Two Huge Companies Betting On Firefox OS | Hacker News Reader

Two Huge Companies Betting On Firefox OS

fastcolabs.com

121 pointsmxpxpx46 comments

I have used G1 and have ZTE Firefox OS phone. G1 performed better 5 years back compared to ZTE Firefox OS phone today.

As much as everyone of us want Firefox OS win, It has long way to go in a market that is already dominated by Big Players with great talent and motivation to win it.

Is that model similar to the Geeksphone Peak? I have a Keon and it is a bit slow, but the Peak is just as fast as (maybe even faster than) an iPhone, re. launching and switching apps and overall responsiveness. Quite impressive for a HTML5-based system UI.

Regardless, Firefox OS is not actually competing with Android/iOS right now, it's goal is to bring smartphones to the very low end of the market and push open web technologies at the same time. It seems to be working.

No, the ZTE is not at all similar to the Geeksphone Peak. It's even slower than the Keon -- it has half as much RAM as the Keon, and only 512 MB of internal storage (I think the Keon has 4 GB).

Currently the cheapest androids are at$55 and have 512mb ram, which is fine for kitkat. How does ffos compete with that?

everyone of us want Firefox OS (to) win

We do?

I'm not sure that I care one way or another. Does the device work as expected? Does it do useful things? Does it do the fun things that I actually want it to do?

Then I don't care much one way or another.

On a related but possibly tangential digression, I'm showing my age, yes, but I want my TV to be a TV - a device for showing for moving pictures provided via a suitably optimized device of another ilk (I'm quite happy to accept the second function of OTA tuning, just 'coz it's pretty much always there and saves me buying another device - what with having cancelled cable about 18 months ago).

So I neither want nor need it to have an OS.

There's an AppleTV sitting below my TV. It has an OS. I don't give a damn - it works pretty darned well, thanks.

I don't know what's inside my receiver to give it Internet capabilities, and don't care - I use them very little, when my 20 year old receiver died, I bought the best value receiver that had the features I wanted: 7.1, AM, FM, CD in, Aux in.... Yeah, that was about it. AirPlay is nice, glad to have it, use it occasionally, didn't want or need it, but its presence was no deal breaker. Internet radio? Don't use it at all. DLNA? Didn't even know what it was when I bought the thing. Don't use it at all right now (don't have a media server, why would I want one? I have Netflix and AppleTV and all of our Airs can stream to AppleTV directly).

I never want to buy or receive media again, they take up space, gather dust. I'll read books when they are given to me, or when they are the best form for the content, e.g., books that are image-heavy, but otherwise Google Play Books serves me quite well, thank you.

Did I mention OS in any of that? Hmm, nope.

Don't know. Don't care.

And the OS won't prevent any of the ills that come with any of the above, e.g., DRM-enabled-yank-back, unless you the user are going to pirate to get around the DRM.

Technology cannot solve that problem, only the law and the market can, and they need us - all of us - to realize that technology is not the solution and to get out there in front of the issue and agitate for changes in the law and market.

Why sure I care which OS wins? I'm pretty sure I don't. But I am willing to entertain serious answers to a serious question. Fire away.

    Does the device work as expected? Does it do useful 
    things? Does it do the fun things that I actually want 
    it to do?

Those aren't the only questions that people can ask about a phone or a mobile OS. I particularly would like a mobile OS that isn't tied to an advertising company (Google) and isn't a black box (iPhone). I don't even have full comfort over everything running on my Android device. I have no way of knowing which companies can access the data on that device and the ways with which they can access it.

If those are things you don't care about then yea, you certainly shouldn't care if FirefoxOS "wins". However, them "winning" shouldn't be looked at as them gaining dominant market share in mobile OSes, but rather (a) the open web prevailing and gaining development resources, (b) having a legitimate option for people who DO care about what software is running on their devices.

> I particularly would like a mobile OS that isn't tied to an advertising company (Google) and isn't a black box (iPhone).

http://source.android.com/ http://www.cyanogenmod.org/

Plenty of choices of Android builds that have no closed-source Google code whatsoever.

> I don't even have full comfort over everything running on my Android device. I have no way of knowing which companies can access the data on that device and the ways with which they can access it.

That has nothing whatsoever to do with the OS. You think just because it's Firefox OS suddenly OEMs are going to open source their drivers, ship unlocked bootloaders, etc...? If so, I've got a bridge to sell you.

The article cited Panasonic as an organization interested in Firefox OS. To whom is Panasonic marketing its TVs? Gearheads like us who might care about the OS, or the mass market?

If the mass market, they aren't going to say "Not Android! Not iOS!" because many will ask "Why not? Those work pretty well, this won't work with my phone, ARGH!"

Instead, they will focus on capabilities, features, things that set them apart, and will not discuss the OS. Though they will have very carefully crafted messages about how their TVs do support interacting with your favourite smartphone.

As to the gearhead market, speaking as a recovering gearhead myself (:->), well, that's who Linux appeals to, right?

So it devolves into "Ubuntu Vs Firefox OS" for phones aimed at neckbeards.

No offense intended in any way. All tongue partially in cheek.

But the OS is irrelevant to the mass market and the market of people who care about the OS is relatively small. Good enough to support a few laptop suppliers here and there, maybe niche phone makers, but nothing big.

Broadly speaking, there are at least two communities on Hacker News: 1) People who want to grow big successful businesses based on tech, 2) hackers of all ilks and stripes who don't fall into #1.

My guess is that most of the people in Group#1 don't care what OS they use, what tools they use, as long as they deliver the capabilities and support the vision they require.

So my original comment was really about the hyperbolic statement that "we want Firefox OS to win". My bet is that many in Group#1 don't even care. Some do. More in Group#2 might. But to assert that everyone here does? Not so much.

(I love the Internet. I could care less what it runs on. Cisco Vs whomever is just so not interesting to most of us - unless we're "Group#2 networking gearheads".)

Actually, OS choice does make a lot of difference.

If the OS is open source and well documented, the process for rooting, jailbreaking or exploiting the device on which it is running will be much easier.

The same couldn't be said about Apple TV, the 3rd generation and beyond is completely locked down.

I personally use Airplay extensively, it saves time transferring video files to my HTPC when I can beam them directly from my laptop.

tl;dr your experience represents you, no one else, stop trying to pretend otherwise.

tl;dr your experience represents you, no one else, stop trying to pretend otherwise.

Absolutely spot-on! Thank you for making my point better than I could!

Read the quote to which I was responding, that most of us here want Firefox OS to win. That represents the experience of a plurality but not all.

I don't care what anything runs on, because the cool stuff happens when you connect people and things. I don't understand the brain's operating system and don't need to to do cool thing with other people.

> We do?

Yes, we do. We, as in many of us here on HN, do want Firefox OS to win. And by win, we don't mean that other platforms have to lose.

Spare us the lectures about "normal consumers" not caring. We know all that. But we, the technologists, the ones who write apps and web sites, do often care about platforms, and some of us think that mobile platforms arena would be more interesting with a web-based platform in the game. The world is diverse. There is room for a variety of mobile platforms to fill in a variety of spaces.

Actually some of us hope that mobile brings back the browser to its right place, interactive documents.

I think it's "every one of us who wants to write native apps for mobile devices"

Even if only to exert more pressure on the competitors. If they feel some breath on their back, it can only increase the chance that your device of choice will be solid, do useful things and be pleasant to use (plus, last but not least, affordable)

I don't think anyone can reasonably expect Firefox OS to "win" over iOS and Android in the foreseeable future. In fact, the target market is completely different; Firefox OS is marketing itself as a no-frills, low-cost alternative with an emphasis on developing countries. In that space, I think it can definitely "win", but it's far too late for it to compete with the big players in the developed world.

Android is free AND has widespread driver support from SoC vendors. Firefox OS uses more hardware resources to achieve the same tasks and has less vendor support. In fact, what little driver support it currently has from vendors comes from the fact that it's actually sitting on top of Android (a fact that's often ignored).

Which one is low-cost again?

I don't mean cost in terms of software efficiency. I mean that Firefox phones are generally going to cost less (in terms of money) than Android ones. As a plus, you don't have to tie your phone to any company's services (Google, Apple, etc). And don't forget that Firefox OS is much newer than Android, so you really can't compare them side-by-side like that.

Let's drop the dramatic fanboyism, hmm?

> I mean that Firefox phones are generally going to cost less (in terms of money) than Android ones.

I know what you meant, I was pointing out you were wrong. If the device costs more to an OEM to make (which Firefox OS does), then it's going to cost the user more to purchase. This is basic stuff here...

> As a plus, you don't have to tie your phone to any company's services (Google, Apple, etc).

Android isn't tied to any company's services.

> Let's drop the dramatic fanboyism, hmm?

Er, right back at you?

Exactly - are we hoping for Firefox to win, or just to survive?

I don't care if the Firefox OS wins, as long as its APIs are standardized and incorporated into other OS's.

Deleted comment

But there are a lot of APIs required. Web apps didn't have access to even basic things like the phone dialer before (on Android or iOS at least).

Probably to win over a different target: Nokia.

In that case, I'm sure not hoping for them to win. Nokia hardware has always been my favorite.

Firefox OS is not tied to one hardware manufacturer. Indeed Nokia hardware is great - I'd like to find time to port fxos on my n9!

Clearly Nokia has switched OS at least once (Windows Phone) but I see them a lot like iPhones. The software and hardware comes as a package. They are apart from the Samsung/HTC/Huawei/LG/IForgetTheRest group that runs whatever OS is useful.

The G1 was released as a high-end flagship smartphone to compete with the iPhone. The ZTE FxOS phones are low-end smartphones competing in the feature phone market.

Yet, as it is five years later, the latter has considerably better hardware.

But upon the initial release in 08, Android had already been in development for some 5 years.

Maybe, but among other things, it was also running Java code on a pure interpreter :)

I don't have any personal experience of either the ZTE Open or G1's performance, but an ancient Android phone shouldn't be a hard target to beat.

Missing the key detail that huge parts of the Android stack, even then, were not interpreted Java. (Skia, for example)

This is very amusing. The G1 had barely enough RAM to load the system, with very little left for apps. I have one (my first Android phone when it first came out!) and it is still in perfect condition, only useful for testing apps on the absolute minimum of hardware to see if they run OK.

This is saying alot about the performance of Firefox OS!

Also, with lots and lots of money...

Mozilla vs Google competition is always a lot better than Google monopoly on open-source OS market.

I would just like to say that getting paid to work on Firefox OS all day long is my dream job.

If there are any Firefox OS devs reading, I would love to chat about what I should be doing now to improve my chances of joining the team towards the end of the year.

As a current owner of a Panasonic "smart" TV, replacing the current OS with literally ANYTHING would be an improvement.

When it's not being annoyingly convoluted to operate, it's being horribly slow to operate. The Youtube app looks like what happens when management signs off on the design as static mockups - it's gorgeous on screen, but scrolling is a laggy mess. Using the search function (complete with a "keyboard" that is 1D) is so clunky that even the app encourages you to pair your smartphone to avoid it.

The underdogs are sort of in the same boat: Firefox, Ubuntu and Tizen... if apps developed with HTML5 are cross-platform (well, easily portable between the three), it would certainly be a good booster.

On the other hand if there's no talks carried out behind the scenes adressing this aspect, it's not a good portent.

Submission title originally matched the linked article's headline. De-editorialization?

> Developing an app for Firefox OS really is as simple as building an HTML5 web app.

Building a high quality HTML5 web app is hard and complicated.

> Despite its many benefits, there still just isn’t a whole lot of excitement for the Firefox OS. That may change though if LG, ZTE, or especially Panasonic can create compelling hardware to show off the open source software.

Despite what benefits? What does Firefox OS do better than everybody else? If Mozilla wants consumers to adopt it's OS, it should focus on features that actually matter to users, otherwise, it will be just a platform for vendor/carrier crapware.

The ZTE Open is noticeably better/faster/more responsive after manually installing the FFOS 1.1 update.

Not keeping me from giving it to a friend, though - I was not as impressed with FFOS as I thought I would be.

> On the phone front, LG showed off its entry level phone, the Fireweb

Interesting, given that LG just announced WebOs on their TVs: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-01-06/lg-unveils-inter...

I have to wonder if there's any level of compatibility between Firefox OS and webOS. The app development process for both would be pretty similar, I'd imagine.

> Despite its many benefits, there still just isn’t a whole lot of excitement for the Firefox OS.

What are its benefits other than not being controlled by Apple, Google, or Microsoft?

The only benefit the author cites is HTML5 apps which can be built for any OS using a variety of different platforms.

You can't really use HTML5 and feel like a native app on iOS at least.

As someone has written before, Microsoft caught the last train with its WP. It's too late for non-revolutionary mobile OS to win a reasonable share of market (and no, crappy ubiquitous script language is not a revolution).

Any hope of using this phone in America with Sprint?

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