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

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#291

Post by pjmlp » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 12:47 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #187

funkyy wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again, average user when first in touch with Plasma Phone will say "Oh, is this new Android?". All of them unique mobile OS's look the same at first glance. And first glance is most important. Windows Phone did amazing job in that, to bad they screwed almost everything else. Also it sounds like your comment is technical point of view. Users dont care of that. If mobile system cannot attract regular users, then i…

Its not really about attracting users though, its about getting phones in stores that users are buying. The market of users that shop for a device, looking for specs and features, is a tiny fraction of the market of phone users, the vast majority of which are regularly ripped off by carriers to buy underpowered overpriced iphones or Android handsets. If you don't get on Sprint / AT&T / Verizon / Tmobile store shelves…

> The market of users that shop for a device, looking for specs and features, is a tiny fraction of the market of phone users, the vast majority of which are regularly ripped off by carriers to buy underpowered overpriced iphones or Android handsets.

This might be so in US, but in most European countries we buy our phones ourselves with pre-paid options.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#292

Post by criddell » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 1:45 PM UTC

jbiddy wrote: post #259

criddell wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want an open source smartphone OS, why not just use Android (AOSP)?

Because Google has almost completely stopped pushing things to AOSP and instead keeps all the goodies locked under their proprietary apps. There is no AOSP for their "Okay, Google" stuff for instance. Most Google AOSP functionality is stuck in Android 2.x days.

I don't think that argument makes any sense. The options seem to be write everything from scratch or take AOSP and write only the services. The latter option makes a lot more sense to me.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#293

Post by zanny » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 2:09 PM UTC

mfjordvald wrote: post #269

zanny wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not really about attracting users though, its about getting phones in stores that users are buying. The market of users that shop for a device, looking for specs and features, is a tiny fraction of the market of phone users, the vast majority of which are regularly ripped off by carriers to buy underpowered overpriced iphones or Android handsets. If you don't get on Sprint / AT&T / Verizon / Tmobile store shelves…

It's most definitely about attracting users. When we started OnePlus we specifically set out to ignore stores and carriers and instead focus on making a product that people would love and put it in a price range that made it accessible to everyone. If we had made the same product but instead approached stores and carriers to sell it they would have ignored us. If we were lucky they might have done a deal with us that…

But OnePlus still only sells at most a few million units a year - since Oxygen OS is just an Android fork, its still Android, and you don't have the problem of marketshare adoption to attract app developers that any of the non-Android based mobile OSes would have. And thats why I said Plasma Mobile is most interesting, since its not for commercial purposes where success is measured in adoption. The Nexus phones and other devices that are rarely commercially available in stores sell fractions of the units that generic LG and Samsung phones on those shelves do. You can make a business selling a good Android phone out there, but for a mobile OS that needs a good chunk of market share to stay viable, limiting yourself to those seeking you out puts you at an insurmountable disadvantage to getting a foothold large enough to attract developers.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#294

Post by criddell » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 2:13 PM UTC

rockdoe wrote: post #119

criddell wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want an open source smartphone OS, why not just use Android (AOSP)?

Because the apps ecosystem is getting more and more locked into Play Services, which are not part of AOSP.

And how is the app ecosystem on other open source mobile operating systems?

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#295

Post by caskance » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 2:38 PM UTC

bobajeff wrote: post #175

caskance wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy is a poor angle to pursue. It's old, and so we know, as you said, that people don't care. They have a real chance if they ride the social justice and progressivism train, though. It's hot and unlike privacy, people care about it a lot. They've already set the precedent with the Eich controversy. They just need to double down and start promoting it better. Take initiative instead of being reactive. Not too har…

I'm pretty sure people do still care about privacy. It just might not be readily obvious how to profit from such people.

And some people are "pretty sure" the hyper advanced alien Xenu used hydrogen bombs to detonate all volcanoes on earth simultaneously and capture everyone's thetans. Unless you have any evidence, you're just going to have to resign yourself to the idea that most people won't believe you.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#296

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 2:53 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #292

jbiddy wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Google has almost completely stopped pushing things to AOSP and instead keeps all the goodies locked under their proprietary apps. There is no AOSP for their "Okay, Google" stuff for instance. Most Google AOSP functionality is stuck in Android 2.x days.

I don't think that argument makes any sense. The options seem to be write everything from scratch or take AOSP and write only the services. The latter option makes a lot more sense to me.

The biggest problem with forking Android is that all of the apps will be developed for Google's flavor of Android. Which generally means you need to try to remain compatible with it, with ends with "you have to follow Google's development direction". And Google's development direction, of course, is selected by Google's business interests.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#297

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 2:55 PM UTC

dcw303 wrote: post #189

Linux as a platform took off because it was possible for a smart user to install it on hardware they already had. If there had of been a way to install Firefox OS on an iPhone or Android phone, I would have certainly tried it out. Mozilla really needed to target power users, but it was just too hard to get hold of the hardware - both hardware availability and the stupid state of carrier contracts are to blame here. I…

Yup. That was one thing I was really hoping Ubuntu Touch would give me a chance with, their whole "install on Android" thing. But it's supported on a pittance of device options.

Currently mobile hardware is in a space where the OS has to be custom built for the hardware choices of that particular phone manufacturer, unlike PCs which have a robust system of drivers you have some manner of control over as a user. Seems to be the biggest limitation.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#298

Post by criddell » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 3:30 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #296

criddell wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that argument makes any sense. The options seem to be write everything from scratch or take AOSP and write only the services. The latter option makes a lot more sense to me.

The biggest problem with forking Android is that all of the apps will be developed for Google's flavor of Android. Which generally means you need to try to remain compatible with it, with ends with "you have to follow Google's development direction". And Google's development direction, of course, is selected by Google's business interests.

> Which generally means you need to try to remain compatible with it, with ends with "you have to follow Google's development direction"

You certainly don't need to do any of that. Amazon didn't do that and they have a pretty successful line of tablets. Even their crappy phone was far better than the Firefox OS phone.

Firefox could fork AOSP, break compatibility (if they want), rename it, and never look back. If they did this, they would be far ahead of where they are right now with Firefox OS.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#299

Post by nickpsecurity » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 3:53 PM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #263

nickpsecurity wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obvious: you sell them the tools that enhance their privacy with solid reviews and advertisements in right places. If people don't buy, they either didn't care enough about privacy or were poor. There's security companies selling hardened phone OS's, browsers, desktops... you name it. Most individuals or businesses, even with the money, just don't buy them or even research them much.

It's obvious: you sell them the tools that enhance their privacy with solid reviews and advertisements in right places. If people don't buy, they either didn't care enough about privacy or were poor. I think this differs highly per region. In some European countries, people are very privacy-aware. I know quite a number of people who refuse to use Google's services or Dropbox, because of privacy reasons. As for securi…

Re privacy-aware

Guess I need to try to market stuff in Europe instead. ;)

Re expensive or inconvenient

They're often perceived as expensive. Truth is most COTS is too cheap: corners cut everywhere to get it at that price point which gives unrealistic expectations on price. So, key firewall or server is five digits instead of three to four. Don't need many of them but good luck selling even one. Always will be an uphill battle.

Far as convenience, that can be improved on and some apps are very convenient. The users' cut-off point is the real issue. Do they want one thoughtless step for everything? Can't do secure comms that was as verification requires extra step somewhere. Same with trust or key mgmt in other things. Im with us eliminating unnecessary complexity & technical stuff but users need to meet us halfway on convenience angle.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#300

Post by anonyfox » Wed, Dec 09, 2015, 4:25 PM UTC

Thunderbird: stopped.

FirefoxOS: stopped.

Rust: as nice as the language is, I can see it become irrelevant in the rise of Swift (and tons of developers already using and praising it).

so the last thing that remains is the very core of mozilla: firefox. But then version 42 hit me, disabled the support for custom themes, leaving me alone with a crappy UI I can't stand any longer to the point I uninstalled Firefox forever.

As others have already mentioned: from several sessions of customer development out in the streets, I can confirm that privacy is something that no-one has really interest in, let alone pay a penny for it nowadays.

I'd love to know what Mozilla's vision of the future is, given that the points above are real and Firefox itself becomes more and more an awful "me too!" of other, better browsers.