Comment by josteink | Hacker News Reader

Comment by josteink | Hacker News Reader

I'd love for there to be some more competition in mobile space, because currently there's just iOS and Android beating it out, and honestly, looking at the stats Android is crushing iOS flat.

It wont be long before we have a complete Android monoculture. And that is bad.

So far RIM's BlackBerry 10 and MS's Windows 8/RT ventures haven't made a single dent in the mobile space and we do need some serious competition to keep all players fit and the market healthy.

While I'll be honest and say I'd rather see something truly free and open like FirefoxOS gain traction, I'll be pragmatic and welcome any sort of competition as good. So I have to welcome Tizen as well on general principle.

All that said... I can't really say I feel very excited about this. I've yet to see a single Tizen device. I've yet to see a single presentation telling my why this is better than what we already have. Why this is something I should get invested in (neither as an OEM, developer nor user).

It's just a name which I associate absolutely nothing with.

If they are really serious about becoming a viable third option, they really need to up their marketing effort as they're not even on the radar of the techies.

And how does that speak well of their future chances of success?

If being crushed flat means earning $40Bn a year in profits and commanding the most lucrative and innovative end of the mobile app market, then run me over with a steamroller.

Android and iOS are doing fine. Yes more Android phones are being sold than iPhones, but iPhone has a loyal customer base and a great ecosystem. Yes iOS dominates the tablet market, but Android tablets are finally getting good traction and have a respectable showing of apps.

The people who are getting crushed flat are Microsoft and Blackberry, and maybe a few others. It might be nice to have a third player in smartphone OS market, but I don't think it's necessary. Android and iOS provide good competition for each other without overly fragmenting the market for App developers.

I agree with everything you said except the Firefox OS part. For me the biggest issue I have with my iPhone is being locked into the Apple ecosystem. I want browser choice but am forced to use Apple's WebKit. With FF OS, I am locked in Mozilla browser and worse yet no native apps.

With android what I miss from iOS is truely native performance. Even with CM jellybean on my SGS 2 it feels slower than my 4 year old much less power 3Gs. The phone not not as fluid to navigate and I still get occasional hick ups.

I don't know if this comes from surface finger or the dalvic VM but at least Tizen and Ubuntu Mobile stand a chance of giving me iOS like native performance in an open ecosystem.

Firefox OS has native apps and of course allows alternate browsers.

WRONG on both counts. Firefox OS only allows apps to run under its javascript VM engine. Under no way shape or form can you compare the performance of a native app to those running under a javascript VM.

Since Firefox OS limits you to running HTML5 apps, the best you can do is create a new skin for Mozilla's browser. The same limitation that iOS imposes on its users.

> Since Firefox OS limits you to running HTML5 apps, the best you can do is create a new skin for Mozilla's browser.

Right.

> The same limitation that iOS imposes on its users.

And wrong. With Firefox OS there is a major difference: Should you ever decide to leave it (or should Mozilla do so), you don't lose your apps. Because those are web-apps and they are not locked into a closed eco-system.

> And wrong. With Firefox OS there is a major difference: Should you ever decide to leave it (or should Mozilla do so), you don't lose your apps. Because those are web-apps and they are not locked into a closed eco-system.

Only IF those apps run on your next device. Considering HTML5's track record of cross browser incompatibility, that's a big IF. The HTML5 "standard" is so broken and performance so poor, that's one eco-system I'd rather not be part of.

Not so much. The whole point of FirefoxOS is that the browser (Firefox) is the OS. Everything else on top is built on HTML and run by the browser.

Guess what the browser app is? It's pretty much just a HTML-app letting you set the location a iframe container should point to. It really is HTML all the way down.

Lots of people look at this as some sort of lock-in, because hey! you can't switch browser. Which is sorta true.

But IMO they miss the point: Firefox OS is about the opposite of lock-in: It is all about promoting openness and standards on an application-level, because all applications will first and foremost be web-applications and none of those will be locked into Firefox OS.

So if you ever decide to move on, away from FirefoxOS, you lose nothing. Because all those apps works everywhere else as well.

IMO it's the only revolutionary mobile OS out there right now, it's the only one offering something truly new and unique and it's the only player promoting open web-standards over their own technology and walled gardens.

And for that reasons, I'd really wish it would get more support in the community, instead of these typical HNesque reasons "But it's closed because I can't change browser!" (which I'd like to think of as a Chrome Stockholm sort of effect)

If that is your objection, you've clearly missed the point.

mtgx, if you're reading this, it seems someone has marked you as [dead] for the last few hours, no idea why..

>and honestly, looking at the stats Android is crushing iOS flat.

As an Android user, I think you've misanalyzed the stats:

- Despite being a far smaller population, iOS users represent a majority of mobile internet users

- Despite being a far smaller population, iOS users represent a majority of mobile spending on apps

I don't know what Android you're using, but my Android still has over half of it's entire install base (IE, more than all iPhone's out there) using Android 2.x or less and will never be updated.

Keeping (hundreds of) millions of devices stuck on old operating systems is not "winning" anything except install base numbers.

As an Android user-- where's Mailbox? Where's Vine? Where's any of the cool new apps that iOS users got months ago? (Heck, I have a Note II -- where's Android 4.2? How long do I have to wait to get a normal update! How long do I have to wait to even get an announcement that the update is coming?)

Android isn't "winning" anything outright except for the budget smartphone market. I'd love if it did win -- I want the good apps first!

Despite being a far smaller population

You're conflating markets. iOS is a marginally smaller deployed base of mobile smartphones, but is neck and neck if not in the lead when you factor in the iPads and iPod Touches.

As to actual web usage, however - http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-ww-monthly-201202-20130...

For over a year now Android has held the lead. So what now?

As an Android user-- where's Mailbox?

Why would you want Mailbox? Mailbox is essentially a clone of the Android gmail client on iOS where a decent client wasn't available. Mailbox is a non-starter on Android because the need isn't there.

Android isn't "winning" anything outright except for the budget smartphone market.

You quote "winning" in John Gruber style despite it not even appearing in the post you reply to. Further the "budget smartphone" nonsense is nonsense, as the top Android smartphones, time and time again, are the top tier devices like the GS3 and the HTC Ones.

EDIT: I can see your reply however you are marked as DEAD criley (there are a rash of dead people all across HN for some reason today. Technical malfunction? Zombie day?). However to your response, firstly I merely responded to your incorrect facts so I'm not sure why you retort as if you're put off by a fanboy. Secondly, the #1 description of Mailbox is simply as a better gmail client for iOS, oft compared, exactly as I mentioned, to the Android gmail client (with swipe to archive, etc).

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