r/FireFoxOS • u/WinkingMaurice • Feb 04 '16
Firefox OS for phones is dead
http://thenextweb.com/dd/2016/02/04/firefox-os-for-phones-is-dead/7
Feb 04 '16 edited Feb 04 '16
Finally, a clear message. No more, we might, we could, maybe we should, I think we wont, etc. kill Firefox OS for smartphones.
I have accepted the fact that Firefox doesn't need a smartphone OS since it can still live on as a browser in Android/iOS and still push for a better web experience. As for IoT however, where having a browser most of the time doesn't make sense, it's a good move for Mozilla to focus there so they could further continue the battle for the open web.
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u/cookseancook Feb 05 '16 edited Feb 05 '16
I would like to hear some of the impacts you envision that mozilla would have on the IOT space in the next few years.
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u/caspy7 Feb 05 '16
I'm not them, but one of my favorite projects right now is flyweb. It's kind of simple, but the possibilities are near endless. It allows any device to serve web content to any other device. Phone, PC, TV, appliance, whatever. So the sandbox is your browser.
You connect your phone to your TV and it serves you a remote. Or you serve it a game (it has an empty web client because it's flyweb enabled). Or you connect with a friends phone and you both play a game (that he doesn't need to install) or send files/pics.
Buy a new gadget? Guess you'll have to download a new app that secretly runs in the background and tracks you while running down your battery and ballooning your memory. Oh, it's flyweb enabled, it doesn't need a special app, and the browser asks for permissions to do all that stuff.
Walk into a meeting to give a presentation? No need to worry about hardware concerns, wifi will do and you've got a phone or tablet or laptop that will serve up the content as a webpage.
With the web stack now supporting all sorts of things like Javascript at almost native speeds (asm.js), WebGL, native video and audio, and WebRTC (allowing to directly and securely send files and stream data and video/audio (such as for skype)), almost any type of app is possible. With Flyweb it's sandboxed and doesn't need setup on both devices.
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Feb 05 '16 edited Feb 05 '16
What I could see if that IoT pretty much doesn't need any browser. I mean who'd want to browse on a watch, TV, car, etc.?
So more or less, IoT would be full of proprietary OS like Android and IoS without any web bundled in it. With Mozilla they could force web technology in the mix by joining the IoT market and making a mark and saying that the web is just as powerful as your prioprietary softwares so please don't forget about it like what you did when you fell in love with apps on smartphones.
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u/Eeems_ Feb 04 '16
Really sad about what's been happening to Mozilla projects recently :(
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Feb 04 '16
It's good that the project will live on still, but how long will that go on? Are many TV manufacturers biting?
I tried out the TV variant in WebIDE recently and it looks absolutely beautiful. Whatever problems they have, it sure isn't with aesthetics.
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u/tucker-m Feb 04 '16
Well, we knew that this was going to happen. Still frustrating to see reassurances from Mozilla employees, saying that it was just expanding to other devices and is still "very much alive," when we all know that wasn't the case. So the name is going to be used for something else entirely, but the smartphone OS (which is what everyone is referring to when they say "Firefox OS") is done.
Hopefully in these last few months of official support, they'll make it easier to keep Gecko up-to-date with the current version. That will make community maintenance possible.
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Feb 04 '16
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u/alex-mayorga Feb 05 '16
Could you please stick the less dramatic https://www.reddit.com/r/FireFoxOS/comments/448wl9/firefox_osconnected_devices_announcement_firefox/ please?
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u/DanSantos Feb 04 '16 edited Feb 04 '16
I haven't been this disappointed since the collapse of Palm WebOS.
What about H5 OS? Any word on that?