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Comment by thefreeman | Hacker News Reader

The fact that it runs entirely on web technologies is what they are saying makes it more open. Though I am not sure I fully agree with this because they are using special javascript api's implemented in the OS to access the hardware. Unless Android and iOS devices adopt these javascript API's, you are still in the same boat as developing for any other app eco system.

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AFAICT the special Javascript APIs are implemented in Gecko itself and aren't specific to the OS. As in, if you're using Firefox right now, those same APIs exist in your browser regardless of your platform, though they may be dormant if your hardware doesn't have e.g. hardware support for vibration.

Beyond that, Mozilla's also submitting all of these new APIs for standardization, so that any app you build that uses them could potentially function in all browsers.

That's true, I forgot you could can run their app environment, aka firefox, on Android. Still won't help iOS though.

I understand they are submitting them for standardization, but do you really think Apple is going to implement a standard which competes with their app store?

Well, Mobile Safari uses Webkit, which both Apple and Google are working on (amongst others), and both have been pretty darn good about supporting web standards. Hell, Microsoft's gotten the religion, too.

If the APIs are useful, and make it through the W3C, then I'd be surprised if they didn't show up in Webkit, and thus on iOS and Android. The Vibration API made it in, after all: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=72010

Maybe not in the short run. We'll see. But if Apple decides not to implement an open standard for business reasons, that doesn't make said standard not open.

I'm guessing since we're seeing this from Mozilla, those APIs will be implemented in their browsers as well. A while ago they started an initiative to standardize some native access APIs for mobile. Hopefully this means that native mobile browser offerings will implement these APIs as well, making it truly implement once, run everywhere. I think Firefox OS is a great driving force in this direction, whether or not it reaches mass appeal only time will show.

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