Mozilla to open first-world front in Firefox OS war • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by krisgenre » Mon, Mar 02, 2015, 6:06 AM UTC

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…

I am a guy who gives everything to Google, have every god damn thing turned on on my Nexus. It's not that I trust Google, I have come to terms with the fact that privacy is dead.

The overall experience when you do give Goggle everything is quite good ( Google Now ) but I too second your opinion about Android permissions, its really idiotic.

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

#102

Post by tracker1 » Mon, Mar 02, 2015, 6:12 AM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #71

mkr-hn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is already working on the services. My Kindle Fire got a maps app (powered by Nokia Here) in one of the newer updates.

I have a Fire Phone with the Amazon maps app. I find it extremely disappointing after coming from Google Maps. No bike routes and quite clumsy UI. And, unfortunately, even though I've sideloaded the Play Store and installed Google Maps, the text is mangled beyond legibility, so I get lost a lot more often now.

Funny, after early today having to enter "Hospital" then "Emergency Room" into maps while in down town Phoenix, I found the whole experience pretty disappointing... Google should really work on that kind of entry.

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

#103

Post by tracker1 » Mon, Mar 02, 2015, 6:14 AM UTC

krisgenre wrote: post #101

MichaelGG wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am a guy who gives everything to Google, have every god damn thing turned on on my Nexus. It's not that I trust Google, I have come to terms with the fact that privacy is dead. The overall experience when you do give Goggle everything is quite good ( Google Now ) but I too second your opinion about Android permissions, its really idiotic.

Yeah, it was pretty wild when I am seeing even reminders (flight times, show times, etc) from stuff that I received in my gmail inbox. It's convenient, and makes sense, but a bit unexpected.

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

#104

Post by tracker1 » Mon, Mar 02, 2015, 6:18 AM UTC

_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…

Maybe the NSA should just outsource their IT operations to Google... Google has a better security/breach track record, and seems to do better in terms of finding what people are looking for.. I'm sure giving them more data to work with could only help. :-D

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

#105

Post by huuu » Mon, Mar 02, 2015, 6:29 AM UTC

krisgenre wrote: post #101

MichaelGG wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am a guy who gives everything to Google, have every god damn thing turned on on my Nexus. It's not that I trust Google, I have come to terms with the fact that privacy is dead. The overall experience when you do give Goggle everything is quite good ( Google Now ) but I too second your opinion about Android permissions, its really idiotic.

BS. Privacy is not dead. You just gave up your privacy because you wanted a smartphone and wanted to use Google Now.

Privacy while connected to the internet is almost dead but even then it's weak to just surrender. And I think more people are fighting than you might think. Using an app like TextSecure for example is giving back a little privacy.

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

#106

Post by tracker1 » Mon, Mar 02, 2015, 6:30 AM UTC

vanadium wrote: post #96

SwellJoe wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tinkered with Android development when the original Google Developer Phone came out (aka G1). And, after years of not paying it any attention, because my focus was on server development, I've started learning my way around it again. It's not even the same world. So much of the tedium of developing in Java has gone away, due to better libraries, much better tooling, and just all around a bigger/better ecosystem. Mak…

"JavaScript is the path a lot of people want to walk for making mobile apps. Firefox OS is the first to make it the primary way to develop apps for the platform." Not true at all, actually; I was doing this back in 2009 on Palm's webOS platform as one of the first wave of devs with early SDK access. IMO, webOS' adoption of HTML5/JS apps as "native" was too ahead of its time, and unfortunately early enough where the i…

I have to say that WebOS on the touchpad was probably my first positive tablet experience as a user.. the UI made total sense and worked incredibly well... I think that Android and iOS have finally caught up, but there's something to be said for webOS' simplicity in design.

It was definitely ahead of its' time.. I didn't stick with it long, as the browser became very dated, very quickly.. but overall it is still one of the better devices I've used (aside from HP's choice for a janky proprietary charger).

While I really like a lot of where the current Android has gone, I think some choices are just difficult for power users.. for more than 2 email accounts (let alone 5+) the gmail interface truly sucks... some of the flyover buttons (like new message) are just awkward, and some of the other apps are weird too.

The experience in google maps seems to be getting worse with time and more use as well. Hangouts as a replacement for google voice is cumbersome and incomplete... I think of this era of android to be akin to Windows Vista at release... some great ideas, but half baked... Hopefully it gets better not worse.

I haven't used iOS on a regular basis enough to comment there. I prefer JS + HTML for apps, it's not a bad idea all around... It (webos) was one of the earlier places for node development (before it got really good).

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

#107

Post by ndesaulniers » Mon, Mar 02, 2015, 6:54 AM UTC

fit2rule wrote: post #18

Anyone know if I can easily port an OpenGL ES-1.1 based application, written in C++, to FirefoxOS? Or will I have to re-write it in HTML5/js?

I wrote a book chapter in the upcoming book "WebGL Insights" to be published in August on just the subject. The answer is yes, if you port your OpenGL ES 1.0 code to OpenGL ES 2.0. The WebGL 1.0 spec is basically just a diff of the ES 2.0 spec. Then Emscripten can do most of the rest. I'm assuming your code is C++.

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

#108

Post by GigabyteCoin » Mon, Mar 02, 2015, 7:13 AM UTC

>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 have ever used on my Android. Which works fine, but had recently been creeping the heck out of me because it's distributed by Google.

Every app is virtually a simple website imho. Look at google docs, for example. Angry birds could easily be written in javascript. As could flappy bird, and virtually every game I can think of.

I see no reason to bother writing a piece of software that can only be used on Androir or iOS, except for sheer greed, so I haven't. It's worked out well for me so far.

Here's to hoping Firefox OS comes to the first world sooner rather than later.

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

#109

Post by jsudhams » Mon, Mar 02, 2015, 7:16 AM UTC

Grazester wrote: post #97

SwellJoe wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how that works. Some people like one thing, others like another. It just doesn't make sense, sometimes! Why doesn't everyone only like what I like?

Never did I say people should like what I like. I like JavaScript just fine for what it was originally designed for.

100% agree here. I have same feeling.For some reason 15 years ago i learned basic java script from some "learn in 21 days book" and they quoted it as a helper language to get things done at client. And for some reason i can't seem to come out of that and still use it only where i needed.

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

#110

Post by shmerl » Mon, Mar 02, 2015, 7:20 AM UTC

iso8859-1 wrote: post #94

shmerl wrote: post #10

I really respect Firefox OS for being fully open, but I dislike the lack of native applications. I wish normal glibc Linux mobile distros (not Android) would gain more traction. Sailfish OS is great, but they don't seem to be interested in opening up the UI and most of the core applications.

What do you think about Tizen?

Tizen is interesting, but it has the downside of the old Meego - too much control from Samsung. When Nokia and Intel pulled the plug, Meego disintegrated and only community fork (Mer) survived, on which Sailfish is actually built. Tizen has a similar risk. And it's not a major priority for Samsung it seems.