Android One | Hacker News Reader

Android One

officialandroid.blogspot.com

173 pointsadidash169 comments

> To help ensure a consistent experience, Android One devices will receive the latest versions of Android directly from Google. So you’ll get all the latest features, up-to-date security patches, and peace of mind knowing your stuff is always backed up.

This rings a bitter note for me -- I bought a Galaxy Nexus a while after it came out and I was really surprised how quickly Google discontinued updates for it. Is it expected that "the next five billion" will also buy a new phone every two years?

To quote Google:

> Galaxy Nexus, which first launched two years ago, falls outside of the 18-month update window when Google and others traditionally update devices.

(I still own the phone and I have the latest Android because of Cyanogenmod, but again, this is not something that can be recommended to "the next five billion".)

> Is it expected that "the next five billion" will also buy a new phone every two years?

Absolutely! The whole phone market is one huge study in planned obsolescence. It's doing even better than cars in that respect. And the tablet market isn't far behind.

And probably for the better in case of mobile phones. Can't say the same for cars personally.

It's just a reflection of the state of maturity/pace of development of the industry. I remember when people used to replace their computers once ever two/three years. Nowadays, it's more like 5-7 years.

On the contrary, the main reason iPad sales have stalled appears to be that they have such long useful lives compared to other types of computer. My wife's father has my old iPhone 3GS and my wife is using my old iPhone 4, four years old and now running iOS 7, though when my contract expired shell get herself a 6. I'll stick with my 5 as I usually cary an iPad so the larger screen isn't as much use to me. These things last for ages.

I honestly don't know his long other peoples devices last or are used, but mine have so far had pretty decent useful lives compared to most desktop computers I've owned.

*Receives automatic Android updates for up to 2 years.

http://www.android.com/one/

I guess the poor can replace their phone every two years like the rich.

Or survive on a slightly older version of Android?

It's not about having the latest & greatest, it's about having a secure device. Imagine hundreds of millions of devices with security holes no longer being patched after 2 years.

At least XP was supported for over a decade. Having a device as expensive as a phone (for the market) no longer patched after 2 years isn't a good idea.

Seriously, i think many people don't care about the Android version they are running and won't care to check for updates even if they are available.

> won't care to check for updates even if they are available.

At least in 4.4 you automatically get a notification when an update is available

Yes, but i think this "i want the latest update" argument is much exagerated on HN, but not so much important for Joe User. My gf just bought a cheap android phone and i told her that it won't receive any updates but she didn't care. Offering to check for updates (the nerd that i am) she still refused. She just doesn't want to be bothered with it. I suppose that is true for many people. And, to be honest, Android didn't have truely interesting new features for several releases. I own my google phone, and it's nice for me to be on the latest releases all the time, but truth be told i couldn't tell if my phone ran 4.0 or 4.4.

Ah. Yeah possibly, if people are approaching it like they used to approach phones: what's there is what will work.

Personally I come to smartphones from a x86 PC point of view, so not being able to reflash/reinstall whatever OS I like is a disaster already, to say nothing of no OS updates :).

But on phones not targeted to enthusiasts this is probably not a problem.

Isn't this situation rapidly changing? A few years ago, people wouldn't dream of 'installing apps'. But now, many non technical people install apps. In fact, I know many non technical people who are more eager to install apps. A developer might think, ah I'll write a program to do this and do that. Non techies only think in terms of what apps can I do some job.

I bought HTC desire for my wife couple of years ago inspite of her insisting she won't have use for a big phone. Now, she uses it for Whatsapp, Facebook, Pinterest etc. In fact, she seems to know more about these than I do some times.

I'm not sure how installing currently available apps compares to installing future core OS updates, can you explain what you mean?

There are two forms of this argument. Many people don't care about new features but everyone needs to care about security updates and, eventually, a relatively recent browser. If they don't care yet, give them one major exploit and they will next time.

Many Android users have a distinctly inferior web experience because they're running a copy of WebKit from 2011 or so but they'd be perfectly okay with an upgraded browser which has the same UI but supports the more recent features supported by the sites they use. Unlike the app situation, this is more noticeable because sites upgrade outside of your control and Android's fragmentation means that many sites won't make it a major priority when deciding whether to backport or simply disable new features on older devices.

Many things (namely google apps, play services, some security patches) have been separated from the core OS, leaving only deep changes to the OS update.

Ya, the people don't care and that's the problem for us developers.

App development sure is easy if large percentage of the user base are on the latest version of the OS, Apple does win here.

Stop supporting them after two years and they'll have to upgrade.

I completely agree. The point is even worse for "the next five billion" because they are the people that buy the previous generation phones. No matter what Android One costs, previous generation Android One will cost less and be almost equally useful.

I really feel the right, responsible thing to make the next five billion secure is to support previous generation phones as long as the phones are still the same functionally.

Continuing with my Galaxy Nexus comparison: GN is a 2011 phone and it seems nothing is on the horizon for 2015 that's going to make it obsolete -- the new phones look and feel the same as it does.

(I know it's anecdotal, but being Central European, I am the only one in my family with a phone that runs Android 4.0 or higher (no iPhones either) -- they all have either Android 2.0 or pre-OS phones. I say this to stress that people here really do stick with their phones as long as they work.)

The Galaxy Nexus is a special case, because its SoC producer (TI) stepped out of the smartphone market and apparently the drivers were closed source. The Nexus 4 and 5 will probably fare better.

Although in contrast to e.g. Safari on Android, Chrome does get continuous updates, even on older phones. But, of course, the general point is still true - most Android phones are updated for a miserably short period. Cyanogenmod deserves a lot of credit of lengthening the lifespan of devices.

Didn't you get the memo? This is the Brave New World where everything runs in Javascript or on Google's servers. Security? Isn't that one of those 'privacy' things that terrorists like? </s>

To be fair, Android One's "up to 2 years" is a huge improvement over the typical update policy in this price bracket: not in a million years.

It also happens to be the EU's consumer-warranty period.

hardware warranty does not mean software updates

The EU warranty regulations say that a device should function properly for two years. So, the scope is definitely wider than just hardware warranty.

Well, in this case, 1st/2nd generation devices do function properly with Android 2.3/3.0 - you just can't install some apps on them...

He'll have to, unless he prefers to choose Firefox OS

Isn't it likely that two years from now the price for a new phone will have dropped? So it could go from ~$100USD to maybe ~$70USD. Even if you upgraded something like an iPhone every 5 years it would cost more though. I could buy these for 10 years at $100 and still only pay $500, which is about what a high end phone costs that lasts half of that 10 year span (maybe).

Anyway, I think a lot of the complaints about not being able to update your OS stem from iPhones turning into bricks.

cough iPhone 4S, released in 2011, can be upgraded to iOS 8 cough

Just sayin'

because the phone explodes automatically after these 2 years ?

In countries where Android One is targeted, Data is expensive.

Also the main target for these phones: People that are not used to Tech (Including people who never went to school).

I don't think Auto updates even for two years is a good. Most of the target audience would not appreciate a Major Upgrade of OS.

In the India launch at least, Android One is launching with FREE mobile data for OS updates and Play store downloads.

Did your phone stop working? It's annoying but your phone is perfectly usable even without the latest Android version.

Perfectly usable, maybe, but there are security fixes in each and every version of Android.

A desktop browser from 2012 is absolutely full of security holes, no matter which one you look at. There is zero reason to believe mobile browsers would fare any better (and they haven't, so far).

More and more people do their banking on their mobile devices. And Google's solution to the password problem is a shared secret on your mobile. So, is it really usable? It would be a matter of perspective, but I would argue a no.

All those off-contract phones have got to end up somewhere...

At least you have the option of installing Cyanogenmod.

Look at the iphone. The old ones you can throw away. There are security holes that have not been patched and there is no alternative OS you can run on them.

I have an old iPhone 4. I bought it when it was released four years ago and the latest supported iOS version is 7.1.2, released this summer. That’s four years of support, which is quite decent IMHO.

I, too, have an iPhone 4. However I never updated to ios 7 because by Gods I liked the skeuomorphic paradigm. I think about 2 months ago was the first time I hit a roadblock that made me want to update.

I have an iPhone 3G, that was released six years ago, and the latest supported OS is 4.1.2. Not that it is usable with this version, latest usable version was 3.x.

It inhabits the drawer for several years already.

I posted this elsewhere on the thread, but in case you missed it, you might find that this project breathes new life into that old device. http://www.whited00r.com/features?lang=en

Thanks, I noticed it. Meanwhile, I ordered a new battery for the phone, so I can play with it during weekend :)

iPhones get updates for 4 years.

My 4S will get updated to iOS 8 (it came with iOS 5).

> there is on alternative OS you can run on them

There is Whited00r. I have an old loaner 3GS that runs snappily on it. Since Apple is quite good at supporting older devices and an iPhone 4 is still (for a few more days) able to run the newest iOS, projects like whited00r remain obscure compared to the cyanogenmod.

Wow, thanks for this, I didn't even know it exists!!!

99% of people won't bother so it doesn't help developers. I hope Google supports phones for about 4 years. My Nexus One lost official support after 18 months.

I currently believe the viability of cyanogenmod is a myth and that its irresponsible to perpetuate it as an option. I dearly wish to be proven wrong.

When I tried to find cyanogenmod images for mainstream Samsung models, I could not find anything viable to make it worth even trying. Some users will report it works but the majority have show-stopper issues with one or more of: wifi, battery life, stability, phone calls, gps, performance etc.

I suspect its unrealistic to ever expect an open source project to provide an up to date production ready image of an OS and closed drivers for 100s of different hardware models without substantial community interest and commercial funding.

Out of warranty mobile phones are just too complex, too fragmented and too niche a need to service properly.

While the OS remains open source, Cyanogen Inc has venture funding and at least one phone[1] comes pre-installed with the OS. So there is interest in maintaining a production ready image.

I don't think the complexity/fragmented argument holds when a similar situation with GNU/Linux exists, which supports many, many permutations of hardware.

[1] http://oneplus.net/one

He probably was referring to the Galaxy Nexus, which I assume has decent enough (probably perfect) CM support. Like you say, achieving compatibility with every piece of Android hardware out there seems unlikely, mostly because of proprietary binary drivers.

I don't see how that makes CM unviable, though. You just have to factor in CM compatibility into your buying decision. That means either basing a decision on past experience (ie. based on previous models, any new Nexus hardware -- if there is any -- should be ok), or waiting a bit after new hardware is released to see how it turns out. Of course the latter option is pretty painful for most of us.

It's too bad Google doesn't seem to care about any of this, though. It would have been nice if Android One devices came with guaranteed access to/documentation of the proprietary driver blobs, or, better yet, open source drivers for all components, or anything in that vein. But I think we're long past expecting stuff like that from Google.

> When I tried to find cyanogenmod images for mainstream Samsung models, I could not find anything viable to make it worth even trying. Some users will report it works but the majority have show-stopper issues with one or more of: wifi, battery life, stability, phone calls, gps, performance etc.

I wonder if the mainstream models you're talking about are the ones with locked bootloaders. It would be interesting to know which ones are more likely to get attention than others.

Only with the upcoming iOS 8 release have Apple ended support for the iPhone 4 (the 4S remains supported), a phone released over four years ago.

I'd say that's pretty good going.

But how much did the iphone 4 cost? If you pay $800 over 8 years thats $100 dollars a year. This thing only costs $100 every two years.

Of course the TCO of a low-end smartphone is going to be considerably less than that of a high-end model.

Nevertheless, no one is forcing Apple to pour their profits into extended support for older models.

If anything, the incentive is to end support sooner and push consumers to trade in their old devices for newer models.

Well, that high end phone will become low end phone in two years, or even faster if you can't update its OS. So, in this case we are comparing, 2 years of high end phone + 8 years of low end phone against 10 years of low end phone for half the price.

I don't really see what point you are trying to make.

Very few people keep the same phone for ten years; most people upgrade every few years, such that their high-end phone never becomes deemed a low-end unit.

If you're particularly cost-conscious, and don't see the added value of a high-end phone, then buy a low-end phone.

My iphone 3g loaned to me by a friend after my wife dropped two Android G1s (yes, really. She loves the keyboard. LOL) is barely useable. It had IOS 4? 5? and was sluggish to the point of frustration. I can't help but feel the same may happen to my ipad 2 when IOS 8 comes out. On the other hand Google stopped updating my Nexus One with Android 2.x on the device. Sure you could run a hacked port of 4.x but again it was sluggish. Your choices are semi-usable and secure and fast but dangerous.

There's really no motivation for Google to keep issuing security patches for Android 2.x when there's a $129 4.x device floating around. And Android One does mention making the devices affordable. It isn't exactly green tossing a phone ever two years, but if they're priced like a commodity at least isn't as teeth-grindingly troublesome either.

Well did you get the international edition? Because I did, and that was even worse. Samsung managed the updates and had their own branch of Android for the phone. It both lagged the Google version and stopped at 4.2.x, which was terrible because the Galaxy Nexus suffered dearly from the flash fragmentation issue which was only fixed in 4.3.x.

I managed to flash the phone to the Google branch and get it to 4.3.x after being stuck on dog slow phone for over 6 months, made it usable again.

> I bought a Galaxy Nexus a while after it came out and I was really surprised how quickly Google discontinued updates for it.

This is likely because it used a TI OMAP processor. TI left the mobile field, fired thousands of engineers and instead focuses on industrial/automotive. OMAP was dead in the water shortly after that phone appeared. I'm guessing that probably meant no support or driver updates.

It's funny because the Moto 360 runs an OMAP 3 processor and Motorola is still owned by Google until the sale goes through, so it's not like Google refuses to use or update OMAP processors anymore.

This is mostly why the Galaxy Nexus no longer gets updates.

The Galaxy Nexus was also born from a not-so-great partnership with Samsung, who was at the time maneuvering into a position to compete directly with Google (e.g. Tizen).

Hmm.. this "next five billion" market will hardly ever connect to the Internet, even if they do, OS upgrades might get pretty expensive for their data plan.

If Google could make really cheap quality Android phones that this segment can buy every two years, it will be a quite good accomplishment( or if Google could partner with carriers to offer these updates for free then it will be even more awesome ).

They talk about this:

In an effort to reduce data costs, if you have an Airtel SIM card, you’ll get these software updates for free for the first six months. As part of this same Airtel offer, you’ll also be able to download up to 200MB per month worth of your favorite apps (that’s about 50 apps overall) from Google Play—all without counting toward your mobile data usage.

I bought a Moto G specifically for its claim of staying up-to-date (and some other cool features), so I hope that I'll get major updates for years to come, lest I have to go to Cyanogen.

People in this thread are shocked, SHOCKED! that people would keep a phone for more than two years. Except for my gaming habit, my 5+ desktop would still have its original components, and my laptop is from 2010. Replace the battery, and it's a champ.

Annual hardware upgrades shouldn't be a "thing" unless desired.

I agree, but the hardware manufacturers have a very strong incentive to get you to buy new hardware. As long as the device makers have any hand in releasing software updates for their devices, software updates will be a problem....

I live in Africa. When is it coming here? I'd love to have a cheap, supported android phone.

Most affordable android phones here are "tecno" (chinese samsung knockoffs), but it's notably hard to flash since not many people with the know-how own any.

By the way, if you do have the know-how to port i.e. cyanogenmod to a new device please get in touch - I'll be glad to send you a few handsets, and you'd make loads of people in developing countries a solid :)

Those are all mediatek phones which they refuse to honor GPL and release the kernel sources. I suspect Android One will be the same. You can check out the CyanogenMod porting guide and pull the kernel and recovery settings from boot.img, modify clockwork mod with settings you found in boot.img to get root access then flash(most Chinese clones use fastboot to flash) CWM recovery and run a script in the porting guide they have to yank proprietary binaries off the device and attempt to fully port using the pre-compiled kernel you ripped from the boot image. I did it with a Mediatek i9300 clone from Alibaba but built and ran Replicant mod on it instead of CyanogenMod. Some things won't work like proprietary GPS and NFC but I didn't want those anyways.

If Android One Mediatek kernel is released can use it on matching Chinese clones unless it's some special kernel/chipset only made for Android One device. If we are lucky and that chipset is mass produced by Alibaba suppliers, and Google has the kernel source available we can get even cheaper phones than the One and run better software on it.

http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Doc:_porting_intro

It's available now http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/09/16/android-4-4-4-kernel...

Not really a fan of Google negotiating unmetered access for Android to cellular data like this. I think Google/Apple/BlackBerry/Windows Phone/Xiaomi/random OEM should all have equal access to cellular data and let the user choose.

Yes. Sounds pretty much a net neutrality issue.

If everybody has to pay for updates then probably nobody will update. I'm generally in favor of net neutrality, but it does backfire at the low end.

It's remarkable how much of an effort they're making to hide the screen resolution (which I suppose may vary depending on manufacturer, but doesn't appear to be part of the required spec?). The only one I could find was for the "KARBONN ANDROID ONE SPARKLE V BLUE" which is FWVGA 480*854 pixels.

Colour me skeptical. The biggest problem, as I see, with all these phones is the obsoletion rate of software. If they had pledged to do their best to keep the platform running on the oldest of Android phones, all those phones would immediately be given away or sold cheaply to poor people. They don't need to port all bells and whistles to each of their previous platforms, just the minimum required to keep simple apps (not games, not multimedia) running across all devices. I have a few such "obsolete" devices myself. The only thing wrong with the hardware is that their easily replaced batteries are dead. I'd certainly give them away if they could be of much use now.

In my experience, older Android phones can be fairly useful. There are some great audio recording & guitar tuning apps which work offline, making the devices handy for capturing musical ideas. Keeping the devices in airplane mode dramatically increases their battery life. Additionally, if you want to bust out a dedicated charger, they can act as IP cameras. Great for watching your motorcycle when it's parked outside in a city.

Here's a KickStarter which aims to use old Android devices to passively collect audio in rainforests, with the aim of halting illegal logging. [1]

TLDR: If people choose to write software for these devices, they can remain useful for a long time.

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/topherwhite/rainforest-...

Feature phones are still the reality in a large swathe of rural India. Cheaper android phones will definitely help change that situation. I wished that android one phones came with free 2-3 months of 2G packs so that millions of people could have their first taste of 'Internet'.

>millions of people could have their first taste of 'Internet'.

Eternal September 4.0?

Had to lookup that reference. For others - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

However, what events do 2.0 and 3.0 refer to?

It's just my rough mental approximation of how many times such a situation has already happened (even if Usenet is to all intents and purposes dying/dead, it still applies to the internet as a whole).

Imagine a billion people with poor to no English and no previous experience of concepts even similar to the internet all gaining access at once.

Well, you don't have to know English to use the Internet.

If people who don't speak English get onto the Internet in droves, I would imagine they would flock to sites catering to their language, until the point where they learn enough English to join the English speaking parts (assuming they have interest in learning English, which they may not).

The Internet does have sites dedicated to other languages. I frequent reddit.com/r/de, which is reddit but completely in German.

I agree, but they probably won't go to Reddit :)

In Argentina and Uruguay we have some local communities, such as Taringa! (spanish-language community)

There's probably one or several equivalents in the locals' language :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taringa!

And, it is a pretty interesting opportunity for Indian entrepreneurs :) (and Indonesians, Pakistanis, etc :) ).

Edit: what would be the Indian, Pakistani, Indonesian equivalents of those sites?

What other interesting times do you refer to other than the actual one?

Firefox OS will help more ;-)

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/08/29/firefox-os-smartpho...

Believe it or not the biggest barrier to adoption in those countries is not income per se as the middle class has been growing for over a decade, but trade barriers and import tariffs that make even the cheapest phone ridiculously expensive by western standards.

Compare the prices of some Chinese android phones in their home market with the prices in India. A Gionee model that went for around $230 in China sells for nearly $400 in India, almost twice the price. And is not as if the Chinese don't pay any taxes.

India is a strange place in regards to pricing! I have no idea how Apple manufactures iPhone in China, sells it for $650 in US but will sell same one for ~$900 here.

They are saving transportation costs as we are right next to China. Maybe I'm missing something important but I will never get the logic of this kind of pricing.

They are saving transportation costs as we are right next to China.

They may not be coming directly from China. I was surprised to find out that in the Philippines, Japanese cars were much more expensive than in the US. It turns out that many of the the right hand drive models sold in the Philippines come from the US, not Japan. This was in 2005, but Japanese auto makers have been looking to manufacture more in the Philippines in recent years.

Import duties. Just compare Brazil against most other countries, too. 100% import tax on most things.

The three phones are:

* http://www.flipkart.com/spice-android-one-dream-uno-mi-498/p...

* http://www.amazon.in/dp/B00NEFFWF6?

* http://www.snapdeal.com/product/karbonn-android-one-blue/193...

Almost the exact same specs on all three phones.

>lots of processing power

>expandable storage

>dual SIM cards

>replaceable battery

I wish we could get a phone like that in the first world...

Shame the One's specs are actually very weak...[1]

[1]http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/android-one-smartphones-launched-pr... - TBFH google should be hit for false advertising calling that CPU/memory combo 'lots of processing power'. Lots in 2003, maybe.

Actual specs littered across the phone's store page on flipkart for one of the models: the Dream Uno [0].

Summary: 4.5" screen: 854x480 FWVGA 67mm x 132mm x 9.15mm GSM 850, 900, 1800, 1900 1.3Ghz Quad core 1GB RAM + 4GB ROM 2.27GB built-in usable storage, expandable to 32GB via SD [this storefront provides a free 8GB SD card] 2G/3G [notably seems to lack 4G?] 10/17hrs battery on 3G/2G

IMO, the lack of 4G option makes this a questionable choice. Dual SIM support temptingly makes up for it though, especially as I'm being a digital nomad.

[0] http://www.flipkart.com/spice-android-one-dream-uno-mi-498/p...

Try the Firfox Flame. Comes with better OS as well...

> I wish we could get a phone like that in the first world...

I just picked up a LG Optimus L90-D415 (refurb) direct from Tmobile for $80. The non-refurb is $100.

4.7 qHD (960 x 540) IPS Display 2,460 mAh battery 1.2Ghz Quad Core CPU - Snapdragon 400 Cortex A7 Adreno 305 GPU 1GB RAM 8GB storage (with microSD slot) KitKat (4.4.2) 5 megapixel rear camera, 0.3 megapixel front

I added a 32GB sd card, I wish you could default apps to installing to sd instead of having to move them (and a couple apps don't move). Really the only bad things are:

a) no soft buttons, and the hard buttons aren't lit. b) no ambient light sensor. by default there is a setting to adjust brightness as specific times (which sucks). But a $3 app (Lux) corrects the problem by using the front camera when you unlock the phone.

>no soft buttons, and the hard buttons aren't lit

Sounds like a massive plus to me. I hate onscreen buttons; a phone that has them has about the same negative added from that as it has from not having an SD card. Sometimes I play games, or use a terminal, and don't want to have my hand accidentally brush a button to close it.

The display is a bit small (Samsung Galaxy size is perfect; anything below is too small and above gets unwieldy) and the cpu/memory a bit weak, but I guess it's good to know in case Samsung ever stop making good phones.

Expandable memory and changeable batteries--these are features Google's been removing from its flagship Nexus phones, much to the consternation of those like myself who want modularity, flexibility, and open design. FM radio would be nice to have, as well. "Everything is in the Cloud" is a pipe dream. One can only hope that this South Asia phone is a worldwide trend and not just a concession to 3rd world shortages of data connections.

The Android One will include a Micro SD slot and the battery appears, and at a glance, to be replaceable at least in some capacity.

I was pretty surprised at microSD. Here I was, in the first world, being told that the reason microSD is being dropped from Nexus devices is that it's too difficult for software to support and users to understand. I'm a bit jealous, I could have skipped shelling out $50 for 16 GB of flash worth $5.

Android 4.4 has an entirely new external storage API, so with that, it appears that Google has now given their blessing back to microSD. IOW, I wouldn't be surprised if the Nexus 6 had microSD.

That is good news. 128GB microSD cards are around $100 currently, a shame that Nexus owners can't take advantage of these great storage options.

Data connections are getting more expensive, at least in the U.S., so the consumer needs to have the option of using local storage.

The most interesting thing is to see the presence of micro-SD cards, and the tacit acknowledgement that a lot of the world actually needs this kind of thing as the network isn't good enough. Let's hope this means the Nexus line get that.

Agreed. I only ever buy phones with SD cards, because:

* Streaming wastes battery

* Streaming wastes data usage

* Streaming costs money; especially stupid when I already own my music and don't like renting data

* Streaming is useless when a car/train is in a tunnel, when on a plane, or when just out of signal

* Most streaming services lack breadth (not enough bands) and/or depth (only having a small selection of music per band) of good music

* I don't trust streaming providers with my privacy

FirefoxOS has a better price point, and has an opportunity, of course hard job against the Goliaths.

FirefoxOS would be able to compete more effectively if it were installable on higher end devices.

What prevents it from being installed on high end devices?

Nobody wanting it.

Android has the smartphone market for people who want a device with customisability/moddability, good software support and options for hardware and the flexibility and power of having an accessible Linux system behind the scenes, while the iphone has the locked down walled garden "make all my decisions for me" market.

This. Competition is stupid. There should be only one viable option.

Could you please wave your sarcasm sign? I won't understand that you are joking, otherwise. Because you're joking, right?

Yes, forgot my <sarcasm> tags

Nothing. Look at the geeksphone Revolution

http://shop.geeksphone.com/es/moviles/9-revolution.html

Still, this is not the moment for Firefox OS to go after high end market.

Makes me wonder how many are sold with firefox rather than android. I'd bet good money not as many.

You haven't understand a single damn thing about it, did you? Nonetheless you'd be somehow right. The phone is sold with android and then it is up to you to install another OS that goes along with it, may it be WebOS, Ubuntu Touch or Firefox OS.

So I guess not as many are sold with Firefox OS rather than Android, because ALL OF THEM ARE SOLD WITH ANDROID AND NONE WITH FIREFOX OS!

Other than that, instead of talking trash all over the place about Firefox OS, did you even try it? And if it wasn't good enough for you, did you contribute to it? Because you know that half of it is written by volounteers, right? And if you can't code, did you file bugs in Bugzilla, right? Because certainly you are not just badmouthing Firefox OS without a clue of what it is and how it works and doing the best to improve it in order to have a better smartphone ecosystem that would benefit everyone, right?

>So I guess not as many are sold with Firefox OS rather than Android, because ALL OF THEM ARE SOLD WITH ANDROID AND NONE WITH FIREFOX OS!

Wikipedia says it's sold with either and can't dual boot.

>And if it wasn't good enough for you, did you contribute to it? Because you know that half of it is written by volounteers, right?

Ever hear of "throwing good money after bad"?

If I had free hardware, I'd certainly at least test it out and report any glaring bugs, but I don't have any interest in it as a platform. I don't like BlackBerry phones either, but nobody goes "just try them" there (iphones, though, have their own cult around them of course).

So I guess you don't have a computer and you are typing comments from a tablet? Because where there is Firefox Browser there is Firefox OS

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Firefox_OS_Si...

Yeah, it can't dual boot, right.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/the-geeksphone-revolution-g...

http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2014/02/21/geeksphones-revoluti...

https://searx.oe5tpo.com/?q=geeksphone%20revolution%20dual%2...

>So I guess you don't have a computer and you are typing comments from a tablet? Because where there is Firefox Browser there is Firefox OS

>https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Firefox_OS_Si....

Fair enough. Still, why should I give up my time to test a mediocre and ultimately doomed OS[1]? I probably would if I was paid to or there was some other benefit (even if it was Mozilla saying "test this for us and we'll stop messing Firefox up"), but I'm happy with CM which does what I need including many things Firefox can't.

[1] Plus, there's the question of whether testing on a computer using a mouse and keyboard bears any relevant resemblance to testing with a touchscreen, as no, I don't even own a tablet.

>Yeah, it can't dual boot, right.

If you're so enthusiastic, fix the wikipedia page then ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeeksPhone_Revolution

> Plus, there's … Try it and you'll find out.

You should contribute in order to improve the whole ecosystem. You should contribute in order to help it keep its promise (http://sergimansilla.com/blog/promise-of-ffos/ ).

You could also contribute in order to stop talking nonsense and gain the right to badmouth Firefox OS.

But ultimately… You said you would if you could. It's up to you: are you honest and can you keep your word?

So if you don't, please, just shut up, ok?

Just like with dekstops/laptops and Windows.

The main problem there still exists though: Everything-as-a-website (still) doesn't work, and nobody wants to write apps for it.

Plain false. Firefox OS is OS-as-a-website and it works. Marketplace[0] is full of apps. Not the ones you use on your own device, but those are not the ones Firefox OS was aiming for at this moment.

[0] https://marketplace.firefox.com

Firefox OS aims now at entry level and feature phones. Still, you can get a high end device, like the geeeksphone revolution or the Flame (lower). But high end smartphones users will likely be disappointed by Firefox OS in its actual stage of development.

I am suprised they don't mention the Motorola E ( or even G ). They also count towards budget phones and are already selling very good in India.

For really cheap phones it's hard to beat the used market.

Edit: A 2 year upgrade cycle on an original iPhone released in January 9, 2007 means people have replaced it 3 times. Toss in broken screens, work phones etc and you quickly get into the 100 million range.

The talk here is about smartphones. Of course a 10$ old Nokia phone will beat everything.

Remember the used market is only workable in countries with enough previous purchase history over a long enough period, most developing economies don't reach that point for quite a few years longer than developed countries for a given technology.

Cellphones are easy to ship. Hell, used cars are resold people in developing countries all the time.

http://www.economist.com/node/719514

Does it mention Firefox OS? Nope, right? Selling very good too. But we don't have to deduce anything from that, right?

This will nip in the bud whatever traction Microsoft was getting in India with Windows Phone.

Between this and losing the Nokia name, it's difficult to see why many Indian consumers would opt for a "Microsoft Lumia" over one of these high quality low cost devices that come with the vastly richer Android ecosystem.

I swear I've heard this messaging before...

http://conversations.nokia.com/2011/02/11/mobile-phones-the-...

Really brings home the weirdness of Microsoft's strategy with Nokia.

Instead of selling some Windows Phone in developed markets and lots of Series 40 in developing markets, they've ended up selling next to none in either.

The specs for these phones are basically somewhere between that of the Moto E and Moto G with removable battery. No reason it shouldn't be below $50 in a few years.

The price isn't bad but you can already get slightly worse Android phones for $70 in Russia, and cheaper in China.

Why wouldn't one buy Moto E instead ?

does anyone know if Google will release source for Android One phones to the same level as Nexus ? I have heard that Mediatek is notoriously closed source, so I'm wondering how this works out for the community/cyanogenmod at large

Most of rural India does not even have electricity. I wonder how they are going to charge their Android Ones.

Apparently 70% of India has electricity. I imagine the smartphone will sell mostly to those who have it. Though off the grid I guess they could get a solar charger in principle.

70% of physical area or people? I'm finding it hard to get good stats. If 70% of people then that means almost no rural coverage.

Here is a district-wise map of percentage of rural households with a. electrical lighting and b. mobiles. http://imgur.com/A7PXuwa

Surprisingly, they don't overlap. Numbers are from the 2011 census. Interactive version at: https://bl.ocks.org/ganeshv/raw/fada13e56d2c5b7b1a78/

I was thinking 70% of people. That figure is actually my guestimate based on:

"In December 2011, over 300 million Indian citizens had no access to frequent electricity. Over one third of India's rural population lacked electricity, as did 6% of the urban population." (Wikipedia)

Checking 2011 article "The rural-urban distribution is 68.84 per cent and 31.16 per cent respectively" (The Hindu)

Multiplying those by 1/3 and 6%, that would make it 75% had electricity around 2011 and presumably a bit more now.

If that indeed is the case, having cheap mobiles which people WANT to use, will probably divert PEOPLE's attention towards good supply of electricity throught out the country.

When I worked in the phone industry in India (2007) there were definitely communities that had near-complete phone adoption and near-zero electricity in the home. You don't need electricity to the home to charge a phone.

I assume you're talking about landline phones.

No, mobile phones. People charged them off diesel generators, hand generators, etc. There were in fact small-scale entrepreneurs who bicycled around to everyone's house, gathered up the phones, and returned them charged for a small fee.

This works pretty well for Nokia 1100 style phones which had about a week or so of battery life which many people extend to a month by turning them off judiciously.

Isn't 'One' a protected trademark in the mobile (android) phone world?

Fascinating. Barely noticed in the enthusiasm around the Apple Watch and Pay was the fact that Apple discontinued the idea of a "cheap" iPhone as a unique product. Apple will be the brand of the elite via $350 watches and Android wants to be the product of the masses.

Android Zero would be great too where you would only get security updates.

Is it flashable? Hope so.

apart from the moto e, what other cheap smartphones are already available in the west ?

I don't have a smartphone, but I don't want to spend a lot on one.

Some Lumia hit the 99euros or 99$ price tag and are quite decent.

The 520/1 are regularly on sale for $59 and less no with no contract

If you want Android then Samsung have a couple of android phones, called Galaxy Star, around the $120 price point. The low end Huawei phones are also around there and should be available in most countries.

That being said, by all accounts the moto e is a better phone than either of those options.

The other option I would seriously consider is a low end Lumia device (520 or 530). Sure it's Windows Phone and not Android, but if you don't have a particular reason to prefer Android you'll get a perfectly good smart phone for very reasonable price.

Take a look at Huawei. You can get a Huawei Ascend Y330 for around € 80,-

oh yes, I even see it for 60

the specs are decent

Firefos OS ones are the cheapest. If you want to spend a lot (well, no, not really, comparing to high-end devices) you can get a Geeksphone Revolution or a Flame, the developer reference phone

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/devices/ http://shop.geeksphone.com/es/moviles/9-revolution.html https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS/Developer_pho...

Your move Microsoft. If not now then when ?

anyone know who shot the ad/video for Android One?

Apparently Android one is for people under 40 only. (judging by the video)

anyone know who shot the ad/video for this?

Hey, looks like Apple had the right idea all along! Who knew?

What idea is that? Apple has been very successful with the high end of the market, which seems significantly different from Android One.

No thanks Google: the next five billion already have Firefox OS.

Firefox os phones are not even available widely in retail stores in Indian tier 2 and 3 cities. Android ones on the other hand I hope will be available in remote corners as well.

They're not because they sold out on launch day. They are coming.

That's true they sold out. However, I feel they will never be manufactured in numbers compared to android one initiative for India (I hope they do though). Probably numbering few millions at best, which is a drop in bucket for the huge population.

> However, I feel they will never be manufactured in numbers compared to android one initiative for India

Let's change that! Ask for Firefox OS phones and tell people about that: they are cheaper than Android, offer better performances and better long-term support.

Can you link to any figure telling how many Firefox smartphones have been sold?

YES! Let's get the next five billion messaging, emailing and browsing through the systems of one company. This will be great for freedom, privacy and competition!

Plaintext for people who browse with Javascript disabled: http://tj-markdown-paste.herokuapp.com/posts/504698

Does not work; "Couldn't find Post with id=504698"

Huh! Sounds like a site I will never bother to use again. Here you go http://pastebin.com/C2M5Ep5Q

So it's a high-quality android phone for $250? That's pretty freaking cool :). Open source, yay! Even if it's a NSA phone.

$250 is the monthly income bracket they target, the phone itself is on sale for Rs 6400, which is about $100.

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