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Open Web Device

openwebdevice.com

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Re: Open Web Device

#2
I'm amazed how quickly they seem to be moving this. It wasn't that long ago that I first heard about Boot2Gecko (the wiki page is from last July), and now they already have some hardware partners and operators lined up. Quite a difference to the momentum behind MeeGo and Tizen...

I guess a big difference is that the driver here is Mozilla, a foundation that most players in the field don't see as a direct competitor, and which already has a very good name in the web space.

Re: Open Web Device

#3
It looks like all "apps" are web pages. I'm looking forward to seeing how well they can make it run things like Angry Birds.

And how well they deal with background tasks. On Android I can upload my photos in the background, or play music through Spotify (or my MP3 app) while I'm doing other things. Will I be able to do similar things here?

Re: Open Web Device

#4

It looks like all "apps" are web pages. I'm looking forward to seeing how well they can make it run things like Angry Birds. And how well they deal with background tasks. On Android I can upload my photos in the background, or play music through Spotify (or my MP3 app) while I'm doing other things. Will I be able to do similar things here?

On a web browser now you can already play music through an app (eg Google music) while you do other things. Don't see why they'd change it.

Re: Open Web Device

#5
I for one am very excited to see B2G finally ship. I'm anxious to see how well this OS performs and how well thought out is user experience is. I trust Mozilla, they build quality products. The competition is fierce though and the carriers ultimately have too much power here in the US. I really hope B2G is committed to competing in the mobile arena.

Re: Open Web Device

#6

It looks like all "apps" are web pages. I'm looking forward to seeing how well they can make it run things like Angry Birds. And how well they deal with background tasks. On Android I can upload my photos in the background, or play music through Spotify (or my MP3 app) while I'm doing other things. Will I be able to do similar things here?

"HTML 5" has the web workers API for background tasks. They don't work while you visit other pages, though. I guess they'll have to introduce a new API for that.

Re: Open Web Device

#7
post #4

It looks like all "apps" are web pages. I'm looking forward to seeing how well they can make it run things like Angry Birds. And how well they deal with background tasks. On Android I can upload my photos in the background, or play music through Spotify (or my MP3 app) while I'm doing other things. Will I be able to do similar things here?

On a web browser now you can already play music through an app (eg Google music) while you do other things. Don't see why they'd change it.

I guess the question is how they highlight things so I can easily switch back to the app that's playing the music, so I can pause it when necessary, how much space they make available to individual apps (I have about 5GB of music on my phone at the moment for Spotify), and what the model is for apps sharing data (so I can download a photo in one app, change it in a second one, and upload it with a third one).

I'm looking forward to seeing what their equivalent of "intents" is.

Re: Open Web Device

#8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a web browser now you can already play music through an app (eg Google music) while you do other things. Don't see why they'd change it.

I guess the question is how they highlight things so I can easily switch back to the app that's playing the music, so I can pause it when necessary, how much space they make available to individual apps (I have about 5GB of music on my phone at the moment for Spotify), and what the model is for apps sharing data (so I can download a photo in one app, change it in a second one, and upload it with a third one). I'm loo…

I'm looking forward to seeing what their equivalent of "intents" is.

Google and Mozilla are already collaborating on Web Intents[1], and Mozilla already has a proof of concept[2].

[1]: http://www.webintents.org/

[2]: https://mozillalabs.com/blog/2011/07/web-apps-update-experim...

Re: Open Web Device

#9
This is actually a big deal. It is a step in the right direction to take care of the missing pieces of mobile app development. I really believe that in 5 years time, "application development" will be just assumed to be web app development and not desktop application development.

Re: Open Web Device

#10
post #6

It looks like all "apps" are web pages. I'm looking forward to seeing how well they can make it run things like Angry Birds. And how well they deal with background tasks. On Android I can upload my photos in the background, or play music through Spotify (or my MP3 app) while I'm doing other things. Will I be able to do similar things here?

"HTML 5" has the web workers API for background tasks. They don't work while you visit other pages, though. I guess they'll have to introduce a new API for that.

webOS solved this by enabling apps to also ship Node.js code that would be able to run as background services.

https://developer.palm.com/content/api/dev-guide/js-services...

Given that Mozilla already made their JS engine emulate Node.js (http://blog.zpao.com/post/4620873765/about-that-hybrid-v8mon...), it might not be so far-fetched to think that something similar could be done with B2G.

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