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Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war

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Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war

#111

Post by randomchars »

GigabyteCoin wrote: post #108

>programmers could write an app just once with Web technologies that span not just iOS, Android, and Firefox OS, but also Windows Phone, BlackBerry OS, Tizen, Ubuntu and any other mobile operating system that arrives tomorrow. This, to me, is the most powerful prospect of Firefox OS. I have been "writing apps" in HTML, Javascript and PHP ever since I can remember. They are just as responsive and useful as any app I h…

> I have been "writing apps" in HTML, Javascript and PHP ever since I can remember. > They are just as responsive and useful as any app I have ever used on my Android.

I've yet to see any mobile web app that's as responsive and useful as a native one. They're slow, can't make use of platform features (e.g intents on android, native google login flow) and they always look out of place.

Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war

#112

Post by randomchars »

MichaelGG wrote: post #7
SwellJoe wrote: post #2

I'm unreasonably excited about Firefox OS. Android really isn't open enough for my taste, and my trust of Google has diminished over the years, as they've encroached on more and more of the web and my data on that web. Apple has always been awful for the open web. And I'd rather write JavaScript and HTML than Java.

Android's open enough for me, but what I find unhappy is that Google seems intent on tricking people into revealing more and more information. It often reminds me to turn on history tracking, despite having said no many times. Every time I use the Play store, it tries to get me to enter a phone number. The way it does this is by popping up a dialog, with no buttons except continue . It makes it look like you MUST do…

> They were paying devs in 3rd world countries $2000 to push out junk apps

Do you have a link for that? I can't seem to find any reference to it.

Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war

#113

Post by pjmlp »

_nedR wrote: post #100
jabits wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And of course, the idiotic permissions system. Want to check to see if a user's on the phone? Gotta also get access to who they call and their IMEI and other permanent identifiers. This bothers me the most about Android. What is the point of individual Permissions if it's all or nothing!!

The only reasonable explanation for me after years of slipping down the slope, and trying to rationalize and defend Google's actions such as : 0. Reading through all our email (We were so naive back then) 1. Google saying it would never link data from its other websites (Youtube, bloggr) with our Gmail id, and then going ahead and doing just that 2. Google announcing Android as Free, Open-source Operating System, the…

I guess it takes a while for people to realize any corporation is in the game for money.

Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war

#114

Post by r00fus »

fabrice_d wrote: post #40
on_and_off wrote: post #14

I really wish to see a great third mobile OS with a marketshare in the two digits. I appreciate the spirit behind FFOS, so I would like to see it take that place. I am not sure of how they want to achieve that though. However, AFAIK, FFOS does not really bring anything new to the table, so I have trouble seeing how it could make an impact in the first-world.

Not being tied to an app silo is pretty unique. Unfortunately most people are either ok with that or haven't yet realized. Uphill battle for sure.

One thing to note is that hardware and OSs exist to run apps. Some of these apps are built-in like Phone or Mail.

However, most are not, and may never exist outside that OS - games are a good example. When will Skype and Webex (two very important work uses of my phone) come to FFOS?

These problems go away if you are not courting heavy app users, but I would not call this an "App Silo" - these are investments people have made in time, knowledge and perhaps money, and even if they exist on another OS (see reviews for various Android apps that migrated from iOS like Audible) may not ever have the same feature set or usability.

Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war

#115

Post by darklajid »

fabrice_d wrote: post #60
xiaq wrote: post #56

Firefox OS, being based on HTML/CSS/JavaScript, sounds a lot more hackable than Android to me. Well, you can hack Android pretty heavily - forking CyanogenMod, writing Xposed plugins, etc., but Java is just obscure and the compile/deploy/debug cycle is too cumbersome for casual hacking. Hence I look forward to Firefox OS as platform I can easily hack, but I am not sure whether it really is. Could someone with experie…

* deploying apps is super easy - either host them on a web server or push them from firefox's webIDE, and remote debugging using the firefox devtools just works. * hacking core apps is totally doable. You need a rooted device to update them though. Currently the best ones would be nexus 5 or sony z3(c). * everything that is displayed is html/js/css. What you call "framework" here is part of the system app ( https://g…

Hijacking this:

Is is possible to replace system parts with 3rd party stuff? I'm mostly talking "change the keyboard" here?

If it is, is this possible by modifying/replacing the current keyboard only or can this be something out of tree?

Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war

#117

Post by icebraining »

fabrice_d wrote: post #85
icebraining wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Android lets you sideload apps pretty easily, and it even has third-party repositories like F-Droid.

That does not make the transition from iOS to Android or vice versa easier. Once you have invested in one ecosystem, you lose your investment if you switch. That does not happen on the web, where you can switch from a browser to another with a very marginal cost.

Actually, it does. For example, you can run them on the Samsung Z1 which runs Tizen (not Android), thanks to OpenMobile's compatibility layer: http://www.androidcentral.com/samsungs-tizen-powered-z1-riva...

Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war

#118

Post by xorcist »

SwellJoe wrote: post #58
xorcist wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That credit should probably go to Google, and to a lesser extent to Firefox (which at least tried). Google used the strong weight of Youtube to make sure all web browsers implemented a replacement, a long and tiresome process that took the better part of ten years. They bought companies and gave patents away along the way. I'm not sure exactly what Apple did. Please enlighten me.

Apple kept Flash off the iPhone, at a time when nearly all web video was in Flash, and when iPhone was the phone to have. There was much gnashing of teeth, but Jobs and Apple stood firm, and demanded the world come to them (which is their way, but in this case what they were doing was for good and not evil). It definitely wasn't just Apple. Google and Mozilla certainly played a huge role, and I definitely consider th…

Apple didn't keep Flash off the iPhone specifically. They made a blanket ban against all scripting languages when they realized they needed native apps after all and opened the App Store.

Adobe could have struck a deal there, given Apple their 30% and only allowed blessed scripts through the App Store. But they didn't. I would be surprised if there weren't neogiations about this, but in the end Adobe refused.

(Other scripting languages budged, which is why you can find Unity games in the App Store, but not Adobe Flash games. Unity was also banned at the same time Flash was.)

So if anyone kept Adobe Flash off the iPhone, that honor should probably go to Adobe itself.

Re: Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war

#120

Post by Aissen »

Here's what Mozilla needs to "fix" in Firefox OS IMO:

- have real browser. Seriously. Firefox on Android is a much better browser.

- handle the software, and the updates, Microsoft-style. Maybe have OEMs pay for this service, maybe involve the community. Seriously, all Firefox OS devices sold have an ancient version of the OS. It means I'm safer when I'm using Firefox on Android than when I'm using a Firefox OS phone. I understand the tradeoffs that led them to this decision (their dependency on the Android stack for example), but they seriously need to rethink it.

- allow for native code to run. I know it's hard. Even Google with it's uber-optimized (or so they thought at the time) Dalvik (for small phones) understood the need for the NDK. I'm not sure asm.js can cut it, as I've yet to see console-class games on Firefox OS like there are on Android and iOS.

- Of course, they need to continue their groundwork on APIs. There shouldn't be a thing you can do on say, iOS or WP and not in Firefox OS (and I'm not saying Android because it gives a lot of power to developers).

- They need a flagship phone, for everyone. Not a "developer phone" (although it can act as one), but a real flagship.

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