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This is the first mobile platform that I've been excited about and I've been doing work on mobile devices since Windows CE 2...

by meaty 14y ago

PommeDeTerre 14y ago
Why is that? To a lot of us, Firefox OS sounds like a miserable platform with many serious problems. 1) There are basically no users at this point, of both the platform and the Firefox Marketplace. 2) Firefox OS is far back in line, behind Android, iOS, BlackBerry OS, several Windows variants, Symbian, MeeGo, and various other platforms that currently have actual users. 3) There's nothing really compelling about Firefox OS for customers. There's nothing that makes it more appealing that its competitors. 4) The emphasis on developing apps using HTML5 and JavaScript is not appealing to many good developers. Going from the power of languages like Java, C, C++, and Objective-C on other mobile platforms to HTML5 and JavaScript on Firefox OS is a pretty big step backward. 5) The Firefox Marketplace won't be publicly launched until later this year. Even if that was as early as tomorrow, that's still ages in the mobile world. 6) It looks like Mozilla is just playing catch-up with Apple, Google and others. So it seems to be a pretty big dead end to a lot of us, that's destined to failure.
- meaty 14y ago
  I've written software for all the main platforms apart from BB. My rationale is: iOS is closed / walled garden. Windows Phone is closed / walled garden BB is closed / walled garden. Android is a fragmented, buggy shit tip of an environment and is mostly closed and uncertain. Symbian is pretty much dead. MeeGo is dead. Nokia S40 is still alive but I'll be fucked if I'm writing J2ME any more. --- Some positive indications of FireFox OS: It's open. It's easy to access it. The environment requires little proprietary knowledge i.e. deep specialist APIs and languages (no obj-c, WPF, XAML, that awful XML thing Android uses). License cost for hardware manufacturers will be very low if not free I imagine so uptake on carrier's own branded handsets might be high. As for catch up, I remember everyone complaining about how the original iPhone and Android phones didn't stand a chance against BB and Symbian...
- krmboya 14y ago
  Your list of 'serious problems' mostly seem to be social issues, i.e. 1) It has no current users. 2) Developer preference for what you call 'power languages' as opposed to HTML5/Javascript. My retort: 1) Google launched behind a hord of other search engines like Lycos, Excite etc, but they conquered the search market. They simply did search better. 2) Show the data. The fact that the existing platforms imposed certain languages on developers doesn't mean that developers would voluntarily work in them if they had an option. Cordova/Phonegap seems to be a counter point to your claim.
zem 14y ago
did you ever use maemo? nokia may have mishandled it into an early death, but from a developer perspective that thing was gorgeous. i was very excited about it for a while (and correspondingly disappointed later, of course, but what can you do).
- meaty 14y ago
  I did actually - it was very nice. With some polish, it would have been awesome.

This is the first mobile platform that I've been excited about and I've been doing work on mobile devices since Windows CE 2...

by meaty 14y ago

This is the first mobile platform that I've been excited about and I've been doing work on mobile devices since Windows CE 2...

PommeDeTerre 14y ago

Why is that? To a lot of us, Firefox OS sounds like a miserable platform with many serious problems. 1) There are basically no users at this point, of both the platform and the Firefox Marketplace. 2) Firefox OS is far back in line, behind Android, iOS, BlackBerry OS, several Windows variants, Symbian, MeeGo, and various other platforms that currently have actual users. 3) There's nothing really compelling about Firefox OS for customers. There's nothing that makes it more appealing that its competitors. 4) The emphasis on developing apps using HTML5 and JavaScript is not appealing to many good developers. Going from the power of languages like Java, C, C++, and Objective-C on other mobile platforms to HTML5 and JavaScript on Firefox OS is a pretty big step backward. 5) The Firefox Marketplace won't be publicly launched until later this year. Even if that was as early as tomorrow, that's still ages in the mobile world. 6) It looks like Mozilla is just playing catch-up with Apple, Google and others. So it seems to be a pretty big dead end to a lot of us, that's destined to failure.

meaty 14y ago
I've written software for all the main platforms apart from BB. My rationale is: iOS is closed / walled garden. Windows Phone is closed / walled garden BB is closed / walled garden. Android is a fragmented, buggy shit tip of an environment and is mostly closed and uncertain. Symbian is pretty much dead. MeeGo is dead. Nokia S40 is still alive but I'll be fucked if I'm writing J2ME any more. --- Some positive indications of FireFox OS: It's open. It's easy to access it. The environment requires little proprietary knowledge i.e. deep specialist APIs and languages (no obj-c, WPF, XAML, that awful XML thing Android uses). License cost for hardware manufacturers will be very low if not free I imagine so uptake on carrier's own branded handsets might be high. As for catch up, I remember everyone complaining about how the original iPhone and Android phones didn't stand a chance against BB and Symbian...
krmboya 14y ago
Your list of 'serious problems' mostly seem to be social issues, i.e. 1) It has no current users. 2) Developer preference for what you call 'power languages' as opposed to HTML5/Javascript. My retort: 1) Google launched behind a hord of other search engines like Lycos, Excite etc, but they conquered the search market. They simply did search better. 2) Show the data. The fact that the existing platforms imposed certain languages on developers doesn't mean that developers would voluntarily work in them if they had an option. Cordova/Phonegap seems to be a counter point to your claim.

zem 14y ago

did you ever use maemo? nokia may have mishandled it into an early death, but from a developer perspective that thing was gorgeous. i was very excited about it for a while (and correspondingly disappointed later, of course, but what can you do).

meaty 14y ago
I did actually - it was very nice. With some polish, it would have been awesome.