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Firefox OS – video presentations and slides on the OS, WebAPIs

hacks.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox OS – video presentations and slides on the OS, WebAPIs

#41

Post by pcwalton »

slacka wrote: post #37
leeoniya wrote: post #13

i haven't been this excited about something in a long time. what i wouldn't give to hack my own phone without learning proprietary platforms.

Then get yourself a Nexus Android phone today. The OS is completely open source, with a whole community built around hacking phones, XDA. You can get much better performance out of Java than you could ever dream to with JavaScript. Many of FF OS's hardware APIs are Mozilla specific, no different than Android's.

All Mozilla phone APIs are being standardized. Some already are. None are intended to be Mozilla-specific.

You can track the implementation here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI

Re: Firefox OS – video presentations and slides on the OS, WebAPIs

#42

Post by lbenes »

zobzu wrote: post #21
sp332 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, you got me. It's GNU/Linux.

Actually its Android/Linux A lot of parts are non-GNU. Specially the proprietary drivers.

So basically, you're getting an Android phone, minus the 700,000 Apps? Thanks, but no thanks.

The whole idea of using HTML, CCS, and JavaScript as the back end technology for a low-end smartphone is nuts. Even the best HTML rendering engines are CPU and memory hogs. CSS was never designed for and is nearly impossible to hardware accelerate, and JavaScript is notoriously difficult to optimize and even the best VMs like V8 run orders of magnitude slower then Native code, while the VM itself takes up a massive amount of memory.

Mozilla should focus on building a competitive browser. At the end of the day, I want a responsive fast phone, like the iPhone or Galaxy S3, not some dog slow HTML5 monstrosity.

Re: Firefox OS – video presentations and slides on the OS, WebAPIs

#43

Post by slacka »

leeoniya wrote: post #39
slacka wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then get yourself a Nexus Android phone today. The OS is completely open source, with a whole community built around hacking phones, XDA. You can get much better performance out of Java than you could ever dream to with JavaScript. Many of FF OS's hardware APIs are Mozilla specific, no different than Android's.

i run CM7 nightly on my original Evo 4G (WiMax). i have done a fair bit of customizing it, but without learning Java in addition to the huge android framework, it's a pretty gnarly task to make significant changes. i think that firefox OS will do to the smartphone ecosystem what github did to open source contribution revival. not having to touch the OS guts, and just scripting against some additional APIs is a huge w…

CM7? Why aren't you running ICS? Even the official Sprint firmware has been upgraded.

Yes, JavaScript has come a long way with the latest engines. However, it's still a long ways away from being competitive with iOS or Android NDK Apps. Even Mozilla's poster child for the potential of HTML5 in 3D gaming, Banana Bread, is 4-10x slower than its native counterpart Cube 2.

Re: Firefox OS – video presentations and slides on the OS, WebAPIs

#44

Post by sawrubh »

thelukester wrote: post #38

Mozilla has lost their way with Firefox, and are becoming like MS. They have a slow, bloated browser that runs terribly on Android. Instead of trying to make the best browser for the platform, they created FF OS, locking the user into their platform and API standards, just like MS tried to do when it bundled IE in Windows. I had a WebOS phone and despite loving the beautiful UI and it being ahead of iOS in many ways…

Regarding your comment on HTML5 being "laggy", I think you should take a look at https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/11/html5-mythbusting/

Besides, Mozilla is not trying to tie down anyone to it's platform, because the platform is basically the Web, which is open to everyone. There are many things which distinguish it from other platforms like you can host your "apps", which are nothing more than simple websites, on your own site and not necessarily Mozilla's MarketPlace. Mozilla is working hard to reduce the memory footprint and make the apps responsive[1] and by the time it comes out, I think it's going to have a really good performance.

[1] - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=797189

Re: Firefox OS – video presentations and slides on the OS, WebAPIs

#45

Post by pstuart »

litmus wrote: post #34
hnriot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the use of "retarded", IDK, but that's usually considered non-pc by Americans. Especially in such close proximity to "child"

thanks. to be clear then, the program is "bad and ill-timed" because there is no educational framework or material ready to support the tablets. so by the time it does start rolling in, there's a danger that the devices will be out-dated.

I'm jumping into this game as an experiment to get khan academy working properly on a Nexus 7.

Re: Firefox OS – video presentations and slides on the OS, WebAPIs

#46

Post by nickik »

pajju wrote: post #19

Mozilla nurtured the web with Firefox. This is yet another great project for the Mobile ecosystem. I always wished for myself and for the larger web community a 'Rock solid web based Open' Mobile Platform. And it is happening fast. All such advancements are only possible today, as we have faster Javascript engines, can leverage Cloud services, access to cheaper hardware and much faster Internet Penetration and adopti…

As a little addition I would hope that the can finally get away from the C++ world and build a lot of these new things in rust, but I think rust is not quite at that point jet.

Re: Firefox OS – video presentations and slides on the OS, WebAPIs

#47

Post by thelukester »

mercurial wrote: post #40
slacka wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then get yourself a Nexus Android phone today. The OS is completely open source, with a whole community built around hacking phones, XDA. You can get much better performance out of Java than you could ever dream to with JavaScript. Many of FF OS's hardware APIs are Mozilla specific, no different than Android's.

It's open source in the sense that the source is available. It's not open-source in the sense of being a community project. As for Javascript vs Java, Javascript has come a long way. Recent JS engines are pretty fast. Not to say that it can't be tricky to maintain a large base of JS code, but that's a different debate. I for one am looking forward to it, though the lack of apps compared to the other two dominant ecos…

"not open-source in the sense of being a community project." Android is no less a community project than FF OS. And it does have a great community of outside developers around it, XDA. Check out the forums.

If you want to contribute back, Google has been good about accepting patches into its AOSP project. For patches they won't accept, there's always CyanogenMod.

"JS engines are pretty fast" Good enough for simple text based apps and casual games, yes. Modern 3D games, not by a long shot. Native code, NDK, or Java under HotSpot are the only decent options creating for modern responsive 3D games.

Re: Firefox OS – video presentations and slides on the OS, WebAPIs

#49

Post by sp332 »

lbenes wrote: post #42
zobzu wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually its Android/Linux A lot of parts are non-GNU. Specially the proprietary drivers.

So basically, you're getting an Android phone, minus the 700,000 Apps? Thanks, but no thanks. The whole idea of using HTML, CCS, and JavaScript as the back end technology for a low-end smartphone is nuts. Even the best HTML rendering engines are CPU and memory hogs. CSS was never designed for and is nearly impossible to hardware accelerate, and JavaScript is notoriously difficult to optimize and even the best VMs lik…

This isn't a new competitor to iPhones etc. It's a platform for inventing the next set of web APIs. You're getting a phone that encourages apps to be web apps instead of locked in to one platform. Users can get any phone they want, with any OS they want. Web apps will not be crippled. They can access the phone functions, the camera, location etc. Since web apps are now first-class apps, developers can write one app that runs on all phone platforms. Users still get to pick a "native" app ecosystem they like, but they will also get first-class web apps that work on every phone.

My browser runs fine on my current phone, and MozillaOS is even closer to the metal. Both WebGL and "normal" web apps look good, and they've just started. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...

Re: Firefox OS – video presentations and slides on the OS, WebAPIs

#50

Post by litmus »

pstuart wrote: post #45
litmus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks. to be clear then, the program is "bad and ill-timed" because there is no educational framework or material ready to support the tablets. so by the time it does start rolling in, there's a danger that the devices will be out-dated.

I'm jumping into this game as an experiment to get khan academy working properly on a Nexus 7.

that's great to hear, more power to you.
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