Looks like Firefox will be entering the smartphone market

[CLeonard]

Interesting news this morning out of Finland. It seems the Mozilla Foundation is planning to release phones in 2013 that run on the Firefox OS. So far Sprint and Deutsche Telekom are planning to carry the Firefox OS phones.

So what do you think? Is yet another operating system warranted?

[Varjak]

I don't know. They'll have to offer some killer features to make people switch over. And if the evolution (devolution?) of their browser is any indication, they're not responsive to their 'customers,' and the software will become bloated and inefficient.

[Mitlov]

I think they're going to run into trouble. The phone OS market is ridiculously cut-throat now, with two well-established players with a lot of developer support and fanbase, and an upstart who has a gazillion dollars to keep pushing D-Day style until it establishes a beachhead. Firefox has neither the established base of iOS or Android or the resources and larger ecosystem of Microsoft. It might be a perfectly pleasant OS to use (then again, as someone who used to like the FF browser but no longer does, maybe it won't be), but it's going to be a hard sell as a better total package than what Apple, Google, and Microsoft are offering.

Interesting that Sprint is onboard. Sprint is the one and only US carrier that has not announced that it'll be carrying WP8 phones. Maybe they're doing this instead?

[LandSurveyor]

I applaud the effort. The screenshots of the UI look to be clear and easy to understand.

It would appear that the killer "app" is low cost. I do hope, however, that higher-spec hardware will also be offered. I also hope that DT means that T-Mobile USA will offer these as well.

I suppose that if the carriers will be propelling this effort, it has a chance to succeed. I expect that there will be bloatware but if this is a Linux device, there are plenty of talented people out there who will likely offer mods to remove same.

Even if the carriers don't push them, the price advantage means that these should still be affordable for folks who buy their hardware outright.

This could either be the next Android or a complete flop. Too bad Nokia is now dedicated to MS.

[Varjak]

LS, not to be argumentative; but how much cheaper than 'free' can you get? (Android is free)

I'd say it looks more or less like most OSs. Not revolutionary or distinctively simple or elegant. Not bad though. We'll have to see if it can distinguish itself.

[Mitlov]

LS, not to be argumentative; but how much cheaper than 'free' can you get? (Android is free)

I'd say it looks more or less like most OSs. Not revolutionary or distinctively simple or elegant. Not bad though. We'll have to see if it can distinguish itself.

Android isn't free even though no money goes to Google; there are patent licensing fees to Microsoft and a pretty-much-guarantee of litigation by Apple.

For bottom-end hardware manufacturers like ZTE or Huawei, hoping to sell no-contract devices for the lowest price possible, this might be more tempting than Android as a consequence. But I can't imagine that higher-end manufacturers (like Nokia, Samsung, HTC, etc) would have much incentive to use it over Android or WP8, as it doesn't have the years of development, the established following, and the app selection of Android, and Mozilla can't offer the big-ecosystem advantages and the limitless promotion resources that Microsoft does.

[Hook]

Interestingly, being based entirely on HTML5 and javascript and having things working withing a web-kit like rendering engine, it sounds like WebOS. Wonder if existing WebOS apps will be able to be easily ported.

Would have rather seen WebOS succeed than this reinventing of the wheel.

Of course, HP could always sue for patent infringement.

[Varjak]

I suspect that FF will have the same licensing issues. That's a result of some components of the OS, and FF is likely to have the same issue; though of course perhaps not. As I understand it now, Samsung and a few others just decided to pay because it was expedient.

[LandSurveyor]

Anyway, it would be nice to see somebody else succeed. There's been an awful lot of fumbling in this business.

[zer0nix]

i don't know what mozilla is going to roll out to compete with siri.

apple without a market advantage was already a beast. now that you have every other company developing something for ios plus stuff that 'just works' like siri...

i think apple is just going to dominate (and i'm not even that big of an apple fan); i just don't see any large victories for any other company unless they can innovate something substantially better than the ipad and iphone.

imho this is a really dumb move (signed contracts notwithstanding, if they exist) unless firefox gets the jump on apple on commercially producing a wearable projector computer; no stupid glasses, no heavy pad to carry around, just a little brooch with a camera and a projection unit, a bit of hardware you can keep locked somewhere secure and a piece of paper to catch the light.

-i first saw that tech in a youtube video from around 2008, from some genius at mit and honestly, i'm shocked that no company has given apple an uppercut to the jaw with that device; the ipad seems like a brilliant idea until you hold one; those things are heavy, not to mention they're plenty easy for muggers to snatch.

siri was and is an uppercut to the jaw (imho). any serious competitor to apple needs something that will make using tech so easy and natural that it can compete with that killer app.

for the record, i think google's notion of having everything ready for the user before they even know they want it is going to flop; the brilliant thing about siri is not that it's a machine that you can talk to (like microsoft bob or clippy) but rather that it gives people a sense of control they never felt before. it's not _that_ much more control but it's _new_ control and more control is always good when it's that easy and that functional.

imho it is going to take an interface revolution or else vastly superior tech to unseat apple.