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Not only that, but Firefox is a de-facto standard. The HTML extensions adopted by the Firefox Mobile OS team will be not just open, but also widely used from da

by cs702 14y ago

Not only that, but Firefox is a de-facto standard. The HTML extensions adopted by the Firefox Mobile OS team will be not just open, but also widely used from day one -- they will be present in all desktop, tablet, and mobile editions of Firefox across all hardware and OS platforms in which the browser is available.

riffraff 14y ago
pardon my lack of understanding, but what would APIs to send SMSs, dial a number, or vibrate my phone do in my desktop browser? I mean, if they are unique to devices for which they make sense (i.e. phones) than webOS' APIs seem to be just as standard.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  Vibration, nothing. Dialing a number or sending an SMS would be sent of to external apps (like Skype), or if none are installed, fail with an error message.
  - fczuardi 14y ago
    I guess that Vibration webAPI could be implemented on a desktop user agent to activate the vibration of a connected playstation joystick for example, but maybe that's a different API…
    - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
      There's a game controller API, not sure if it has vibration.
- Yoric 14y ago
  While these APIs can arguably make some sense on a desktop browser, I get your point that not all capabilities can be cross-platform. What I was pointing out is that EnyoJS or WebOS or Tizen (afaik) do not make any effort at such portability. Sending a SMS makes as much sense on a WebOS-based device as on an iPhone, an Android smartphone or any other platform. This is one of the key differences between initiatives such as WebOS, Windows 8 or, to a lesser extent, Chrome OS on one side and Firefox OS on the other side. While these OSes offer the features of HTML 5 and some proprietary, non-standardized, non-portable extensions APIs for taking advantage of platform-specific capabilities, Firefox + Firefox OS push to make these capabilities 1/ accessible on all platforms where they makes sense; 2/ standardized so that other browser or os vendors can implement them as they see fit. The difference is subtle but meaningful. This is the difference between "come and program for my silo platform" and "come and program on everybody's web platform".

by cs702 14y ago

riffraff 14y ago

pardon my lack of understanding, but what would APIs to send SMSs, dial a number, or vibrate my phone do in my desktop browser? I mean, if they are unique to devices for which they make sense (i.e. phones) than webOS' APIs seem to be just as standard.

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
Vibration, nothing. Dialing a number or sending an SMS would be sent of to external apps (like Skype), or if none are installed, fail with an error message.
- fczuardi 14y ago
  I guess that Vibration webAPI could be implemented on a desktop user agent to activate the vibration of a connected playstation joystick for example, but maybe that's a different API…
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    There's a game controller API, not sure if it has vibration.
Yoric 14y ago
While these APIs can arguably make some sense on a desktop browser, I get your point that not all capabilities can be cross-platform. What I was pointing out is that EnyoJS or WebOS or Tizen (afaik) do not make any effort at such portability. Sending a SMS makes as much sense on a WebOS-based device as on an iPhone, an Android smartphone or any other platform. This is one of the key differences between initiatives such as WebOS, Windows 8 or, to a lesser extent, Chrome OS on one side and Firefox OS on the other side. While these OSes offer the features of HTML 5 and some proprietary, non-standardized, non-portable extensions APIs for taking advantage of platform-specific capabilities, Firefox + Firefox OS push to make these capabilities 1/ accessible on all platforms where they makes sense; 2/ standardized so that other browser or os vendors can implement them as they see fit. The difference is subtle but meaningful. This is the difference between "come and program for my silo platform" and "come and program on everybody's web platform".