Verizon backs Ubuntu smartphone
zdnet.com
Verizon backs Ubuntu smartphone
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Re: Verizon backs Ubuntu smartphone
#2The race for third place is heating up! It's very interesting to consider Ubuntu Touch vs. Firefox OS - what happens when two platforms backed by two champions of FOSS come into conflict?
Not that conflict is inevitable, and it's explicitly against the public mission statement of Mozilla, at least, but these platforms will still be competing with each other for the few devs and consumers who reject both iOS and Android (and WinPho, and BBOS, and Tizen...)
Re: Verizon backs Ubuntu smartphone
#3They've announced a number of companies to join their CAG. What is missing so far is any firm commitment that anyone is going to release one of these devices; without stuff likely to ship I don't see much likelihood of app developers doing anything on this platform.
Re: Verizon backs Ubuntu smartphone
#4The race for third place is heating up! It's very interesting to consider Ubuntu Touch vs. Firefox OS - what happens when two platforms backed by two champions of FOSS come into conflict? Not that conflict is inevitable, and it's explicitly against the public mission statement of Mozilla, at least, but these platforms will still be competing with each other for the few devs and consumers who reject both iOS and Andro…
It is two 'champions of FOSS' but only one clear winner for us privacy-conscious users.
Long-term Ubuntu user here looking forward to retiring my Android phone for a Firefox model. I just got a Nexus 4 for my wife and for the first time ever didn't replace my phone at the same time.
If Firefox releases something a bit higher-end in the next 6-9 months I am very likely to switch.
Re: Verizon backs Ubuntu smartphone
#5Would be good for T-Mobile to back Jolla ;)
Re: Verizon backs Ubuntu smartphone
#6The race for third place is heating up! It's very interesting to consider Ubuntu Touch vs. Firefox OS - what happens when two platforms backed by two champions of FOSS come into conflict? Not that conflict is inevitable, and it's explicitly against the public mission statement of Mozilla, at least, but these platforms will still be competing with each other for the few devs and consumers who reject both iOS and Andro…
It is two 'champions of FOSS' but only one clear winner for us privacy-conscious users. Long-term Ubuntu user here looking forward to retiring my Android phone for a Firefox model. I just got a Nexus 4 for my wife and for the first time ever didn't replace my phone at the same time. If Firefox releases something a bit higher-end in the next 6-9 months I am very likely to switch.
I'm pretty torn about Firefox OS.
On the one hand:
* Mozilla's at the helm. My privacy is more likely to be respected. * Whipping up Firefox OS apps is stupid simple.
On the other:
* They don't seem to want to target higher-end handsets. * There's no NDK and as far as I'm aware there are no plans for one. While most of my Android apps could be rebuilt easily in Firefox OS, the programs with 3D graphics or C library dependencies seem to be out of luck. * As an extension to the above, I can't write Firefox OS apps with Rust, which is shaping up to be a great language.
Re: Verizon backs Ubuntu smartphone
#7The race for third place is heating up! It's very interesting to consider Ubuntu Touch vs. Firefox OS - what happens when two platforms backed by two champions of FOSS come into conflict? Not that conflict is inevitable, and it's explicitly against the public mission statement of Mozilla, at least, but these platforms will still be competing with each other for the few devs and consumers who reject both iOS and Andro…
It is two 'champions of FOSS' but only one clear winner for us privacy-conscious users. Long-term Ubuntu user here looking forward to retiring my Android phone for a Firefox model. I just got a Nexus 4 for my wife and for the first time ever didn't replace my phone at the same time. If Firefox releases something a bit higher-end in the next 6-9 months I am very likely to switch.
(Mozilla developer speaking)
I've tested FirefoxOS builds for more "high-end" devices (in quotes, because it is nothing like my Galaxy Nexus and your Nexus 4), namely the Geeksphone Peak and the Nexus S (a guy in my office is doing the port on his spare time, so I could play with it for a bit).
In terms of scrolling/panning/zooming, say, in a list, in the browser or on the home screen, the phone is basically at 60fps the time, the only slowdown I found were some GC pauses from time to time when doing some weird stuff (opening/closing apps like crazy to stress test the thing, basically, could slow the phone down) or browsing heavy webpages (in terms of js and CSS).
From dual core and up, the phone is really nice (I personally found the Geeksphone Keon to be too low in terms of specs, the experience was too far from my Android 4.2 device). Apps are coming (I would not have bet on a decent app map, but Nokia's solution is very decent, tbh, altough we certainly need more than a nice map app), hopefully we have something to announce later this year (I don't work on FirefoxOS specifically, I know as much as you do). I also know we also started working heavily on supporting hi-dpi devices [1].
[1]: The branch where the hi-dpi work is happening https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/tree/v1.1.0hd
Re: Verizon backs Ubuntu smartphone
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is two 'champions of FOSS' but only one clear winner for us privacy-conscious users. Long-term Ubuntu user here looking forward to retiring my Android phone for a Firefox model. I just got a Nexus 4 for my wife and for the first time ever didn't replace my phone at the same time. If Firefox releases something a bit higher-end in the next 6-9 months I am very likely to switch.
I'm pretty torn about Firefox OS. On the one hand: * Mozilla's at the helm. My privacy is more likely to be respected. * Whipping up Firefox OS apps is stupid simple. On the other: * They don't seem to want to target higher-end handsets. * There's no NDK and as far as I'm aware there are no plans for one. While most of my Android apps could be rebuilt easily in Firefox OS, the programs with 3D graphics or C library d…
There has been very interesting results with emscripten ports of apps (I only saw video games, actually), that were using libc and raw gl. It was running ok, but I can understand that the lack of NDK is problematic when pushing the device to the limit. I'm curious on how we will address that (being a native developer working on Gecko myself, I'd certainly interested to do some crazy ARM NEON stuff on FxOS).
Re: Verizon backs Ubuntu smartphone
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is two 'champions of FOSS' but only one clear winner for us privacy-conscious users. Long-term Ubuntu user here looking forward to retiring my Android phone for a Firefox model. I just got a Nexus 4 for my wife and for the first time ever didn't replace my phone at the same time. If Firefox releases something a bit higher-end in the next 6-9 months I am very likely to switch.
I'm pretty torn about Firefox OS. On the one hand: * Mozilla's at the helm. My privacy is more likely to be respected. * Whipping up Firefox OS apps is stupid simple. On the other: * They don't seem to want to target higher-end handsets. * There's no NDK and as far as I'm aware there are no plans for one. While most of my Android apps could be rebuilt easily in Firefox OS, the programs with 3D graphics or C library d…
Thing is, there's nothing else that runs natively, it's just Gecko on SurfaceFlinger. FirefoxOS' UI is entirely implemented above that in HTML+JS. So there is no infrastructure that can be opened up to allow native apps, it would have to be written from scratch.
Re: Verizon backs Ubuntu smartphone
#10The race for third place is heating up! It's very interesting to consider Ubuntu Touch vs. Firefox OS - what happens when two platforms backed by two champions of FOSS come into conflict? Not that conflict is inevitable, and it's explicitly against the public mission statement of Mozilla, at least, but these platforms will still be competing with each other for the few devs and consumers who reject both iOS and Andro…
Wouldn't Ubuntu Touch and FirefoxOS be competing in the race for 5th place? Windows Phone has third place locked up, and Blackberry is a very strong 4th place right behind them.