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Open Web Device

openwebdevice.com

61–70 of 97 posts

Re: Open Web Device

#61
post #50
post #29

Wow, what a thing to wake up to! At the heart of the Open Web Device is Mozilla's Boot2Gecko project. I just joined up with Mozilla on B2G a couple weeks ago and it's been an honor to work alongside so many amazing people, with a great goal: building a truly open mobile ecosystem. If you guys have any questions about B2G itself, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer.

web standards is greate but what if I want to port my multiplayer game that uses bluetooth for the communication between devices. How will B2G handle bluetooth and can my B2G app use it?

I'm one of the developers working on WebBluetooth and Bluetooth on B2G. If you're interested in progress, check out our metabug on it at

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=727618

This is where we're gathering the tasks for the project. It's still hardly implemented right now, and our main focus is headsets first. I'd like to get rfcomm going pretty quickly too so we can do fun hardware experiments. :)

In general, if you're interested in the progress of something on B2G currently, just plug "b2g [word of interest]" into http://bugzilla.mozilla.org. That's where we're keeping tasks/bugs related to gecko internals.

Re: Open Web Device

#62
"Qualcomm currently delivers the chipset for a large volume of Android based smartphones, which is the DNA of the device. By tightly integrating the Open Web Device with the chipset we will guarantee that any OEM will be able to manufacture a device with very little effort: it will be almost a plug & play procedure."

I think this is a bad idea. Why would you want to lock down the hardware at such an early stage?

Re: Open Web Device

#63
I hope that some sort of support for inter-app linking is supported.

One of the biggest problems with native apps on iOS and Android is support for moving from one app to another, but still allowing the user to easily return to the originating app.

At the moment, the only native support for this kind of feature that I can think of is maps support. For example, if you click on a Google Maps directions link on OS X, the Google Maps application is opened automatically instead of maps.google.com in the web browser.

Dunno if this would require a dedicated link button that remembers the app you came from to take you back there or not. Perhaps there is a more elegant solution. It's possible that Hypermedia JSON APIs could play a role in helping people move between apps.

Whatever solution is adopted, making it easy for the user to return to the originating app with ease is of utmost important, because this will create an environment where app developers will fill comfortable partnering with other app developers by including inter-app links.

Re: Open Web Device

#64
post #55

How is this going to handle updates? Obviously the UI/html5 portion will be trivial to update, but Firefox gets updated every six weeks. Is the system core going to lag behind the rest of the Firefox ecosystem, or ami I going to have to rely on my carrier or manufacturer to push out system updates every six weeks?

I'm curious about this too. The FAQ mentions they will update the core browser like Firefox normally does, but I wonder if that means they also need to update the web browser frontend (written in HTML/JS) at those times as well.

The entire "OS" that is visible to the user is effectively a XUL style iframe. You get an updated gonk/gecko core, and you're "updated".

Re: Open Web Device

#65

I hope that some sort of support for inter-app linking is supported. One of the biggest problems with native apps on iOS and Android is support for moving from one app to another, but still allowing the user to easily return to the originating app. At the moment, the only native support for this kind of feature that I can think of is maps support. For example, if you click on a Google Maps directions link on OS X, th…

Not really a problem for Android, it's what Intents are for and it powers all inter-app interaction. It's actually extremely slick.

Which is why Web Intents were modeled after it. They're surely coming to Gecko, if they're not already in place.

Re: Open Web Device

#66

I hope that some sort of support for inter-app linking is supported. One of the biggest problems with native apps on iOS and Android is support for moving from one app to another, but still allowing the user to easily return to the originating app. At the moment, the only native support for this kind of feature that I can think of is maps support. For example, if you click on a Google Maps directions link on OS X, th…

Not really a problem for Android, it's what Intents are for and it powers all inter-app interaction. It's actually extremely slick. Which is why Web Intents were modeled after it. They're surely coming to Gecko, if they're not already in place.

T think this is the Mozilla demo for intents: https://mozillalabs.com/blog/2011/07/web-apps-update-experim...

Re: Open Web Device

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really a problem for Android, it's what Intents are for and it powers all inter-app interaction. It's actually extremely slick. Which is why Web Intents were modeled after it. They're surely coming to Gecko, if they're not already in place.

T think this is the Mozilla demo for intents: https://mozillalabs.com/blog/2011/07/web-apps-update-experim...

Yup, that page links to http://paul.kinlan.me/web-intents-a-fresh-look

Re: Open Web Device

#68
Doesn't support + signs in email addresses. Awesome. Does not inspire confidence in a platform that is based on internet standards, where email is an important part of communication.

Re: Open Web Device

#69
post #46
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this similar to Apples initial idea with the first iPhone? Everything would be a "Web App"

Sort of. The key difference is that B2G is aiming to allow web apps to do absolutely anything a native app can do, whereas on the iPhone it was just intended to augment the native experience. That's how I see it, at least.

[deleted]

Re: Open Web Device

#70

Doesn't support + signs in email addresses. Awesome. Does not inspire confidence in a platform that is based on internet standards, where email is an important part of communication.

Feel free to file a github issue at https://github.com/andreasgal/gaia And since we work in the open, we also gladly accept pull requests ;)
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