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Why are they developing so many different mobile OS platforms at the same company? Android, Fuchsia, and now KaiOS? They mention it is a web based OS. That m

Why are they developing so many different mobile OS platforms at the same company? Android, Fuchsia, and now KaiOS? They mention it is a web based OS. That might lead to less fragmentation though if it takes off. The browser API's are very close to native and it sucks having to develop for Web / iOS / Android. If mobile phones adopted Web technologies and they were extended with a few more hardware APIs development would be much easier.

cmjqol 8y ago
>Why are they developing so many different mobile OS platforms at the same company ? As the title say , Google is just investing in it. They don't develop the codebase of the OS. They want to push their free services to collect data , it's their business model after all. Also it's designed for emerging market , KaiOS phone don't have touch screen, they are supposed to be super lightweight, as a matter of fact they already have a billion users which I personally found to be insane for a startup I've never heard of.
- mlinksva 8y ago
  They already have a billion users?
  - mkl 8y ago
    No. According to the CEO earlier this year: > With 20 million active users as of February 2018, Codeville said he’s targeting between 120 to 150 million active KaiOS users by the end of the year. -- https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/kaios-smarter-feature-phones/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/kaios-smarter-feature-p...
subway 8y ago
KaiOS targets feature phones -- a space I'm guessing Google (and know Apple) has no desire to get into. This helps Google to ease along the pre-loading of Google branded apps onto KaiOS devices.
- oscargrouch 8y ago
  Given Fuchsia core design, i think they will probably target this space with it, and use the "Android layer" for more powerful phones. I would bet they will migrate Android to run inside ChromiumOS, and make a flavor of Chromium running on Linux and other running on Zircon. For feature phones they would use the zircon+chromium+webish-dart-framework variation and the linux+chromium+android on powerful phone, until Zircon is mature enough to replace Linux in all fronts. At least its what i would do if i were them, and its how i project their future steps in this domain space. So the KaiOS would be competing with the Zircon+Flutter variation, and i guess they are just betting in another horse to make their chances even better to be dominant also in feature phones. Pretty smart move, given they have a lot of cash to spare.
onetimemanytime 8y ago
>>* Why are they developing so many different mobile OS platforms at the same company? Android, Fuchsia, and now KaiOS?* why not? It cost them just $22m and they have another potential competitor locked in
- culot 8y ago
  KaiOS, like Firefox OS before it, is not and can never be a potential competitor. Google is investing to help get its services on a popular feature-phone system for the ultra-low-end in developing nations. That's basically the extent of it.
  - toast0 8y ago
    Is kaios going to take off? It hard to say, but if we're going to get a third way in mobile, this is how it will happen. This is how Microsoft was making progress, and one of the ways they lost when they changed strategy for Windows mobile 10. Get people on low end devices; either sell something for less than a low end Android, or sell something that does noticably better than a low end Android for about the same money. Sell a better device every year (os improvements, better CPU, more memory, whatever; just make sure people have something to upgrade too). You can sell some nicer models too, but push the low end ones. Price constrained users are a lot less picky, but can drive user numbers needed to gather developers, and developers are needed to get higher end users. Don't throw away the apis for every release, unless you really have to; especially don't call the new api 'universal' when it doesn't target older versions (which actually have users). It's easier to go upmarket when you have adoption than to bring things down market (I think we're on Google's third try at Android for bargain basement phones, but it's hard to use mainstream apps unless you have multiple gigs of RAM)
privacypoller 8y ago
>> If mobile phones adopted Web technologies Sigh. I must be old. I've already lived through 2 major initiatives to do just this first with Palm OS and more recently FireFox OS. We all see the benefit from a developer standpoint but as an absolute, positively web-first proponent I really don't see the motivation for the device manufacturers. Why would it be in the interest of any incumbent to increase app portability? Also, the vision of the web OS as the "great leveler" really breaks down when you start trying to utilize things like location and the camera and NFC, etc. Even within just Palm OS devices this was a major problem. Each new model needed new APIs to the underlying hardware, app updates and a bunch of checks for functionality. It was the worst parts of web development, all the time.
- bcheung 8y ago
  KaiOS is a fork of Firefox OS according to their site.
- bcheung 8y ago
  Yes, I think Apple has been slow to implement web API's into Safari for that very reason. It took them forever to get Service Workers. Also, if the browser can do it, why would people pay them 30% of the app? I don't know about NFC but I know bluetooth and camera is not that much of an issue in mobile browsers. They are decently supported.
  - djrogers 8y ago
    Service workers on mobile have been resisted for data use, performance, and battery life reasons. There’s no great conspiracy, it’s sunpky that your average user isn’t going to be happy if a random website sucks up half their data allowance for the month and kills their battery in 2 hours even after they ‘closed the browser’
    - yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
      Also privacy concerns; every one of those features can help track you.
paulie_a 8y ago
That is what Google does. Just look at how many messenging systems they have.
thesausageking 8y ago
Control. Remember that Google isn't a product company. Their business is selling attention of the users who use their internet products. Devices and OSs are adjacent to their business so, they don't care which ones win, they just want to make sure no large player emerges in them. When you have near-monopoly power, you want the layers adjacent to you to be commodities. That's why they bought Android, put a lot of resources behind it, and open sourced it. It prevented Microsoft, Samsung, or anyone else from owning mobile OSs the way Microsoft had owned the desktop in the past generation.
- sitkack 8y ago
  Isn't that called dumping?
- zitterbewegung 8y ago
  Have you heard of iOS ? Samsung has Tizen that they use in smart watches.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Tizen SDK has been rebooted so many times and is renowned for its bad quality, I doubt anyone besides Samsung is developing for it.
jayd16 8y ago
> If mobile phones adopted Web technologies So what do you want that you're not getting? Nothing about Android stops you from writing a web app.
pjmlp 8y ago
Politics. It is also what tanked Longhorn, Singularity and Midori at Microsoft. Has driven the whole differences in development between DevTools which owned .NET and Windows/Office teams that owned C and C++ development. Which now with the latest reorg are the same unit, but lets see there how it goes still.

cmjqol 8y ago

>Why are they developing so many different mobile OS platforms at the same company ? As the title say , Google is just investing in it. They don't develop the codebase of the OS. They want to push their free services to collect data , it's their business model after all. Also it's designed for emerging market , KaiOS phone don't have touch screen, they are supposed to be super lightweight, as a matter of fact they already have a billion users which I personally found to be insane for a startup I've never heard of.

mlinksva 8y ago
They already have a billion users?
- mkl 8y ago
  No. According to the CEO earlier this year: > With 20 million active users as of February 2018, Codeville said he’s targeting between 120 to 150 million active KaiOS users by the end of the year. -- https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/kaios-smarter-feature-phones/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/kaios-smarter-feature-p...

subway 8y ago

KaiOS targets feature phones -- a space I'm guessing Google (and know Apple) has no desire to get into. This helps Google to ease along the pre-loading of Google branded apps onto KaiOS devices.

oscargrouch 8y ago
Given Fuchsia core design, i think they will probably target this space with it, and use the "Android layer" for more powerful phones. I would bet they will migrate Android to run inside ChromiumOS, and make a flavor of Chromium running on Linux and other running on Zircon. For feature phones they would use the zircon+chromium+webish-dart-framework variation and the linux+chromium+android on powerful phone, until Zircon is mature enough to replace Linux in all fronts. At least its what i would do if i were them, and its how i project their future steps in this domain space. So the KaiOS would be competing with the Zircon+Flutter variation, and i guess they are just betting in another horse to make their chances even better to be dominant also in feature phones. Pretty smart move, given they have a lot of cash to spare.

onetimemanytime 8y ago

>>* Why are they developing so many different mobile OS platforms at the same company? Android, Fuchsia, and now KaiOS?* why not? It cost them just $22m and they have another potential competitor locked in

culot 8y ago
KaiOS, like Firefox OS before it, is not and can never be a potential competitor. Google is investing to help get its services on a popular feature-phone system for the ultra-low-end in developing nations. That's basically the extent of it.
- toast0 8y ago
  Is kaios going to take off? It hard to say, but if we're going to get a third way in mobile, this is how it will happen. This is how Microsoft was making progress, and one of the ways they lost when they changed strategy for Windows mobile 10. Get people on low end devices; either sell something for less than a low end Android, or sell something that does noticably better than a low end Android for about the same money. Sell a better device every year (os improvements, better CPU, more memory, whatever; just make sure people have something to upgrade too). You can sell some nicer models too, but push the low end ones. Price constrained users are a lot less picky, but can drive user numbers needed to gather developers, and developers are needed to get higher end users. Don't throw away the apis for every release, unless you really have to; especially don't call the new api 'universal' when it doesn't target older versions (which actually have users). It's easier to go upmarket when you have adoption than to bring things down market (I think we're on Google's third try at Android for bargain basement phones, but it's hard to use mainstream apps unless you have multiple gigs of RAM)

privacypoller 8y ago

>> If mobile phones adopted Web technologies Sigh. I must be old. I've already lived through 2 major initiatives to do just this first with Palm OS and more recently FireFox OS. We all see the benefit from a developer standpoint but as an absolute, positively web-first proponent I really don't see the motivation for the device manufacturers. Why would it be in the interest of any incumbent to increase app portability? Also, the vision of the web OS as the "great leveler" really breaks down when you start trying to utilize things like location and the camera and NFC, etc. Even within just Palm OS devices this was a major problem. Each new model needed new APIs to the underlying hardware, app updates and a bunch of checks for functionality. It was the worst parts of web development, all the time.

bcheung 8y ago
KaiOS is a fork of Firefox OS according to their site.
bcheung 8y ago
Yes, I think Apple has been slow to implement web API's into Safari for that very reason. It took them forever to get Service Workers. Also, if the browser can do it, why would people pay them 30% of the app? I don't know about NFC but I know bluetooth and camera is not that much of an issue in mobile browsers. They are decently supported.
- djrogers 8y ago
  Service workers on mobile have been resisted for data use, performance, and battery life reasons. There’s no great conspiracy, it’s sunpky that your average user isn’t going to be happy if a random website sucks up half their data allowance for the month and kills their battery in 2 hours even after they ‘closed the browser’
  - yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
    Also privacy concerns; every one of those features can help track you.

paulie_a 8y ago

That is what Google does. Just look at how many messenging systems they have.

thesausageking 8y ago

Control. Remember that Google isn't a product company. Their business is selling attention of the users who use their internet products. Devices and OSs are adjacent to their business so, they don't care which ones win, they just want to make sure no large player emerges in them. When you have near-monopoly power, you want the layers adjacent to you to be commodities. That's why they bought Android, put a lot of resources behind it, and open sourced it. It prevented Microsoft, Samsung, or anyone else from owning mobile OSs the way Microsoft had owned the desktop in the past generation.

sitkack 8y ago
Isn't that called dumping?
zitterbewegung 8y ago
Have you heard of iOS ? Samsung has Tizen that they use in smart watches.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Tizen SDK has been rebooted so many times and is renowned for its bad quality, I doubt anyone besides Samsung is developing for it.

jayd16 8y ago

> If mobile phones adopted Web technologies So what do you want that you're not getting? Nothing about Android stops you from writing a web app.

pjmlp 8y ago

Politics. It is also what tanked Longhorn, Singularity and Midori at Microsoft. Has driven the whole differences in development between DevTools which owned .NET and Windows/Office teams that owned C and C++ development. Which now with the latest reorg are the same unit, but lets see there how it goes still.