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Is there some technical detail in Firefox OS that makes it a good choice for cheap phones? I've come to understand that it's not particularly lightweight, but am I wrong?
Personnally, I would also love to have a second phone like this one. Cheap, simple, just to "phone&browse". No apps. I live in France
I recently got a KitKat phone, and felt instantaneously trapped in Google Play land (no improvement over Apple Appstore I guess), not a good feeling. A 'web' based OS would be a nice thing to try.
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I recently got a KitKat phone, and felt instantaneously trapped in Google Play land (no improvement over Apple Appstore I guess), not a good feeling. A 'web' based OS would be a nice thing to try.
An Android phone is actually quite usable without Google's app store, using alternatives like F-Droid and Amazon. You can't say that about an iOS or Windows phone.
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It only "runs" webpages.
So true, even marketplace apps are just shims around web pages. I have been using Firefox OS for about 2 months and this is one of my biggest complaints. Apps are just websites, no more, no less.
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Firefox OS has a huge advantage when running on low-memory phones. The most memory intensive thing typically run on a low-end phone is the web browser. (Or an app that wraps a browser, like Facebook). So the ability to run a web browser is the limiting factor. Every other OS has to have enough memory to run a GUI + a browser. Since Firefox OS uses the browser for its GUI, it theoretically can run smoother in 128MB or…
Ever heard of Series30, Series40 and Symbian mobiles? Native apps + browser, best of both worlds.
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The cheapest devices ($25 are $35) are sold exclusively in India and similar low-income countries, AFAIK. In the western world, you can only get Alcatel, ZTE, etc.
They're being sold on eBay as well (by resellers), but never bellow $65. I wonder who's buying them.
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Most of the world lives with dumb phones and don't dissolve into childish fits. How to explain that?
Save $5 and get a phone that actually works. http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B004ZLV4JG/ref=sr_1_1... Edit: I want FFOS to succeed, pretending that this phone is usable will not help that goal.
I did a little investigation since Firefox Blogpost provided where the devices are available (For India at least):
1. ALCATEL ONETOUCH: Available on Flipkart.com . Exactly one person rated. Compare them with high priced Alcatel OneTouch devices that use Android: http://www.flipkart.com/search?q=ALCATEL+ONETOUCH&as=off&as-...
2. Spice Fire One Mi available on Snapdeal. 60 People rated and 14 people wrote reviews. Comparing this with other products I would think total sales are few thousands for the device.
http://www.snapdeal.com/product/spice-fire-one-mifx1/5311267...
3. Cloud FX on Snapdeal and Intex Technologies channels. Most Likely is the device with biggest sales in India for firefox os. 3682 Ratings and 880 Reviews. 2.75 rating with 1 Star rating out numbering any other.
http://www.snapdeal.com/product/intex-cloud-fx/1356760619#bc...
Worst of all none of the Phones are 25$. They are atleast $30+. 99% of times when someone doesn't provide numbers and claim growth, they are trying to hide a failure. Disappointed that Mozilla is not being open.
I am SO excited about the possibilities Firefox OS provides. I do realize it's in early stages now, and there are many hurdles for the Mozilla team to overcome for it to become a real player in the market, but I'm crossing my fingers. Specifically, I can't wait to see what local developers in developing countries create to improve the lives of people within their communities and societies. With the barrier to entry l…
I can't resist the urge to plug my project here. It failed as a Show HN, but now it's very relevant: https://github.com/geomaster/beoprevoz. In short, it's a neat public transport FxOS app, specific to Belgrade, Serbia (but in theory and by design pluggable and easy to generalize to arbitrary areas), that boasts some cool features, such as Google Places/Google Maps integration, local data to make it independent of Internet access, an optimized client-side routing algorithm for shortest-path calculation, among others. Check it out, all feedback welcome! (It's even multilingual :)