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I was at Phonegap Europe 2013 and there was a big noise about Firefox OS (then still known as Boot to Gecko) there. It looked cool but it was always targeted at

I was at Phonegap Europe 2013 and there was a big noise about Firefox OS (then still known as Boot to Gecko) there. It looked cool but it was always targeted at low-end, low-cost devices. The problem with that, from my perspective as a developer, is that I don't want to develop apps for low-end devices because it's an enormous pain in the ass. The lack of horsepower and features means you're pretty much required to compromise your vision, unless you really are developing something very simple, or with minimal finessing. On top of this, and this was even more so 3 years ago, today's high end devices are 2 years' time's low-to-mid-range devices. If it takes you 6-12 months to develop your app (again, depends on complexity) on today's high end hardware you'll be targeting the mid-range when you release. Of course, there's a bit more nuance to this because single core performance isn't really increasing that much, but you get the point. Short version: targeting high end devices means you're developing for the future and not incurring the compromises (and, in fact, support overhead) of dealing with low-end kit.

AsyncAwait 10y ago
Well said, my problem with Firefox OS was exactly that it was always targeting the low-end of the spectrum. People who buy the low-end smartphones do not usually care about the platform it's running on, nor can they afford to support 3-rd party app development.
- bartread 10y ago
  That's a really good point. Whilst the goal of providing a good OS on low-end smartphones aimed at lower income economies sounds noble (is noble, in fact) it doesn't work commercially for developers because nobody will have the spare cash to buy their wares. It's a real shame and it wasn't something that was immediately obvious to me at the time because I was very new to mobile development. Now of course I've experienced the same frustrations as every other mobile dev and realised that it's just not worth targeting anything but the top quartile. That is, unless it's a corporate app and you have a large number of lower end devices in the field that you don't plan on replacing before your app is deployed.
jsight 10y ago
Yeah, that sums up a lot of their problems really well. They were basically attacking a market segment that wouldn't exist by the time that they had completed products on the market.
themihai 10y ago
The devices couldn't even power the standard applications(i.e. camera, phone app etc) without visible lag.

AsyncAwait 10y ago

Well said, my problem with Firefox OS was exactly that it was always targeting the low-end of the spectrum. People who buy the low-end smartphones do not usually care about the platform it's running on, nor can they afford to support 3-rd party app development.

bartread 10y ago
That's a really good point. Whilst the goal of providing a good OS on low-end smartphones aimed at lower income economies sounds noble (is noble, in fact) it doesn't work commercially for developers because nobody will have the spare cash to buy their wares. It's a real shame and it wasn't something that was immediately obvious to me at the time because I was very new to mobile development. Now of course I've experienced the same frustrations as every other mobile dev and realised that it's just not worth targeting anything but the top quartile. That is, unless it's a corporate app and you have a large number of lower end devices in the field that you don't plan on replacing before your app is deployed.

jsight 10y ago

Yeah, that sums up a lot of their problems really well. They were basically attacking a market segment that wouldn't exist by the time that they had completed products on the market.

themihai 10y ago

The devices couldn't even power the standard applications(i.e. camera, phone app etc) without visible lag.