Mozilla’s Firefox OS Gives The Open Web Top Billing On Mobile

http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/25/firefox-os-gives-the-open-web-gets-central-billing/

by jlongster • 13 years ago

73 41 13 years ago

daleharvey• 13 years ago

One minor correction, the geolocation API is available to all apps + sites, just as it is in the browser (with a confirmation)

contingencies• 13 years ago

... and manifest != manifesto.

figital• 13 years ago

I just bought the ZTE phone for cheap dev thrills when I have time .... I think the built-in FM radio tuner will be going with me to the ballpark though. :)

bob_loblaw2• 13 years ago

I have been surprised by the phone. Didn't think my $80 would go so far. A few complaints here and there, but not enough to keep me from using it as my full-time phone for now.

mike-cardwell• 13 years ago

I got one too, for development purposes. Wont be able to use it as my primary phone until it has OpenVPN and OpenPGP support though. Suspect I'll be waiting a while.

felideon• 13 years ago

A few complaints here and there, but not enough to keep me from using it as my full-time phone for now.

Same here, and unfortunately OTA is not working:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=908512

It's also a huge step up from my feature phone. :)

mahyarm2• 13 years ago

I hope they add C-library support soon so things like PhoneGap plugins can work with the OS. It seems like a natural fit.

Skinney• 13 years ago

Uhh... Wouldn't it make more sense to just create a PhoneGap wrapper in Javascript?

I mean, PhoneGap is mostly just javascript bindings for things like camera og sensors, which Firefox already has js bindings for, right?

mahyarm2• 13 years ago

If you have your own plugins or native libraries that none of the Firefox OS stuff will cover functionality for now or in the future, then no, it's not enough. Also games are huge part of mobile sales, and sales is the biggest driver of developer adoption. I feel like webOS's slowness in adopting native access kneecapped them in game porting. As a new platform, the less barriers the better to getting games ported, the better.

hansjorg• 13 years ago

As Skinney says, Mozilla are creating JS APIs for access to hardware and commonly needed phone features in Firefox OS. Check out the WebAPI list: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI#APIs

Some of these APIs are also available or planned for the Firefox Desktop and Android versions (availability column).

rhelmer4• 13 years ago

PhoneGap will be supporting FirefoxOS directly as a supported platform:

http://phonegap.com/blog/2013/07/31/phonegap-30-faq/

ubernostrum• 13 years ago

Sort of the whole point of Firefox OS is that the apps are just web technology, and it's coming from people whose mission is to promote open web technology. I don't see how "ignore the web technology and write apps in C" would further that mission.

Aldo_MX• 13 years ago

I'm still surprised that Telefónica is not selling them in Mexico... I'll have to wait more to get one.

bad_user• 13 years ago

I'm dying to get my hands on one of these phones. Unfortunately they aren't available in my country yet. Does anybody know how I can order one?

synchronise• 13 years ago

Ebay. I'm not even kidding, the ZTE Open is being sold semi-officially through there.

rhelmer4• 13 years ago

I am not privy to any details about this, but AFAICT it's official, not semi-official - http://www.ebay.com/itm/271258990669

The seller is named "zte_us", I don't know how that can be independently verified but Mozilla blogged about it and other outlets picked it up https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/08/12/zte-will-soon-start...

niutech• 13 years ago

They are on Amazon: http://amzn.com/B00ES1H0KK and on eBay: http://r.ebay.com/lrk5WY

mrbill2• 13 years ago

I picked one up just to tinker with, and am impressed so far. It's no Nexus 4, but it's not meant to be.

Apocryphon• 13 years ago

How does it compare to an older phone, say, a Nexus S?

mrbill2• 13 years ago

If I had to choose between the two I would pick a Nexus S running something like CM10 for my "daily driver", but everybody's needs are different. As a "first smartphone" I could see lots of people going for FFOS over a featurephone.

quadrangle• 13 years ago

The best part is the idea that apps are back to the web. The idea that I have to install however many apps is ridiculous. I want the conference "app" just for the conference and to save if I want. The idea that I could just go run an app for now and not permanently install… yay

Ok, the real best thing is that this is the best yet for privacy and freedom, better than any other phone out there.

engrenage6• 13 years ago

Right - just google for a different app every time you want to get something done.

Also, storing all your data on someone else's server is obviously the best thing yet for privacy and freedom.

thekingshorses• 13 years ago

Sorry, are you being sarcastic?

I already stored all my data on Google server thanks to Android. And I use google maps and google now so they know more about me than my wife does.

In fact most of my apps on android and iOS like linkedin, facebook, twitter, instagram, mint etc are storing my data on their server.

gcr• 13 years ago

What stops you from storing your data on your own server, or in LocalStorage?

rhelmer4• 13 years ago

For the example given ("conference app"), a chromeless web page that can optionally be saved as an icon to the homescreen seems appropriate. Web applications already have many restrictions on privacy - you need to fetch the data in any case, and these types of apps are sandboxed from each other too in FirefoxOS.

I do think it's worth thinking through privacy/security/freedom implications, here is my opinion (not necessarily my employer's):

All web apps can of course operate completely in offline mode (as well as privileged FirefoxOS apps[1], which have access to APIs to use more of the device features and are the bigger concern here) - all of the apps that ship with the phone do operate and store data offline, for instance (e.g. you can have a local calender, it's not stored on Mozilla's servers).

Knowing whether you can trust an app to treat your data as they say they will is not anything unique to the platform (who/where do you get it from, etc). Mozilla is very serious about this type of thing (I work full-time on various Mozilla server projects so I constantly experience first-hand how important this is to everyone, e.g. application design, handling crash reports, etc.)

However there does need to be a balance between the needs/desires of the platform provider (including built-in apps), third-party app developers and the end user - developers of third-party apps should have the ability to make choices about where data is stored, privacy policies and so on, and users should be able to install the apps that they want to.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS/...

rhelmer4• 13 years ago

To address your first point (my other comment was focused on the second):

You do not need to search every time, this type of app can be saved to the home screen. You could think of it like a bookmark to a tab that will run chromeless in it's own process (so no access to cookies etc. in your main browser process). For all practical purposes it is a low-privileged "hosted" app like any other - has it's own icon, possible to terminate, sandboxed and so does not share data with other apps.

FirefoxOS has a feature that allows you search and browse a set of these apps provided by everything.me but it's also possible to do this directly from the built-in browser app.

qb• 13 years ago

Apple patented the idea to temporarily install apps based on location: http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2010/05/apple-re....

danneu• 13 years ago

I believe the highest spec'd FirefoxOS phone so far (pre-orderable) is the 150€ Peak+ from Geeksphone: http://shop.geeksphone.com/en/phones/8-peak.html

BrianEatWorld• 13 years ago

I just received mine yesterday and this was the exact thing that struck me after a few hours. The integration is kind of subtle if you aren't looking for it. Once you realize its there, the whole experience seems revolutionary.

I don't know if its a direct result, but I could see how this integration yields a lot of benefits. For one, even with the low specs of the Open, things move much faster when compared to a similar specced Gingerbread phone I was using earlier this year. The way that the search works is similarly amazing as the apps load quickly, even without pinning them to the phone. There are also little things, like the fact that you can save animated gifs and have them run in the Gallery viewer.

It certainly has a long way to go with some aspects of usability. For one, I have yet to find a way to remove files without connecting to a computer. Navigation could also use some work, as some apps require you to start over instead of providing a "back" button.

Considering I bought the phone just to play around, I have been really impressed and can't wait to see it grow.

Mozilla’s Firefox OS Gives The Open Web Top Billing On Mobile

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