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The people who buy the devices will create their own apps if nobody else does. The "ecosystem" won't buy houses and cars for high-buck Western commercial develo

The people who buy the devices will create their own apps if nobody else does. The "ecosystem" won't buy houses and cars for high-buck Western commercial developers, but that doesn't mean there will be no ecosystem.

cpeterso 12y ago
Can people actually write apps using only a Firefox OS device? I'm not being flippant. I think this is an interesting question for sustainability of the Firefox OS ecosystem.
- neurobro 12y ago
  I can't say for sure. My only experience with a browser OS was an early Chromebook. There it was possible to develop an app in an online IDE, then download and install it. (I had to do this to build a rudimentary text editor that could save locally, although I believe there are usable editor apps available now.) If there's no way to do something similar on Firefox OS, then I see that as a much worse hindrance to the ecosystem than the income demographic they are targeting.
  - lisabrewster 12y ago
    I think Tim Caswell has created a Firefox OS version of Tedit, but it's not submitted to Marketplace yet. https://tedit.creationix.com/ https://tedit.creationix.com/ He's already submitted a git browser: https://marketplace.firefox.com/app/git-browser https://marketplace.firefox.com/app/git-browser
- vertex-four 12y ago
  I'll point out that a Firefox OS app is, literally, a web app with a manifest file. If there's a web app out there that happens to work on Firefox OS, it's very close to being a Firefox OS app with ten minutes of effort to write the manifest file. You don't even have to put it on the store. Getting out of the walled gardens of the app world is a large part of the point of Firefox OS's goals. Even if it didn't have any apps, it provides complete and open access to the Internet for $25 to people who might not otherwise have access to it. Wikipedia, email services, OpenStreetMap, Twitter, news sites, political forums, MOOCs. It's a chance to give the last billion people their voice on the open Internet.
  - bzbarsky 12y ago
    > It's a chance to give the last billion people Next billion, not last billion. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm says that of the 7 billion people in the world, just shy of 2.5 billion have internet access. http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/ http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/ claims 3 billion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage claims about 3 billion. All of which is to say that less than half the world actually has anything like consistent internet access today. And yes, getting those next 4 billion people on the internet is one of the explicit goals here.

cpeterso 12y ago

Can people actually write apps using only a Firefox OS device? I'm not being flippant. I think this is an interesting question for sustainability of the Firefox OS ecosystem.

neurobro 12y ago
I can't say for sure. My only experience with a browser OS was an early Chromebook. There it was possible to develop an app in an online IDE, then download and install it. (I had to do this to build a rudimentary text editor that could save locally, although I believe there are usable editor apps available now.) If there's no way to do something similar on Firefox OS, then I see that as a much worse hindrance to the ecosystem than the income demographic they are targeting.
- lisabrewster 12y ago
  I think Tim Caswell has created a Firefox OS version of Tedit, but it's not submitted to Marketplace yet. https://tedit.creationix.com/ https://tedit.creationix.com/ He's already submitted a git browser: https://marketplace.firefox.com/app/git-browser https://marketplace.firefox.com/app/git-browser
vertex-four 12y ago
I'll point out that a Firefox OS app is, literally, a web app with a manifest file. If there's a web app out there that happens to work on Firefox OS, it's very close to being a Firefox OS app with ten minutes of effort to write the manifest file. You don't even have to put it on the store. Getting out of the walled gardens of the app world is a large part of the point of Firefox OS's goals. Even if it didn't have any apps, it provides complete and open access to the Internet for $25 to people who might not otherwise have access to it. Wikipedia, email services, OpenStreetMap, Twitter, news sites, political forums, MOOCs. It's a chance to give the last billion people their voice on the open Internet.
- bzbarsky 12y ago
  > It's a chance to give the last billion people Next billion, not last billion. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm says that of the 7 billion people in the world, just shy of 2.5 billion have internet access. http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/ http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/ claims 3 billion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage claims about 3 billion. All of which is to say that less than half the world actually has anything like consistent internet access today. And yes, getting those next 4 billion people on the internet is one of the explicit goals here.