but if your definition of "making a VPN work" excludes Firefox OS it excludes iOS apps too). Firefox OS was based on locally installed apps.
    - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
      > Right. And the choice of programming language isn't. The platform isn't just the language. > Firefox OS was based on locally installed apps. Then I have no idea what we're talking about. So the point of Firefox OS was supposed to be what, you make the UI using HTML and javascript but then it runs locally and exposes system call wrappers through javascript? That's not actually so bad of a concept, but then you have the opposite problem. Nothing that does anything you can't do in a traditional web page is portable outside of Firefox OS so you have no user base to attract developers. It seems like they're trying to compete with Android when they should be trying to compete with Java. Make a runtime that runs the Firefox OS apps on Debian and Android and Windows. That would be interesting.
      - pcwalton 11y ago
        > That's not actually so bad of a concept, but then you have the opposite problem. Nothing that does anything you can't do in a traditional web page is portable outside of Firefox OS so you have no user base with which to attract developers. Yes, I'd agree that is/was much more of a problem than the technology stack itself. > Make a runtime that runs the Firefox OS apps on Debian and Android and Windows. That would be interesting. There is such a thing: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Marketplace/Options/Open_web_apps_for_desktop https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Marketplace/Options/Open...