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Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

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Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#51

Post by [deleted] »

epoch1970 wrote: post #30
Certhas wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#52

Post by sremani »

frik wrote: post #34
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…

According to IDC the Worldwide Smartphone Market in 2015: Android ... 81.2% iOS ... 15.8% Windows Phone ... 2.2% Others ... 0.8% Worldwide Smartphone Forecast by OS for 2019: Android ... 82.6% iOS ... 14.1% Windows Phone ... 2.3% Others ... 0.9% Source: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS40664915 @downvoter: it's a forcast by the well known IDC, also the current market share (2015) is interesting on its ow…

Will Windows Phone/ Windows Mobile be around 2019, as a die-hard WP user, I hope so. I just do not like those icon based OSes.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#53

Post by mei0Iesh »

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…

Phoenix appeared at a time when web browsers were bloated, and it was refreshing to have a minimalist app that simply browsed the web. It wasn't that potential was being stifled; other browsers had too many features. It was that we could download a small binary on dial-up, that opened up quickly and just did what we needed without any fluff.

Notice that last part about downloading? That's the key. We could download Phoenix, and run it. I can't download FirefoxOS, and run it. My devices are locked to what they can run. If mobile appliances were like personal computers, then a Phoenix could rise. But it's a completely different situation, so there is no way to compete like you could with web browsers.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#54

Post by digi_owl »

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…

I dunno. From what i am seeing, Apple and Google are busy rearranging UI deck chairs.

The major problem of FirefoxOS though was trying to pitch the whole "everyone can (re)write apps" to a market that is all about user lock-in.

Every OEM and carrier wants to be the landlord of the phone "owner", taking a bite out of everything the user does with the device.

But if every app is a web page, and all the code is out in the open, it is quite easy for the user to disable and strip out rent extraction code.

And yes your right about Mozilla being distracted. And sadly they are not alone. The whole FOSS world seem hell bent on wasting energy doing all kinds of shiny projects and social outreach.

I'm tempted to call it the curse of SXSW.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#55

Post by mahouse »

gedrap wrote: post #25
mootothemax wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

Telefónica, the major carrier in Spain, sold some Firefox OS phones years ago under the promise that there would be a version of WhatsApp for Firefox OS soon. That never happened. They eventually stopped selling them.

(Not implying there is any correlation between those two last facts.)

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#56

Post by striking »

vdnkh wrote: post #7
ris wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The IoT space is a mess right now" But is also almost entirely vapour. Seeing this news gave me relief that Mozilla might be pulling their heads out of the clouds chasing fantastical dreams of mobile platforms, but if anything IoT is worse!

>almost entirely vapour I work for an M2M company whose been around for 25 years now, in some form or another. M2M is the backbone of IoT and while it isn't as glamorous, it's a large space. Industrial gases, especially helium, are very lucrative right now.

M2M makes sense. It's great for devices that are not classically connected via the Internet to communicate with each other. It's very helpful in the industrial and medical fields.

However, IoT devices should not be consumer-facing tech. IoT devices are on average far more expensive and have shoddy software/firmware. Even when the software is fixed, IoT will remain a niche range of products until their quality surpasses that of the traditional version of the product. From a business perspective, anything IoT hardly makes sense as a standalone product.

M2M is a fantastic field. But IoT is not.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#57

Post by callmeed »

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…

and mobile email

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#59

Post by dhimes »

spinchange wrote: post #43

I always wondered why they didn't try a tablet first. Like the Chromebooks, but in tablet form, heavy on Firefox branding. Maybe this too is something that would've been an 'also-ran' or market failure, but I still want one even as I type this.

Damn you. I want one too now.

Re: Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones

#60

Post by johansch »

sp332 wrote: post #31

Remember, the point of Firefox OS was not to challenge or take over the market with Firefox OS devices. It was to develop web APIs for phone things, like the dialer, video, voice, accelerometer, etc. And they succeeded! That's why the statement says "We are proud of the benefits Firefox OS added to the Web platform". Other browsers adopted the tech, and all phone browsers are better off for the project. That's a win.

That sounds like a post-rationalization to me. All I heard was that this was how they expected to survive without Google. It was expected to bring a lot of revenue.
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