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The Promise of Firefox OS

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Re: The Promise of Firefox OS

#81

Post by sp332 »

shadowmint wrote: post #61
firefoxman1 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, this is the top comment? Everything you just listed is exactly what FirefoxOS is trying to fix.

How? Making firefox os is great, but how do we get from here to, people making web apps that don't suck on mobiles? Is it a market place they're going to sell apps on and curate so they're no rubbish? Is it a platform that is so great and compelling people are going to stop making native apps for it? Is it a new browser that is so amazing they everyone is going to swap to it, and it makes web apps responsive and amaz…

> Is it a market place they're going to sell apps on and curate so they're no rubbish?

Yes. https://marketplace.firefox.com/ They're not interesting in locking down the device to just one app source though.

> Is it a platform that is so great and compelling people are going to stop making native apps for it?

I think that's the idea, yes :)

> Is it a new browser that is so amazing they everyone is going to swap to it, and it makes web apps responsive and amazing?

Browsers are already pretty cool; what's good for Firefox is what's good for the web (including webkit browsers). Since Firefox is pursuing consensus and standardization with all their new phone/browser ideas, it should be easier in the future to write cross-platform web/phone apps.

> Is it an entire 'platform' that runs inside a browser? A native app that acts like it's own 'OS' that runs on all phones?

It sort of is a broswer. It provides a bunch of APIs that make it possible to control phone functions from javascript. So you load a web app, and it can make phone calls and send texts and take pictures and whatever. In this video you can see the app launcher and the phone app written in HTML, CSS, and javascript. http://cnettv.cnet.com/hands-mozilla-firefox-os-boot-gecko/9...

Re: The Promise of Firefox OS

#82

Post by sanxiyn »

chris_wot wrote: post #63
Offler wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think those eras had browsers that weren't capable of delivering on the promise. If you only work with IE9+ (all the other browsers are quite good now) you will be working in a run time environment that is far superior to those available in the DHTML/Ajax era. Another issue is that very few people know how to do large scale JS applications, where I work we do (130,000K+ lines of code, 900+ classes) but it has taken…

900+ classes, in Javascript?

Why not?

Re: The Promise of Firefox OS

#83

Post by soapdog »

Some people on this thread are completely missing the point of Firefox OS.

Its about standards and making it work cross-platform with no lock-in about vendors. Last week, I spent some days on a hackathon to promote Firefox OS app development. It was very refreshing and fun.

After developing for iOS and Android, developing for a mobile phone using JS was a very good experience. I enjoy using Javascript. I think Obj-C is great too and I am not fond of Java but this is not about whats your favorite language, its about bringing the freedom of the web to your mobile device.

In couple days, I created a tiny QR Decoder that anyone with a Firefox OS device could browse too and install on their phone. That was great. During the hackathon we shared lots of apps between each other without the need for market approval, vendor saying or whatever. And yet there's the Firefox Marketplace to help discovery and certification for privileged apps.

Firefox Aurora for Android already has open web apps support that allow you to install web apps on your Android device and will hopefully implement all the WebAPI. Once Android and Firefox OS support the WebAPI there will be pressure on the other vendors to implement it as well and then we'll be in a better place than we are now.

Re: The Promise of Firefox OS

#84

Post by michael_miller »

bmuon wrote: post #36
shadowmint wrote: post #23

So... it's 2013, and I'm sitting here with my blazingly fast nexus 4, and the web sites I visit are... slow. terrible. broken. spammy. Half of them have 'popups' that try to banner at the bottom of the screen, but end up flailing wilding and either taking up the entire screen, or just helpfully sitting exactly over the middle of the page. A lot of them try repeatedly to direct me to a specific page, or a native app w…

I worked as a front-end developer for an adnetwork for two years, so I take a little responsibility for your experience. I tried my best, but there just wasn't that much interest in getting it right. Here's why I think we're all having a hard time with advertising in mobile. Basically, adnetworks are still learning how to do it right, the same way designers and developers are still learning how to do mobile websites…

I'll provide a different option: it takes too much time to get it right! iOS for example provides so many default widget toolkits complete with gradient, sheen, and dropshadow which make it really easy to create a polished experience quickly. The web has no such concept (well, bootstrap is sorta close but not nearly as polished and not for mobile). Why does the web not have these polished frameworks? Simple - ROI. The incentive for Apple and Google to develop said frameworks is large: a pool of developers who will take advantage of the toolkits and write much better / way more apps. What's the incentive for the web? Basically nil. Anyone can rip off what you did (one of the downsides to the web being open and standardized!), and you gain none of the benefit of enhancing your platform.

Re: The Promise of Firefox OS

#85

Post by heja2009 »

mephju wrote: post #66

This is a real question and no trolling: Why is nobody building a second kind of browser, one which is not based on html and css. A browser which is geared towards app execution and development. A browser which can run apps which can be programmed in a way that is similar to programming Android apps. Where I can for example have a footer without doing some css hacks. DNS and most of our backends could still be reused…

Not 100% sure what you mean, but wasn't Java ME a portable solution, a platform geared towards app execution and development? And in a limited sense it even succeeded... Not sure I want a 2nd iteration though.

Re: The Promise of Firefox OS

#86

Post by mikecane »

chris_wot wrote: post #60
mikecane wrote: post #51

I still don't understand why Firefox OS will go anywhere when webOS did not. Aren't we talking about basically the same thing? HTML5/JS/CSS? Is it timing, the changed environment that now focuses attention on web apps? Is it the reputation of Mozilla vs that of Palm/HP? I'm not saying web apps won't have a place, I'm just extremely confused about the seeming contradiction or about-face here.

Palm/HP didn't exactly make it a huge deal to go to standards bodies, did they? That was my impression. Could be wrong.

Yes, perhaps that's it. The mention of standards bodies stood out to me too.

Re: The Promise of Firefox OS

#87

Post by firefoxman1 »

shadowmint wrote: post #61
firefoxman1 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, this is the top comment? Everything you just listed is exactly what FirefoxOS is trying to fix.

How? Making firefox os is great, but how do we get from here to, people making web apps that don't suck on mobiles? Is it a market place they're going to sell apps on and curate so they're no rubbish? Is it a platform that is so great and compelling people are going to stop making native apps for it? Is it a new browser that is so amazing they everyone is going to swap to it, and it makes web apps responsive and amaz…

By making the browser a true platform-a "first class citizen"-it will no longer be "that place you have your blog" and most app makers won't have to decide to go "web" or "native" (and make a different app for a growing number of phone OSes) because they'll be one in the same. It means people will care more about the web to begin with.

If that happens, we'll see more mobile OSes being created, competing and innovating because you've solved the "chicken and the egg" problem with apps. Devs won't stay with the Big 2 simply because that's where the customers are, because the customers won't stick with a phone OS they hate simply because that's where the apps are.

What I find interesting is how much the trend in mobile resembles the PC/Web boom. Ten years ago everything you did on the PC besides browsing required its own software. Not so true anymore, huh? I hope mobile continues to follow the PC's trends and make this happen next.

Re: The Promise of Firefox OS

#88

Post by andrewflnr »

mephju wrote: post #66

This is a real question and no trolling: Why is nobody building a second kind of browser, one which is not based on html and css. A browser which is geared towards app execution and development. A browser which can run apps which can be programmed in a way that is similar to programming Android apps. Where I can for example have a footer without doing some css hacks. DNS and most of our backends could still be reused…

It would have to be huge piece of software, and nobody would use it. That is, it would be very difficult to get adoption. That said, some of us are thinking about it.

It seems like this ought to have made it onto PG's list of frighteningly ambitious ideas.

Re: The Promise of Firefox OS

#89

Post by itsbits »

Good...i would be interested to know what kind of hardware support FireFoxOS would be targeted to build on...Just you know before i buy my new mobile...... I am already looking fwd for UbuntuOS which also supports JS as native and Nexus seems to fill their hardware req.

Re: The Promise of Firefox OS

#90

Post by StavrosK »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #73
dhimes wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This site is totally broken for mobile, and has been for years despite complaints.

I surf this site on my iphone daily. Yes I occassionally downvote something I did not mean to, yes dead link annoys me if I lose what I typed. But the user experience of sharing and gathering opinions of intelligent well informed people from all corners of the world and backgrounds more than compensates. IMO of course. And thats what I mean - Craigslist is the other "broken" site that does UX well. Its not meant to b…

Please don't say "UX" when you mean "content".
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