First Firefox OS Smartphones in Africa | Hacker News Reader

First Firefox OS Smartphones in Africa

blog.mozilla.org

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I maintain a map of official launch countries for Firefox OS, with launch dates. [0][1]

[0] http://nickdesaulniers.github.io/where-is-firefox-os/

[1] https://github.com/nickdesaulniers/where-is-firefox-os

Could you possibly add an ETA to the countries where it's not at?

heh, yeah, if I _had_ that information.

When?! When?! One day, is that not enough for you?! One day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.

I find it odd that it has yet to reach the Nordics, given that one of their big partners are Telenor (the former national monopoly in Norway).

I was also surprised about that, and I'm from the Norway, Telenor's home-country of all places.

But looking at Firefox OS, the truth is that it aims to enter mobile from the deep bottom of the market, especially in emerging markets where smartphones has yet to establish a foothold across society. From there it aims to work its way up, rather than trying to "win" the lucarative ends of the market from either Android or iOS.

And in the Nordics, to be honest, we're just buying the highest end devices, and barely anything else. Firefox OS would (yet) not be able to compete in here. Maybe later, if it improves and matures, but only time can tell.

But hey. This strategy once worked for Google. I kinda doubt it, but there's no reason Mozilla can't make it work for them too. After all, supporting Firefox OS, mostly consists of writing a proper web-app, and we're all making those anyway.

And as a developer, god knows, I'd love to not to ever have relate to the Android API again if I could just deal with HTML and JS.

Yeah I think this is smart strategy by Mozilla. Establish and prove the OS without having to break carrier lock-in of other OSes

And as a developer, god knows, I'd love to not to ever have relate to the Android API again if I could just deal with HTML and JS.

I'm not an android dev. Is it not possible to develop "HTML and JS" apps on that platform?

Well, they did launch a high-end one in Japan. But I guess it's none-impression on the market speaks leaps and bounds to why that is not being replicated.

Shortly after release I went to an AU store, and they initially didn't know what I was talking about but eventually found one in a drawer that was out of battery.

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/12/22/mozilla-and-kddi-la...

This thing? Would love to get my hands on one.

Minor UI issue: the map size doesn't update when resizing the window.

Known issue [0], should be an easy fix.

[0] https://github.com/nickdesaulniers/where-is-firefox-os/issue...

Nice, where do you source the data? From Mozilla's publicity machine?

Internal documents that keep track of the "official launch dates."

The title of this post is confusing and misleading, as Firefox OS phones were launched earlier in South Africa. The post is obviously about the first phones launched by Orange as those in South Africa were launched by MTN. You could be forgiven for believing that Mozilla doesn't consider South Africa to be part of Africa.

Thanks for pointing that out. In fairness to Mozilla they do have the snippet "Earlier this spring, Firefox OS phones launched in South Africa[1]" tagged onto the end of their blog post.

I agree, the title of the post is a bit misleading and I have done further damage. Should definitely read ---> "Orange Launches [Their] First Firefox OS Smartphones in Africa" :)

[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2015/04/02/firefox-os-arrives-...

They have been available in the Philippines for a while now. As others have mentioned, they are at the low end here. Low end smart phones are almost not even smart phones. You get Android and not much else because you don't get the resources to run much. Storage is a major constraint, but so is RAM.

Without being able to install much for apps, that largely constrains you to the browser. I don't know much about FirefoxOS, but I imagine that's largely what drives the "application" of the phone.

I don't have much desire to own a FirefoxOS phone. Many of the people here who are limited to entry level phones don't have the money for data or an internet connection at home. Phones here are largely just shiny toys which shows off what you can afford. A FirefoxOS is better than a feature phone in that regard, but you are still treating it like a feature phone.

Question: Is a mid range tablet not the easiest or more obvious testing ground for an emerging mobile OS? Even a small tablet/music player?

Maybe it's easier technically, but nobody really needs tablets. Firefox OS targets the entry-level market, most people in this market will buy just one device.

Tablets seem to sell pretty well

It's what I've observed as well. Plenty of low-income people get cheap chinese tablets, usually generic-brand entry-level models. No idea about the price but I don't think they're a hair above $100, possibly less than half that.

Like the opposite of internet.org

Unless they really work on the price (less than 70$) for decent phones, I can't see ffOS doing anything major in Africa

As a point of comparison, you can get a Lumia 520 for less. It's a really decent smartphone too from a good brand. It will be interesting to see if Mozilla can yield the combination of quality/value to succeed.

Are you sure that you can get the 520 for the same price in Senegal as you get it in US or Europe?

Short googling - Lumia 520 costs R1,1549.00 and 1549 South African rands = 129.886748 U.S. dollars

In a matter of five years all african economies will surpass US due to the lack of WhatsApp on Firefox OS phones.

Btw. there's no "lack of WhatsApp on Firefox OS phones". I'm using OpenWapp on Firefox OS day by day. And it's working. Another WhatsApp client is ConnectA2 (which I didn't use by now)

Unless of course they invent their own WhatsApp, as many other regions have done. I mean, WeChat anyone? Chinese people refuse to use anything but that.

If you ask me, in five years another messaging service will be up-to-date. But you may be right, the internet at all is getting multi cultural. That will be really interesting times.

haha

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