Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones • Hacker News Board

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#21

Post by pjmlp » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 8:11 PM UTC

I love the work of Mozilla in the browser space, Thunderbird, Rust and online freedom.

Having web pages as native apps goes back to Web Widgets on Series 60 phones, followed by WebOS.

On the Series 60, almost everyone favoured native Symbian and J2ME apps to web widgets.

WebOS sadly failed to gain major traction.

Windows Phone and Android devices can be obtained by fairly low prices and have the advantage of native apps, Webviews besides the browser. On Windows Phone the WinRT is exposed to packaged web apps.

So although I respect their efforts, I never really understood the effort, given that they were under the same OEM constraints as Android and the reviews of the available devices weren't that great.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#22

Post by Certhas » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 8:12 PM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #9

Firefox appeared at a time when there was huge potential being stifled by a stagnant monopoly in the space, and people were desperate for something good. It filled a real need, and people loved it. FirefoxOS appeared at a time when there was huge potential being actively being pushed forward and innovated on by the two largest tech companies in the space, and people already had two great options to choose from. It fi…

But when they tried to pioneer privacy respecting ads in the new tab window, they were repeatedly and roundly criticised here, too...

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#23

Post by gedrap » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 8:12 PM UTC

yenda wrote: post #15

gkoberger wrote: post #9

Firefox appeared at a time when there was huge potential being stifled by a stagnant monopoly in the space, and people were desperate for something good. It filled a real need, and people loved it. FirefoxOS appeared at a time when there was huge potential being actively being pushed forward and innovated on by the two largest tech companies in the space, and people already had two great options to choose from. It fi…

FirefoxOS was a perfect fit for me on the paper but I never got how to buy one here in France. I'm stucked with Android and I don't like it.

ZTE was selling their ZTE Open C which came with FirefoxOS 1.3 on ebay.co.uk, that's where I bought it from. I lived in the UK at the moment but I believe they were shipping it worldwide.

Checked the ebay listings again, there are a few sellers from Australia, the USA but seems like the ZTE listing is gone.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#24

Post by BinaryIdiot » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 8:12 PM UTC

That's too bad but like everyone else said pretty obvious what the outcome would be.

I wonder what a third player in the mobile OS market would look like and if it's even possible at this point. Microsoft is basically number 3 at this point, right? Yet they have so little market share that companies are activity leaving their marketplace.

I wonder if the next mobile OS isn't an OS that requires apps to survive but, instead, offers a crazy amount of integration experiences. For instance if someone came up with a way to unify how to call a car then integrate that directly into the phone (so ultimately it wouldn't matter if it was Uber, Lyft or even yellow cab).

Maybe not the best example but I'm getting the feeling creating a phone that needs apps to be highly functional is simply not possible at this time and another angle is needed to break in.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#25

Post by gedrap » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 8:13 PM UTC

mootothemax wrote: post #17

bpicolo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of hacker news, I haven't heard of Firefox OS even once. They had no marketing to speak of, and you have to complete HARD on marketing to get into that market. "If you build it they will come" isn't a valid benchmark when there's already two options with massive market share that consumers are more or less happy with. (Since it's talked about in some replies, I live in the US).

Just as a counterpoint, I regularly saw Firefox os+phone ads on giant billboards in central Warsaw. If there was to be any market interest, I thought their targeting and marketing efforts like this were pretty spot-on.

Oh yeah, I've read about them targeting some specific countries (Spain, Brazil, Poland, etc). So it might be that the parent commentator lives elsewhere and didn't get targeted :)

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#26

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 8:13 PM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #9

Firefox appeared at a time when there was huge potential being stifled by a stagnant monopoly in the space, and people were desperate for something good. It filled a real need, and people loved it. FirefoxOS appeared at a time when there was huge potential being actively being pushed forward and innovated on by the two largest tech companies in the space, and people already had two great options to choose from. It fi…

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#27

Post by pmontra » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 8:15 PM UTC

> “We are proud of the benefits Firefox OS added to the Web platform and will continue to experiment with the user experience across connected devices. We will build everything we do as a genuine open source project, focused on user experience first and build tools to enable the ecosystem to grow.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Firefox OS is over. It means that it's over on the phone but it might move to those "connected devices". I bet Mozilla will release a more precise statement soon.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#28

Post by quanticle » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 8:15 PM UTC

bpicolo wrote: post #12

gkoberger wrote: post #9

Firefox appeared at a time when there was huge potential being stifled by a stagnant monopoly in the space, and people were desperate for something good. It filled a real need, and people loved it. FirefoxOS appeared at a time when there was huge potential being actively being pushed forward and innovated on by the two largest tech companies in the space, and people already had two great options to choose from. It fi…

Outside of hacker news, I haven't heard of Firefox OS even once. They had no marketing to speak of, and you have to complete HARD on marketing to get into that market. "If you build it they will come" isn't a valid benchmark when there's already two options with massive market share that consumers are more or less happy with. (Since it's talked about in some replies, I live in the US).

Not to mention that FirefoxOS wasn't even properly built. I have yet to see (and given today's news, probably will never see) a review of FirefoxOS where the reviewer doesn't mention the OS crashing multiple times.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#29

Post by pjmlp » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 8:16 PM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #24

That's too bad but like everyone else said pretty obvious what the outcome would be. I wonder what a third player in the mobile OS market would look like and if it's even possible at this point. Microsoft is basically number 3 at this point, right? Yet they have so little market share that companies are activity leaving their marketplace. I wonder if the next mobile OS isn't an OS that requires apps to survive but, i…

> Microsoft is basically number 3 at this point, right?

Currently they are the only option to Android for those that cannot afford an iOS device, usually in countries where the majority go for pre-paid and average salaries are on the 1000 € or lower range.

But if the current trend continues, given the current Windows Phone 10 expectations, it might become a two horses race.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#30

Post by epoch1970 » Tue, Dec 08, 2015, 8:21 PM UTC

Certhas wrote: post #22

gkoberger wrote: post #9

Firefox appeared at a time when there was huge potential being stifled by a stagnant monopoly in the space, and people were desperate for something good. It filled a real need, and people loved it. FirefoxOS appeared at a time when there was huge potential being actively being pushed forward and innovated on by the two largest tech companies in the space, and people already had two great options to choose from. It fi…

But when they tried to pioneer privacy respecting ads in the new tab window, they were repeatedly and roundly criticised here, too...

That's not the kind of innovation that users want, nor is it the kind that they truly benefit from.

In general, users don't want any ads at all showing in their browser.

They don't want them as part of web pages, they don't want them embedded in videos, and they surely don't want them as part of the browser itself!

This should have been obvious given the popularity of various ad-blocking extensions for Firefox.

Going against the obvious wishes of a product's users is something that's deserving of criticism.