5 ms·

KaiOS is based on FirefoxOS and sells more phones than Apple does.

by hajile 4y ago

Bilal_io 4y ago
That's interesting. I went on their website and it was nostalgic browsing these phones.
Tagbert 4y ago
Which phones use KaiOS?
- toast0 4y ago
  There's a list on Wikipedia[1], not sure if it's complete; the company behind KaiOS has a list of devices too [2]. Important ones include the JioPhone, which was part of Jio's large push into the mobile market in India. There's also a nostalgic Nokia 8110 4G (Banana Phone); there's even some with modems appropriate for the US market. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS#Devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS#Devices [2] https://www.kaiostech.com/explore/devices/ https://www.kaiostech.com/explore/devices/
  - Syonyk 4y ago
    Anyone want a Bananaphone? I tried to use it for a while, but AT&T shut down their 3G calling network and it doesn't have the radio for VoLTE, and AT&T isn't doing 4G calling - they jumped straight from 3G to VoLTE. It also doesn't do MMS for group texting. I'm easy enough to find, I can toss the thing in a box. On the plus side, I got a Flip IV out of it. I ran with it for a year or so before the keyboard got so bad I gave up - when you can't dial a phone number without having to correct multi-presses and such, texting is damned near impossible.
    - BenjiWiebe 4y ago
      Isn't 4G calling and VoLTE the same thing? A 4G phone without VoLTE uses the 3G network when placing/receiving calls, hence why the 3G shutdown is causing pain even though non 4G phones are really rare these days.
      - Syonyk 4y ago
        I don't believe they're the same thing. I can connect to the 4G data networks with the Banana, but not make calls, and I'm not sure as to the details of why - going deep into cell network reverse engineering wasn't my goal here, I wanted to experiment with the state of non-iOS, non-Android cell phones in post-2020. I got a lot of data, but... well, I'm back to iOS, so I couldn't make it work. There are KaiOS devices that support VoLTE and work on US carriers, but the Banana doesn't seem to be one of them. In addition to its many other pain points. Those keys suck to hit...
    - N19PEDL2 4y ago
      Doesn't it work on the 2G network?
      - toast0 4y ago
        There is no 2G network in the US anymore. Or at least, very little. AT&T shut down theirs in 2017; I thought T-Mobile shut their 2G GSM around then too, but sources say T-Mobile's 2G shutdown is end of year 2022. Many EU carriers have planned to keep a small amount of 2G for industrial devices, old handsets, etc, but US carriers have not.
    - richiebful1 4y ago
      I had similar issues with TMobile. Bought the phone for backcountry use outside of the States, and I sold it on eBay after I got back because it was useless here in the US.
chasil 4y ago
It does not appear that KaiOS is something that anyone should own. "The first major commercial adoption of B2G/Firefox OS was seen around 2018 with KaiOS, a widely popular commercial fork of Firefox OS that promised to be a modern OS for inexpensive feature phones. Although KaiOS turned out to be disappointingly closed and oriented to tracking users and shipping advertising, it was quickly forked in GerdaOS, a custom ROM that promised to bring back some of the openness of Firefox OS to KaiOS devices such as newer Nokias, and kill the intrusive user trackers in the process."
- Syonyk 4y ago
  Can generally confirm. Not from a "tracking" perspective, but from a "General usability in the modern world" perspective. I spent a year with a KaiOS Flip IV (about a $70 AT&T phone), and finally gave up and went back to a smartphone when the keyboard got so bad I couldn't dial a phone number without massive corrections, much less text. It felt, first and foremost, like a device built by someone who had been told stories about the phones of the first 5-8 years of the 2000s, but had never seen one, never used one, and wasn't quite sure how it was all supposed to really work. Lots of really weird pain points like predictive text not capitalizing the lone "i" no matter what mode I was in. I started trying to write texts without "I" in them to avoid having to perform the 72 keystroke sequence to capitalize it - I don't like being lazy in texts about things like that. The performance wasn't bad initially, but it felt like there were some seriously non-optimal data structures involved in everything. A text thread with more than 50 messages or so started being slow to interact with, God help you if it's got more than a few pieces of media in it. And if the phone had too many text messages in general, the whole texting app would lag badly (seconds to open, seconds to see a list of conversations, etc). I had to very aggressively trim old threads, and sometimes even current ones, to try and keep the texting app responsive. It also got oddly prone to "Oh, yeah! There was a thing I was supposed to notify you about! You're looking at me now, I remember, you got a text! chime" sorts of behaviors I could never run down the cause of. I'd be texting someone, waiting for a reply with the phone closed, and... nothing. Magically, as soon as I opened it 10 minutes later, I'd get the notification that they'd sent a text. I hate to say things like "You have one job," but "Notifying me that there's a phone call or text message" is sort of the core function of a modern phone-type device. The browser was a joke. I could browse Hacker News and that was about it. Anything more complex would fail to render, or just crash the browser. A modern web capable device it was not. I think I gave it a fair shake for a year. But I was still doing things like "Carrying an iPhone, powered down, for when I needed something I couldn't do on KaiOS." It was mostly either drone ops or a particular building access app that I needed often enough, so I don't really fault it, but it was annoying not having them on my carry device. Same goes for "literally anything but SMS." Attempts to get a Matrix client on the device didn't go very far (there is one, but it doesn't work very well), Signal was a no-go, and nothing else was useful either. It did have Bluetooth, though. And I did like being able to cart around music on SD card. Don't carry too much, though, the music app couldn't handle a ton. I moved to it when Apple decided to push on-device CSAM scanning, and... a year and another OS revision later, they've seemingly not done that. And then iOS 16 added Lockdown, which I decided to play with, determined did everything I wanted in such a feature, and I'm back to an iOS device with very few apps installed. I never had warm fuzzies about the security posture of the KaiOS ecosystem either - Apple, I do generally trust to try to secure their devices. KaiOS, nothing about it really felt robust against a remote attacker, though I've no evidence that it's actually full of holes. It just never gave any real confidence that it was more than a best effort, YOLO'd sort of thing tossed over the fence. There were some fun little games, but they were all very peppered with advertising. At least you could sideload stuff. Anyway... it's a thing, I tried it, and despite my exceedingly high tolerance for tech pain, I couldn't make it past a year. Failures on my part, I suppose. I could have probably dismantled it and repaired the keyboard...
rurban 4y ago
Only in India. Apple iPhones are way too expensive there.
ksec 4y ago
>KaiOS is based on FirefoxOS and sells more phones than Apple does. KaiOS is used on 160 million devices around the world. Apple sell more iPhone than that in a single year.
- ZiiS 4y ago
  They may have ment the are dozens of diffrent models to choose from.
khuey 4y ago
[citation needed]
mro_name 4y ago
how many planets do you guess would it take if there were 9 billion people carrying, patching und using Apple phones?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
type0 4y ago
I have read some terrible reviews on KaiOS, UI lags and freezes, shipping broken updates, terrible battery drains. I'm sure there are some devices have good versions of KaiOS, but with this track record it's like winning on lottery. SailfishOS from Jolla seems to be a much better alternative for a non-Android non-iOS device that is practically usable.
rvz 4y ago
How is it that comments like this one can simply get away with such empty claims without any evidence supporting it? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the burden of proof is on the claimant (the parent comment) to provide it. Until then, your claim is simply baseless and can be easily dismissed.

KaiOS is based on FirefoxOS and sells more phones than Apple does.

by hajile 4y ago

KaiOS is based on FirefoxOS and sells more phones than Apple does.

Bilal_io 4y ago

That's interesting. I went on their website and it was nostalgic browsing these phones.

Tagbert 4y ago

Which phones use KaiOS?

toast0 4y ago
There's a list on Wikipedia[1], not sure if it's complete; the company behind KaiOS has a list of devices too [2]. Important ones include the JioPhone, which was part of Jio's large push into the mobile market in India. There's also a nostalgic Nokia 8110 4G (Banana Phone); there's even some with modems appropriate for the US market. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS#Devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS#Devices [2] https://www.kaiostech.com/explore/devices/ https://www.kaiostech.com/explore/devices/
- Syonyk 4y ago
  Anyone want a Bananaphone? I tried to use it for a while, but AT&T shut down their 3G calling network and it doesn't have the radio for VoLTE, and AT&T isn't doing 4G calling - they jumped straight from 3G to VoLTE. It also doesn't do MMS for group texting. I'm easy enough to find, I can toss the thing in a box. On the plus side, I got a Flip IV out of it. I ran with it for a year or so before the keyboard got so bad I gave up - when you can't dial a phone number without having to correct multi-presses and such, texting is damned near impossible.
  - BenjiWiebe 4y ago
    Isn't 4G calling and VoLTE the same thing? A 4G phone without VoLTE uses the 3G network when placing/receiving calls, hence why the 3G shutdown is causing pain even though non 4G phones are really rare these days.
    - Syonyk 4y ago
      I don't believe they're the same thing. I can connect to the 4G data networks with the Banana, but not make calls, and I'm not sure as to the details of why - going deep into cell network reverse engineering wasn't my goal here, I wanted to experiment with the state of non-iOS, non-Android cell phones in post-2020. I got a lot of data, but... well, I'm back to iOS, so I couldn't make it work. There are KaiOS devices that support VoLTE and work on US carriers, but the Banana doesn't seem to be one of them. In addition to its many other pain points. Those keys suck to hit...
  - N19PEDL2 4y ago
    Doesn't it work on the 2G network?
    - toast0 4y ago
      There is no 2G network in the US anymore. Or at least, very little. AT&T shut down theirs in 2017; I thought T-Mobile shut their 2G GSM around then too, but sources say T-Mobile's 2G shutdown is end of year 2022. Many EU carriers have planned to keep a small amount of 2G for industrial devices, old handsets, etc, but US carriers have not.
  - richiebful1 4y ago
    I had similar issues with TMobile. Bought the phone for backcountry use outside of the States, and I sold it on eBay after I got back because it was useless here in the US.

chasil 4y ago

It does not appear that KaiOS is something that anyone should own. "The first major commercial adoption of B2G/Firefox OS was seen around 2018 with KaiOS, a widely popular commercial fork of Firefox OS that promised to be a modern OS for inexpensive feature phones. Although KaiOS turned out to be disappointingly closed and oriented to tracking users and shipping advertising, it was quickly forked in GerdaOS, a custom ROM that promised to bring back some of the openness of Firefox OS to KaiOS devices such as newer Nokias, and kill the intrusive user trackers in the process."

Syonyk 4y ago
Can generally confirm. Not from a "tracking" perspective, but from a "General usability in the modern world" perspective. I spent a year with a KaiOS Flip IV (about a $70 AT&T phone), and finally gave up and went back to a smartphone when the keyboard got so bad I couldn't dial a phone number without massive corrections, much less text. It felt, first and foremost, like a device built by someone who had been told stories about the phones of the first 5-8 years of the 2000s, but had never seen one, never used one, and wasn't quite sure how it was all supposed to really work. Lots of really weird pain points like predictive text not capitalizing the lone "i" no matter what mode I was in. I started trying to write texts without "I" in them to avoid having to perform the 72 keystroke sequence to capitalize it - I don't like being lazy in texts about things like that. The performance wasn't bad initially, but it felt like there were some seriously non-optimal data structures involved in everything. A text thread with more than 50 messages or so started being slow to interact with, God help you if it's got more than a few pieces of media in it. And if the phone had too many text messages in general, the whole texting app would lag badly (seconds to open, seconds to see a list of conversations, etc). I had to very aggressively trim old threads, and sometimes even current ones, to try and keep the texting app responsive. It also got oddly prone to "Oh, yeah! There was a thing I was supposed to notify you about! You're looking at me now, I remember, you got a text! chime" sorts of behaviors I could never run down the cause of. I'd be texting someone, waiting for a reply with the phone closed, and... nothing. Magically, as soon as I opened it 10 minutes later, I'd get the notification that they'd sent a text. I hate to say things like "You have one job," but "Notifying me that there's a phone call or text message" is sort of the core function of a modern phone-type device. The browser was a joke. I could browse Hacker News and that was about it. Anything more complex would fail to render, or just crash the browser. A modern web capable device it was not. I think I gave it a fair shake for a year. But I was still doing things like "Carrying an iPhone, powered down, for when I needed something I couldn't do on KaiOS." It was mostly either drone ops or a particular building access app that I needed often enough, so I don't really fault it, but it was annoying not having them on my carry device. Same goes for "literally anything but SMS." Attempts to get a Matrix client on the device didn't go very far (there is one, but it doesn't work very well), Signal was a no-go, and nothing else was useful either. It did have Bluetooth, though. And I did like being able to cart around music on SD card. Don't carry too much, though, the music app couldn't handle a ton. I moved to it when Apple decided to push on-device CSAM scanning, and... a year and another OS revision later, they've seemingly not done that. And then iOS 16 added Lockdown, which I decided to play with, determined did everything I wanted in such a feature, and I'm back to an iOS device with very few apps installed. I never had warm fuzzies about the security posture of the KaiOS ecosystem either - Apple, I do generally trust to try to secure their devices. KaiOS, nothing about it really felt robust against a remote attacker, though I've no evidence that it's actually full of holes. It just never gave any real confidence that it was more than a best effort, YOLO'd sort of thing tossed over the fence. There were some fun little games, but they were all very peppered with advertising. At least you could sideload stuff. Anyway... it's a thing, I tried it, and despite my exceedingly high tolerance for tech pain, I couldn't make it past a year. Failures on my part, I suppose. I could have probably dismantled it and repaired the keyboard...

rurban 4y ago

Only in India. Apple iPhones are way too expensive there.

ksec 4y ago

>KaiOS is based on FirefoxOS and sells more phones than Apple does. KaiOS is used on 160 million devices around the world. Apple sell more iPhone than that in a single year.

ZiiS 4y ago
They may have ment the are dozens of diffrent models to choose from.

khuey 4y ago

[citation needed]

mro_name 4y ago

how many planets do you guess would it take if there were 9 billion people carrying, patching und using Apple phones?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

type0 4y ago

I have read some terrible reviews on KaiOS, UI lags and freezes, shipping broken updates, terrible battery drains. I'm sure there are some devices have good versions of KaiOS, but with this track record it's like winning on lottery. SailfishOS from Jolla seems to be a much better alternative for a non-Android non-iOS device that is practically usable.

rvz 4y ago

How is it that comments like this one can simply get away with such empty claims without any evidence supporting it? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the burden of proof is on the claimant (the parent comment) to provide it. Until then, your claim is simply baseless and can be easily dismissed.