8 ms·

Just so that people that are not following Firefox OS can know some tidbits: * The mission of Firefox OS is to bring the next billion people online. Many in th

by soapdog 12y ago

Just so that people that are not following Firefox OS can know some tidbits: * The mission of Firefox OS is to bring the next billion people online. Many in the poorest classes can't afford a computer or a smartphone and with the web being a wonderful resource with the potential to transform the life of its users, Mozilla saw that it needed to focus on those that are not attended by the current crop of entry level smartphones. * Another objective is to bring back the freedoms we enjoy in the web into the mobile ecosystem which means no walled gardens and no exclusivity in the sense that the phone uses HTML5 based apps than can be easily shared between Android, iOS, Tizen, Ubuntu, $NEWFANCY, Firefox OS. Using HTML5 based apps doesn't mean the phone needs to be online, it just means that we're using an agreed stardard to build apps on proven technology that is not owned by a single vendor. You're free to build apps and ship them just like you are free to build a webpage and place it online without the need to request permission from Apple or Google. * Many new internet users are browsing the web thru mobile devices. In some places, mobile devices are already 25% of the internet users and rising. But there was no platform that took HTML5 and the Web as a first class citizen. Firefox OS is a hero platform for the web to prove that it can work on a mobile ecosystem and that we can all use shared technology that is interoperable instead of doing this 1990s flashback of Obj-C here and Java there thing. DISCLAIMER: I am a Mozilla Rep and I wrote a FOSS quick guide about how to develop for Firefox OS at https://leanpub.com/quickguidefirefoxosdevelopment/ https://leanpub.com/quickguidefirefoxosdevelopment/ that is helping lots of new Indian developers get ready for this launch ;-)

tsycho 12y ago
While this is awesome, the bigger problem in India is that data plans are often prohibitively expensive, and the people who can afford data plans prefer swankier phones (since the phone is a status symbol). But this is a good start, so best of luck :)
- jk 12y ago
  Data plans are not too expensive in India. One can get 1GB plan for 3G data in Rs.139-Rs.160 ($2.35-$2.7) depending on the service provider. A lot of people are not using data plans as they don't have good phones. Most of the cheap handsets in the market are very slow and lack features that needs data.
- listic 12y ago
  Is Indian cellphone provider market monopolized? Isn't there a chance that with higher demand competition will lower prices for data plans in India?
  - statictype 12y ago
    Yes, the Indian cellular market is competitive and aggressive. There is certainly a good chance that data plan prices will lower with higher demand.
- nairteashop 12y ago
  Just back from a trip to India (from there originally), and don't quite agree with you that data plans are expensive. There is a lot of competition, and both talk time and data are quite affordable IMO. I pre-paid for 1GB of data and ~4 hours of talk time for just 250 INR (about $4). Pretty much everyone in India - rich or poor - has a mobile phone these days. However, unlike the service, phones cost just as much as they do elsewhere so the poor usually end up using crappy feature phones with limited data support. A $25 smartphone with full web support would make an incredible difference IMO.
  - im3w1l 12y ago
    Presumably, a thin client will transfer more data than a thick client. Potentially, making that cost significant. Though maybe it has some clever caching system that reduces this?
    - soapdog 12y ago
      it really depends on the app developer. He can use packaged apps and go full offline or use HTML5 AppCache and go offline with annoyances :-) In any way, the developer is in charge of how much bandwidth he uses.
    - rhelmer 12y ago
      I wouldn't call FirefoxOS a "thin client" (if that's what you meant) - it has a concept of "packaged apps" in which the app and all its assets are packaged and downloaded to the phone, and loaded from there. The built-in "certified" apps (like Phone, Music, Calendar and so on) don't require loading anything from the network at all, for instance. You can think of FirefoxOS apps the same way conceptually you'd think of them on Android/iOS, except they are always written in open web technologies (HTML/JS/CSS). App developers do have the option to provide "hosted" apps to the store (which is basically a regular web page but without browser chrome), however even in this case writing HTML5 apps that work offline is totally doable using existing cross-browser standards.
  - pavanred 12y ago
    Well the poor don't necessarily end up with bad phones, there are a few indigenous phone manufacturers like Micromax [1], Maxx Mobile [2], Spice [3], Intex [4] etc. that have carved out a market for themselves in the past few years. These brands manufacture phones with features quite comparable to "good" smart phones and are comparatively very affordable. So, unless the consumer is brand conscious, its possible to get a smart phone with decent features and data support at affordable prices. In fact, Spice and Intex are the manufacturers that Mozilla has partnered to produce the $25 smart phones. [1] http://www.micromaxinfo.com/mobiles/smartphones http://www.micromaxinfo.com/mobiles/smartphones [2] http://www.maxxmobile.in/mobiles/smart-phones http://www.maxxmobile.in/mobiles/smart-phones [3] http://www.si2imobility.com/spicemobiles/ http://www.si2imobility.com/spicemobiles/ [4] http://www.intexmobile.in/Product.aspx?PCatId=3 http://www.intexmobile.in/Product.aspx?PCatId=3
- Pxtl 12y ago
  How common are free wifi hotspots? I assume the FF phone will still have wifi.
  - soapdog 12y ago
    The phones have WIFI
  - jestinjoy1 12y ago
    New govt plans free wifi in public places. Would be a boost to smartphone industry. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-06-09/news/50448121_1_new-government-new-health-policy-food-inflation http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-06-09/news...
- jestinjoy1 12y ago
  Data plans are getting affordable now. State carrier BSNL offers 1GB for Rs 139. Thats roughly 2.341 USD
Pacabel 12y ago
The reviews I've read about the existing Firefox OS phones, which have reportedly cost well over $25, have not been very encouraging. Pretty much all of them have pointed out that the hardware is quite poor, and this results in a rather bad user experience. Even considering how rapidly the cost of mobile hardware has been decreasing, what will prevent a similarly negative user experience on these cheaper Firefox OS devices? While the ideological benefits of HTML5/JavaScript/CSS "apps" are often touted, we've yet to see anything truly remarkable done using such technologies. At best, we've only really seen clones of existing Android and iOS apps, but these generally feel less responsive and less capable than their native counterparts. If Firefox OS only supports these kind of non-native apps, how is it supposed to truly compete with Android, iOS and the other mobile platforms that support these HTML5/JavaScript/CSS "apps" just fine, but also offer far more choice and capabilities to developers in the form of real native apps? And one other thing that I rarely see considered by the advocates of Firefox OS is how we're seeing more and more used iOS and Android mobile devices ending up in developing nations. They tend to be quite affordable and usable, even if they are somewhat outdated. Why would people in developing nations pay for a new Firefox OS phone, when they can get a used Android or iOS phone that may very well perform better than the Firefox OS phone, while offering a wider selection of apps, while also costing roughly the same? Can you address these concerns?
- Touche 12y ago
  How is a Java code running in a VM any more native than web technology?
  - Pacabel 12y ago
    I wouldn't say that it necessarily is. But Android does offer the NDK and the upcoming ART runtime, which get far closer to native code than what we're seeing from HTML5/JavaScript/CSS.
    - Touche 12y ago
      ART is just a replacement runtime for Davlik. It's still no more "native" than a JavaScript VM. The world "native" has been bended to mean practically nothing at this point, and instead is used to differentiate "good" platforms from "bad" ones.
LowDog 12y ago
Thanks for highlighting the least emphasized but the most important aspect of the operating system, which is being completely free and open. Too often I see people criticizing Firefox OS because it looks slow and the current hardware is inferior to whatever device they have now, but to me, that's completely besides the point. The market needs an open mobile OS that respects the user's liberties, and it's only because of Firefox OS that I finally went for my first smartphone. The OS definitely has a really long way to go and I've noticed quite a few bugs and plenty of missing essential features, but I'm optimistic about its future, provided the developers acknowledge these issues. I think people also need to be made aware that as development continues, they will be able to install the OS on other more powerful devices if they fall outside of current low end, cheap smartphone market. On a side note, thanks for sharing the link to your guide because I've been looking all over the place for a good resource to help me start learning how to develop web applications.
- hackuser 12y ago
  > The OS definitely has a really long way to go and I've noticed quite a few bugs and plenty of missing essential features What are the (significant) bugs and missing features? I had guessed that, being in production, the basics were finished.
  - LowDog 12y ago
    There are too many list, but I will name a few. If you want a thorough list, head over to the Firefox OS section on Bugzilla. -Default applications, such as Settings, will intermittently go completely blank. If you zoom out to list all applications, it will look normal, but when you zoom back in, the screen is completely blank. -Group messages (MMS) are barely functional. You can receive them and initiate them in an unorthodox manner, but you cannot partake in group conversations, nor are they properly displayed as a single thread. -You cannot add import .ics files to use in the Calendar application. You cannot create recurring events. It's as basic as a calendar can get. -The clock application doesn't display world time. -The OS will claim that a SIM card is not inserted when you power on/reboot the phone, even though you can still make calls and send texts. You need to enable and then disable airplane mode in order for it to acknowledge the SIM card (necessary for the Usage application). -The browser doesn't support extensions. So far, you have tabbed browsing, and you can clear your cookies and your history. That's it. -Since I last updated my phone, it returns to 100% brightness every time I wake it up from standby. This means that I essentially use the display/brightness settings as my home screen so that I can lower the brightness every single time I want to use my phone (this might be ZTE's fault, but I didn't have this problem before the recent update). Even my old feature phones from many years ago support some of these features, like proper group messaging. Some of these bugs and feature requests have existed for nearly 2 years on Bugzilla. Nevertheless, I'm enjoying the phone, and I love it when the Marketplace gets updated with new applications to check out. I'm really looking forward to the 2.0 update, and I hope that ZTE rolls it out to the Open C, unlike how they completely abandoned support for the original Open.
CmonDev 12y ago
"that we can all use shared technology that is interoperable instead of doing this 1990s flashback of Obj-C here and Java there thing" 1. JavaScript and HTML are themselves a 1990s flashback. 2. We want a choice of technology, not being pigeonholed into one "good for all" thing. JavaScript sucks, and HTML sucks equally.
- thegeomaster 12y ago
  Thanks! I'm sure no one before has even thought that "Javascript sucks, and HTML sucks equally", but here you are, enlightening with your rock-hard arguments and all.
- glogla 12y ago
  You need Windows and a license to develop for Windows Phone. You need Mac to develop for iOS. Android is more open, but you still need pretty hefty computer to do anything Java. But anyone can make webpage. Anyone with Firefox can run the simulator, and pretty much anyone with text editor can make FxOS app. Yes, not having native access sucks for some purposes. I dream of making FxOS version of OsmAnd - offline OpenStreetMap application, but I still don't think it's possible on FxOS. And yes, I'm sure that anyone would rather use Haskell or Python or Ruby or Clojure or anything other than Javascript. But HTML5 and js are the price of accessability of FxOS.
  - CmonDev 12y ago
    Asking developers to buy licenses and tools is like asking students to pay fees and buy books. But telling developers to only use/target one language is like telling students to think the one and only "correct" way. This is the current message of Mozilla: "JavaScript and HTML are the languages of the web and there is nothing you can do about it. Use/target or go away."
    - glogla 12y ago
      Yes, but those are only available to some (maybe rich, maybe Western, maybe others) people. Mozilla apparently thinks that being open to every person is more important than being open to every programing language.
rimantas 12y ago
Sorry guys, HTML is faaaar from being proven technology for the apps. And it will stay that way, sorry to dissapoint you. On the other hand: why this obession to have mobile apps built with HTML and JS. Why not fight for desktop, if you are so inklined. That does not make it any less stupid, I am just curious about the reasons.
frowaway001 12y ago
I'd like to develop for Firefox OS, but what are my options if using terrible languages like JavaScript are a non-option for me?
- sphink 12y ago
  Use a decent language like JavaScript. You are correct that terrible JavaScript is available and widely used, but all of the platforms support both, so you may as well use decent JavaScript instead. :-)

by soapdog 12y ago

tsycho 12y ago

While this is awesome, the bigger problem in India is that data plans are often prohibitively expensive, and the people who can afford data plans prefer swankier phones (since the phone is a status symbol). But this is a good start, so best of luck :)

jk 12y ago
Data plans are not too expensive in India. One can get 1GB plan for 3G data in Rs.139-Rs.160 ($2.35-$2.7) depending on the service provider. A lot of people are not using data plans as they don't have good phones. Most of the cheap handsets in the market are very slow and lack features that needs data.
listic 12y ago
Is Indian cellphone provider market monopolized? Isn't there a chance that with higher demand competition will lower prices for data plans in India?
- statictype 12y ago
  Yes, the Indian cellular market is competitive and aggressive. There is certainly a good chance that data plan prices will lower with higher demand.
nairteashop 12y ago
Just back from a trip to India (from there originally), and don't quite agree with you that data plans are expensive. There is a lot of competition, and both talk time and data are quite affordable IMO. I pre-paid for 1GB of data and ~4 hours of talk time for just 250 INR (about $4). Pretty much everyone in India - rich or poor - has a mobile phone these days. However, unlike the service, phones cost just as much as they do elsewhere so the poor usually end up using crappy feature phones with limited data support. A $25 smartphone with full web support would make an incredible difference IMO.
- im3w1l 12y ago
  Presumably, a thin client will transfer more data than a thick client. Potentially, making that cost significant. Though maybe it has some clever caching system that reduces this?
  - soapdog 12y ago
    it really depends on the app developer. He can use packaged apps and go full offline or use HTML5 AppCache and go offline with annoyances :-) In any way, the developer is in charge of how much bandwidth he uses.
  - rhelmer 12y ago
    I wouldn't call FirefoxOS a "thin client" (if that's what you meant) - it has a concept of "packaged apps" in which the app and all its assets are packaged and downloaded to the phone, and loaded from there. The built-in "certified" apps (like Phone, Music, Calendar and so on) don't require loading anything from the network at all, for instance. You can think of FirefoxOS apps the same way conceptually you'd think of them on Android/iOS, except they are always written in open web technologies (HTML/JS/CSS). App developers do have the option to provide "hosted" apps to the store (which is basically a regular web page but without browser chrome), however even in this case writing HTML5 apps that work offline is totally doable using existing cross-browser standards.
- pavanred 12y ago
  Well the poor don't necessarily end up with bad phones, there are a few indigenous phone manufacturers like Micromax [1], Maxx Mobile [2], Spice [3], Intex [4] etc. that have carved out a market for themselves in the past few years. These brands manufacture phones with features quite comparable to "good" smart phones and are comparatively very affordable. So, unless the consumer is brand conscious, its possible to get a smart phone with decent features and data support at affordable prices. In fact, Spice and Intex are the manufacturers that Mozilla has partnered to produce the $25 smart phones. [1] http://www.micromaxinfo.com/mobiles/smartphones http://www.micromaxinfo.com/mobiles/smartphones [2] http://www.maxxmobile.in/mobiles/smart-phones http://www.maxxmobile.in/mobiles/smart-phones [3] http://www.si2imobility.com/spicemobiles/ http://www.si2imobility.com/spicemobiles/ [4] http://www.intexmobile.in/Product.aspx?PCatId=3 http://www.intexmobile.in/Product.aspx?PCatId=3
Pxtl 12y ago
How common are free wifi hotspots? I assume the FF phone will still have wifi.
- soapdog 12y ago
  The phones have WIFI
- jestinjoy1 12y ago
  New govt plans free wifi in public places. Would be a boost to smartphone industry. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-06-09/news/50448121_1_new-government-new-health-policy-food-inflation http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-06-09/news...
jestinjoy1 12y ago
Data plans are getting affordable now. State carrier BSNL offers 1GB for Rs 139. Thats roughly 2.341 USD

Pacabel 12y ago

The reviews I've read about the existing Firefox OS phones, which have reportedly cost well over $25, have not been very encouraging. Pretty much all of them have pointed out that the hardware is quite poor, and this results in a rather bad user experience. Even considering how rapidly the cost of mobile hardware has been decreasing, what will prevent a similarly negative user experience on these cheaper Firefox OS devices? While the ideological benefits of HTML5/JavaScript/CSS "apps" are often touted, we've yet to see anything truly remarkable done using such technologies. At best, we've only really seen clones of existing Android and iOS apps, but these generally feel less responsive and less capable than their native counterparts. If Firefox OS only supports these kind of non-native apps, how is it supposed to truly compete with Android, iOS and the other mobile platforms that support these HTML5/JavaScript/CSS "apps" just fine, but also offer far more choice and capabilities to developers in the form of real native apps? And one other thing that I rarely see considered by the advocates of Firefox OS is how we're seeing more and more used iOS and Android mobile devices ending up in developing nations. They tend to be quite affordable and usable, even if they are somewhat outdated. Why would people in developing nations pay for a new Firefox OS phone, when they can get a used Android or iOS phone that may very well perform better than the Firefox OS phone, while offering a wider selection of apps, while also costing roughly the same? Can you address these concerns?

Touche 12y ago
How is a Java code running in a VM any more native than web technology?
- Pacabel 12y ago
  I wouldn't say that it necessarily is. But Android does offer the NDK and the upcoming ART runtime, which get far closer to native code than what we're seeing from HTML5/JavaScript/CSS.
  - Touche 12y ago
    ART is just a replacement runtime for Davlik. It's still no more "native" than a JavaScript VM. The world "native" has been bended to mean practically nothing at this point, and instead is used to differentiate "good" platforms from "bad" ones.

LowDog 12y ago

Thanks for highlighting the least emphasized but the most important aspect of the operating system, which is being completely free and open. Too often I see people criticizing Firefox OS because it looks slow and the current hardware is inferior to whatever device they have now, but to me, that's completely besides the point. The market needs an open mobile OS that respects the user's liberties, and it's only because of Firefox OS that I finally went for my first smartphone. The OS definitely has a really long way to go and I've noticed quite a few bugs and plenty of missing essential features, but I'm optimistic about its future, provided the developers acknowledge these issues. I think people also need to be made aware that as development continues, they will be able to install the OS on other more powerful devices if they fall outside of current low end, cheap smartphone market. On a side note, thanks for sharing the link to your guide because I've been looking all over the place for a good resource to help me start learning how to develop web applications.

hackuser 12y ago
> The OS definitely has a really long way to go and I've noticed quite a few bugs and plenty of missing essential features What are the (significant) bugs and missing features? I had guessed that, being in production, the basics were finished.
- LowDog 12y ago
  There are too many list, but I will name a few. If you want a thorough list, head over to the Firefox OS section on Bugzilla. -Default applications, such as Settings, will intermittently go completely blank. If you zoom out to list all applications, it will look normal, but when you zoom back in, the screen is completely blank. -Group messages (MMS) are barely functional. You can receive them and initiate them in an unorthodox manner, but you cannot partake in group conversations, nor are they properly displayed as a single thread. -You cannot add import .ics files to use in the Calendar application. You cannot create recurring events. It's as basic as a calendar can get. -The clock application doesn't display world time. -The OS will claim that a SIM card is not inserted when you power on/reboot the phone, even though you can still make calls and send texts. You need to enable and then disable airplane mode in order for it to acknowledge the SIM card (necessary for the Usage application). -The browser doesn't support extensions. So far, you have tabbed browsing, and you can clear your cookies and your history. That's it. -Since I last updated my phone, it returns to 100% brightness every time I wake it up from standby. This means that I essentially use the display/brightness settings as my home screen so that I can lower the brightness every single time I want to use my phone (this might be ZTE's fault, but I didn't have this problem before the recent update). Even my old feature phones from many years ago support some of these features, like proper group messaging. Some of these bugs and feature requests have existed for nearly 2 years on Bugzilla. Nevertheless, I'm enjoying the phone, and I love it when the Marketplace gets updated with new applications to check out. I'm really looking forward to the 2.0 update, and I hope that ZTE rolls it out to the Open C, unlike how they completely abandoned support for the original Open.

CmonDev 12y ago

"that we can all use shared technology that is interoperable instead of doing this 1990s flashback of Obj-C here and Java there thing" 1. JavaScript and HTML are themselves a 1990s flashback. 2. We want a choice of technology, not being pigeonholed into one "good for all" thing. JavaScript sucks, and HTML sucks equally.

thegeomaster 12y ago
Thanks! I'm sure no one before has even thought that "Javascript sucks, and HTML sucks equally", but here you are, enlightening with your rock-hard arguments and all.
glogla 12y ago
You need Windows and a license to develop for Windows Phone. You need Mac to develop for iOS. Android is more open, but you still need pretty hefty computer to do anything Java. But anyone can make webpage. Anyone with Firefox can run the simulator, and pretty much anyone with text editor can make FxOS app. Yes, not having native access sucks for some purposes. I dream of making FxOS version of OsmAnd - offline OpenStreetMap application, but I still don't think it's possible on FxOS. And yes, I'm sure that anyone would rather use Haskell or Python or Ruby or Clojure or anything other than Javascript. But HTML5 and js are the price of accessability of FxOS.
- CmonDev 12y ago
  Asking developers to buy licenses and tools is like asking students to pay fees and buy books. But telling developers to only use/target one language is like telling students to think the one and only "correct" way. This is the current message of Mozilla: "JavaScript and HTML are the languages of the web and there is nothing you can do about it. Use/target or go away."
  - glogla 12y ago
    Yes, but those are only available to some (maybe rich, maybe Western, maybe others) people. Mozilla apparently thinks that being open to every person is more important than being open to every programing language.

rimantas 12y ago

Sorry guys, HTML is faaaar from being proven technology for the apps. And it will stay that way, sorry to dissapoint you. On the other hand: why this obession to have mobile apps built with HTML and JS. Why not fight for desktop, if you are so inklined. That does not make it any less stupid, I am just curious about the reasons.

frowaway001 12y ago

I'd like to develop for Firefox OS, but what are my options if using terrible languages like JavaScript are a non-option for me?

sphink 12y ago
Use a decent language like JavaScript. You are correct that terrible JavaScript is available and widely used, but all of the platforms support both, so you may as well use decent JavaScript instead. :-)