Firefox OS devices officially released • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox OS devices officially released

#91

Post by mwcampbell » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 3:28 PM UTC

Yoric wrote: post #74

mwcampbell wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love what Mozilla is trying to accomplish with Firefox OS. I hope it succeeds, and I don't want to be negative. But I'm not convinced about this part: > Firefox OS offers the best cost-benefit ratio once you think about how much performance you have against your hardware specs. If you pick the same low-end hardware with Android or Firefox OS, Android will have a worse experience, not because Android is broken in an…

> Android and Firefox OS both also have a VM to run managed code, along with a JIT compiler. Android's VM, Dalvik, was specifically designed to be memory efficient in the case where several apps are running as separate Unix processes. Is the same true of SpiderMonkey? Short answer: yes, SpiderMonkey has been designed to be quite memory efficient. > But on top of this, Firefox OS and its apps add: Actually, let me cla…

Your argument is quite plausible. Android has indeed accumulated several APIs: ANSI C, POSIX, various Khronos APIs (OpenGL ES, OpenMAX), a subset of J2SE, and Android APIs (both Java and native, with some overlap between the two). I can accept that offering only web APIs leaves much more room for streamlining the lower layers of the stack. Maybe a future Firefox OS phone will run a new processor that was specifically designed to execute JavaScript.

And perhaps my earlier point about HTML+CSS and web layout engines being designed for documents, not UIs, was too handwavy. One might argue that there is a sort of Greenspun's tenth rule of UI toolkits: Any sufficiently complex UI toolkit contains an ad hoc, informally specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of HTML and CSS -- and then probably contains a full Web browsing engine, too.

It seems to me that the Web technology stack has plenty of inelegance of its own. But no platform is perfect. Maybe the Web platform, exposed to developers on its own without making the lower layers available, really is the best we've got.

Can you explain why you think the Java storage APIs are ill-suited to mobile devices?

Re: Firefox OS devices officially released

#92

Post by glogla » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 3:33 PM UTC

sergiosgc wrote: post #73

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #45

I think we are "almost there" in terms of freedom of choice and usage of our mobile device. We are still dependent on the carrier - e.g. Telefonica - to have our phone running our OS of choice. Of course, we have unlocked phones, but that's another thing, another price too. I wish my experience with mobile phones were the same as with laptops: every two years or so I step into a shop and buy a low-end machine on sale…

I used to do that with laptops. Then, I switched to the opposite end of the spectrum. I spend inordinate amounts of time in front of my laptop. If I'm going to outspend myself, it is on the laptop. The personal concession is that laptops must now last at least four years. Now, whenever I need a laptop, I buy the best Lenovo I can find (well, not the absolute best, I aim for best-ish; price curves on laptops are stupi…

Now if only they put 14" fullHD IPS display into T430 so I can do that as well.

Re: Firefox OS devices officially released

#93

Post by znowi » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 3:47 PM UTC

I'm really excited about Firefox OS. It's a timely alternative to iPhone Garden and Android PRISM :)

Re: Firefox OS devices officially released

#94

Post by networked » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 4:14 PM UTC

drdaeman wrote: post #44

kimlelly wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is currently the most open mobile OS. Count me in!

Opennes's nice but is it single-person hackable or huge monolithic blob that nobody except the most skilled teams would dare to bite? My problem with Android is that I miserably failed to hack it alone (I wanted to mess with app permission system and make it work my way). The Behemoth seem to have quite a steep learning curve, so I quickly lost my way in its innards. However, I was able hack Maemo (except for proprie…

Despite much of it being proprietary Nokia's S60v3 platform, a Symbian derivative, was/is if not easily hackable (due to the whole certificate business) then at least very easy to write basic apps for. This is thanks to a great Python interpreter [1]. With it I built an RPN scientific calculator with a custom GUI and years later a remote control program for Motion [2] in about an evening each, including (re)learning the API. Thanks to PED [3] I was even able to write small text-based programs on the device itself (though I'd recommend against that if you don't have QWERTY phone; programming on a Nokia N73 was hard enough back in 2007). If you happen to have a phone that runs a variant of Series 60 give Python a go.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_for_S60. The final 2.0 build sadly broke some networking code. There were very few people complaining, so it didn't get fixed. I suggest using version 1.4.5 instead if you choose to play with it.

[2] http://www.lavrsen.dk/foswiki/bin/view/Motion/WebHome

[3] https://code.google.com/p/ped-s60/

Re: Firefox OS devices officially released

#95

Post by seabrookmx » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 4:17 PM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #31

AndrewDucker wrote: post #8

I'll be very interested to see how well these take off in the countries they're launched in. I don't see them as much of a competitor in the UK/US/etc.- the people there that want a smartphone have one that's much more higher powered. But in countries where most people can't currently afford smartphones, this offers them the chance of having one. And if they can then start to cannibalise sales from beneath, they have…

I don't believe people anywhere in the world will keep buying phones for $800. I believe this has been a fad and it's starting to fade.

Why pay $800?

I can buy a brand new unlocked Nexus 4 for $305 CDN. This is a top tier smartphone.

Re: Firefox OS devices officially released

#96

Post by seabrookmx » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 4:20 PM UTC

dan1234 wrote: post #53

netcan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you need to compare these to whatever low end android you are likely to find in a local retailer: galaxy mini, Xperia tipo, etc. My guess is that Mozilla see the low end as the most vulnerable angle. Apple aren't going low end. Android aren't excluding it, but There is always demand at the lower end. Handset makers are happy to fill it. Android might be the best current option, but Google aren't focused on th…

Although it's not generally their style, I wouldn't rule Apple out of a grab for the budget sector. Rumours concerning a low end, plastic iPhone have been gaining momentum for some time now and they already practically give away the previous generation spec'd phones.

Agreed. They used to do this with the plastic Macbooks (hence their popularity at Colleges/Universities). Also the iPad mini, though more expensive than some of its Android competitors, doesn't command the premium price usually associated with an Apple product.

Re: Firefox OS devices officially released

#97

Post by glogla » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 4:23 PM UTC

Yoric wrote: post #33

PommeDeTerre wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox OS will need to successfully compete against BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile, bada and the other quite obscure mobile OSes long before it'll have a chance to even begin competing against Android or iOS. Many of these alternative systems have actually shipped on numerous devices, and have actual users. And how exactly is it "different"? Firefox OS is really just a limited subset of what we already have available…

Oh, hello PommeDeTerre. Haven't we had roughly the same conversation last week on another thread? > Firefox OS will need to successfully compete against BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile, [...] Yes, a new product needs to compete with existing products. That goes without saying. > And how exactly is it "different"? Frankly? Try it, you'll see. For me, it's different insofar as I can write a small game and self-publish it…

I'm curious about this:

> Of course it can. On low-powered phones, FirefoxOS tends to outperform Android by a large margin. This means that you can have the same experience with cheaper phones.

I don't want to imply you're lying or something, but is there something to support this claim? For example, I have Huawei Ascend G300 here (1)(, and apparently I can install FFOS on it. Is it going to be faster than CyanogenMod 10.1?

(1): Pretty popular model here in Eastern Europe -- of course, iPhones are way more popular because they cost about 150% of median monthly wage and thus are a great way to show you're rich.

Re: Firefox OS devices officially released

#98

Post by asadotzler » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 4:26 PM UTC

AndrewDucker wrote: post #18

diggan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not running Firefox per se, it's running a OS called Boot 2 Gecko[0] and will probably not be updated simultaneously as desktop/mobile Firefox. Yeah, it supports almost the same functionality with some additional things (like WebAPI[1], APIs for hardware access) [0] https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAPI

Yes, but Gecko is the engine of Firefox, so I was curious whether the version of Gecko (and of the JS engines) are kept in sync.

That depends on what you call "in sync". Firefox browsers and Firefox OS share the Gecko engine but the browsers are currently a few versions ahead of the OS because it takes longer to get all the ducks in a row for a new mobile phone release than a browser update.

Re: Firefox OS devices officially released

#99

Post by glogla » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 4:34 PM UTC

Yoric wrote: post #74

mwcampbell wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love what Mozilla is trying to accomplish with Firefox OS. I hope it succeeds, and I don't want to be negative. But I'm not convinced about this part: > Firefox OS offers the best cost-benefit ratio once you think about how much performance you have against your hardware specs. If you pick the same low-end hardware with Android or Firefox OS, Android will have a worse experience, not because Android is broken in an…

> Android and Firefox OS both also have a VM to run managed code, along with a JIT compiler. Android's VM, Dalvik, was specifically designed to be memory efficient in the case where several apps are running as separate Unix processes. Is the same true of SpiderMonkey? Short answer: yes, SpiderMonkey has been designed to be quite memory efficient. > But on top of this, Firefox OS and its apps add: Actually, let me cla…

I appears that new project starting from clean slate, and being able to use newest research and learn from mistakes of others, and therefore being better than the original project, is a pretty common pattern.

For example, see LLVM and GCC. LLVM is better compiler simply because it has much less legacy code to understand, maintain and support, less platforms, and mostly because it's twenty or more years younger. Similar thing can be stated about screen and tmux, apache and nginx, X and of course wayland (the whole point of Wayland is to do just this), and perhaps other tools.

While this may look sad, it shows, that despite the fact that everyone is still using algorithms from the 60's to find shortest path in a graph (1) it shows that our field is evolving. And that's a good thing.

(1): at least I hope. If there's a new one, please tell me!

Re: Firefox OS devices officially released

#100

Post by alsocasey » Tue, Jul 09, 2013, 4:34 PM UTC

rimantas wrote: post #36

Yoric wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, hello PommeDeTerre. Haven't we had roughly the same conversation last week on another thread? > Firefox OS will need to successfully compete against BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile, [...] Yes, a new product needs to compete with existing products. That goes without saying. > And how exactly is it "different"? Frankly? Try it, you'll see. For me, it's different insofar as I can write a small game and self-publish it…

> Caveat: I'm a Mozillian. Oh. If your view resembles that of the most of mozillians then I think Firfox OS is already doomed. What you wrote might appeal to some developers, but it means little to users. And I am not sure how many developers are interested in platform in which users are not interested. Looks like when Blake Ross left Mozilla so did understanding the user.

Windows desktop dominance was once (long ago) secured using much the same approach: make it easy for developers to develop and self publish on your platform.