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Comments on news posted 2013-02-26 08:24:32: According to a Mozilla blog post, the company's new phones will be available at seventeen carriers at launch when the new devices arrive later this year: América Móvil, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Hutchison Three Group, KDDI, KT, MegaFo.. ..


gigahurtz
Premium Member
join:2001-10-20
USA

gigahurtz

Premium Member

I love the idea, but..

I believe Mozilla is a little late to the party. I just don't see this grabbing hold long enough for them to get help with funding the marketing of it. iOS and Android have such a firm hold on this area that it's going to be tough to draw anyone away. They'll need a strong app market and some decent marketing. I hope it works out well for them.
kaila
join:2000-10-11
Lincolnshire, IL

kaila

Member

Re: I love the idea, but..

This is a manufacter/carrier play to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, and it's sweeping the mobile industry worldwide. Samsung's Tizen OS and the upcoming Ubuntu mobile OS are two other examples of this.

AnonPerson
join:2000-08-26
Lexington, KY

AnonPerson to gigahurtz

Member

to gigahurtz
said by gigahurtz:

They'll need a strong app market and some decent marketing.

This is exactly why I wouldn't even bother buying one of those phones personally. Android has such a wide market of apps now, why would I ever want to switch to a phone that has no apps?
xenophon
join:2007-09-17

xenophon to gigahurtz

Member

to gigahurtz
said by gigahurtz:

I believe Mozilla is a little late to the party.

This could work as a replacement for featurephones. It only needs a 300-500Mhz processor. Will cost much less for carriers to subsidize so they may push this on the low end.

I like the concept. Many apps on smartphones don't need to be a separate app, like a CNN app. Just do it all in HTML5 but bundle it so that it is downloaded. HTML5 could be bundled and run as a local 'app' offline too. Could be done in a much smaller footprint than a full blown app. To see how powerful HTML5 is, check out web based version of Command and Conquer.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

Sprint listed but phone not in USA soon

The first wave of Firefox OS devices will be available to consumers in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela. Additional markets will be announced soon.

Even though Sprint was listed as one of the carriers, don't expect the FF phone in the US soon. Most news items are quoting 2014 as the time the FF smartphone will come to Sprint.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

Really, this is a marketing model?

A phone that unlocks the power of the web but marketed to places with no wireless web coverage? Brilliant! This is like marketing violins to people who have no chin.

For everyone else (those in emerging economies with remotely decent wireless infrastructure) there are already dirt cheap Android handsets available with an established customer and developer base....read economies of scale.
fiberguy2
My views are my own.
Premium Member
join:2005-05-20

fiberguy2

Premium Member

Stick with making a browser

... Seriously, what's this need for every app maker out there to have their own phone? This is no different than Facebook wanting to have their own phone. Firefox should spend more time trying to fix their memory leaks first. Furthermore, who's going to make the phone, a bunch of volunteer contributors? Just a bad move seriously. If they're looking to toss some money away I'll take it.

This is one of those situations where too many cooks will spoil the soup and the soup is phone market place. Android and Apple have it pretty much locked up. I don't even think MS will make too much of an impact past a few sheep who think Windows 8 was a great idea. *barf* And RIM wants to join the party again? The issue I think is in the app stores.. There's plenty of activity going on in the app store and the play store.. how many developers are going to be biting and the bit to invest and develop their apps for yet another player in the market place? ... I doubt we're going to see people rushing to make the windows, blackberry, facebook, and now firefox versions of their next app.

The fact that facebook even wanted to get into the phone business only exposed one thing, plain and simple.. greed. What puts apple and Google apart from the rest is that they spent years putting together an ecosystem that was ready for something like this. Microsoft, while they have a LOT of real estate, never seems to pull anything large off for any period of time.. and I for one would never make a move to them because they always seem to "dabble" in things and ultimately wind up ditching it. (It's only time before they ditch Windows phone and 8, in my opinion)... so who's next? Foursquare going to make a phone because they have a popular check in app?

I don't care where they launch this phone of theirs, I bet it will ultimately be a flop.. plain and simple.
ConstantineM
join:2011-09-02
San Jose, CA

ConstantineM

Member

Good luck to Mozilla!

Apple's iOS is mostly very polished, but closed source and you can't tinker with the OS and the hardware. Priced very competitively, but not exactly cheap.

Android is just too buggy (the praised Google Nexus line is full of bugs and polish issues), and even the most popular apps usually suck. Google Voice on iOS rocks, "same" Google Voice on Android sucks; same for Yelp, Twitter etc.

I think Mozilla might have a very interesting platform a couple of years from now. Looks like their target is budget devices, but, hey, there are still many people all across the world (and that includes NA) who don't have smartphones!
xenophon
join:2007-09-17

xenophon

Member

Re: Good luck to Mozilla!

I have over a hundred apps on my Android phone and not aware of one that is buggy.

The carriers will decide if FF has a chance and given the cost of device is much lower, they may make it happen. Not to replace iOS/Android but as a target to replace featurephones. FF could add a skin to iOS/Android that would allow FF users to 'upgrade' and migrate to iOS/Android if they want a full smartphone.
34764170 (banned)
join:2007-09-06
Etobicoke, ON

34764170 (banned) to ConstantineM

Member

to ConstantineM
said by ConstantineM:

Apple's iOS is mostly very polished, but closed source and you can't tinker with the OS and the hardware. Priced very competitively, but not exactly cheap.

iOS is falling behind Android very quickly with OS development. The walled garden with apps sucks. Too often there are no apps that fulfill your requirements or they're not allowed in to the app store.

KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium Member
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK

KrK

Premium Member

I like the idea.

The idea of being able to install a different "OS" on a phone also appeals to me.
NiteSn0w
join:2010-12-24

NiteSn0w

Member

I can't wait!

I've used FFOS on my Nexus S 4G and it's extremely quick and responsive. I think this is mostly due to the fact that they use code from the Linaro project to make the OS run super smooth.

Currently I'm waiting for a better build of FFOS for my Nexus S 4G as I really don't have the resources to build a copy myself.