While Android and iOS might be the leaders, they are far from the only mobile operating systems on the market. We have Windows Phone and Blackberry, and many newcomers such as Tizen and Ubuntu for Phone/Tablet. So is there room for Mozilla Firefox OS? Mozilla seems to think so.

The new mobile OS has made a pretty big splash at MWC 2013, showing off its first handsets by Alcatel and ZTE. What really makes Firefox OS different from the competition is that it isn’t trying to win over the hardcore mobile smartphone user.

They understand that the big boys already have this market by the horns, and instead they wish to expand into the developing world and also attract consumers in countries like Europe and the United States by offering competitive, entry-level devices running on open standards.

So what exactly is Firefox OS?

Somewhat reminiscent of WebOS, Firefox OS is all about using open web standards, making it easy for web developers to program apps for the OS. It is also open source, which means anyone with coding knowledge can help expand and improve the experience.

In many ways it is also similar to Chrome OS for Chrome computers, though it seems to have a little more of a traditional layout and while Chrome OS is starting to grow its library of offline-capable apps, all of Firefox’s apps will have the option to either be stored locally for off-line or ran directly as a web-app for conserving storage space and more.

A look at the apps available for Firefox OS

As for the apps included with Firefox OS? There will be usual suspects like an integrated dialer, messaging, the Firefox browser, Nokia maps, and email. Beyond that though, they are already prepping their marketplace to offer goodies like Facebook, Twitter, TimeOut, and Disney apps like “Where’s My Water”.

What really makes Firefox OS different though is that it could actually entice carriers in a big way. Why? They leave quite a bit of control up to the carriers, even making fully possible for consumers to purchase apps on the Marketplace directly through the carrier. This likely means that carrier’s get a piece of the pie when it comes to app sales, and it also makes it easier for contract-carrying consumers to buy apps: they will simply see the charges added to their monthly bills.

Another interesting thing about Firefox OS is that all paid apps will be able to be tested before buying, through a “one-time use” trial.

The Hardware as we currently know it.

At the moment, there are two announced handsets that will run Mozilla’s Firefox OS, the ZTE Open and Alcatel One Touch Fire.

ZTE Open

The Open is a 3.5-inch device with a modest 480 x 320 display. The phone is powered by an A5-based Qualcomm processor clocked around 1GHz with a measly 256MB of RAM. The internal storage is also quite tiny at just 512MB with a included 2GB microSD card. Connectivity options include WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth, GPSm and FM radio. There is also a 3.2MP camera on the back of the phone.

Alcatel One Touch Fire

If you were hoping for more power here, you will be disappointed. The Touch Fire is a 3.5-inch phone with a 1GHz Qualcomm CPU, 256MB of RAM, 512MB storage, microSD with included 2GB card, 3G, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and FM radio. The camera is also a 3.2MP shooter and the battery is 1400mAh.

As you can see, these are REALLY basic devices. These devices are meant for their launch markets like Brazil, where a smartphone on the cheap sounds like a great plan, even if the specs aren’t much better than a typical “dumb phone”.

In countries in Europe and North America? It is doubtful we will see the One Touch Fire or Open. Mozilla is also partnering with LG and Huawei for hardware, which are more likely to be the partners they choose for (hopefully) more upscale yet still lower-end devices down the road.

When is Firefox OS coming?

Impressively, Mozilla has announced tons of partnerships, including 18+ carriers with a constantly growing list. The first markets expected to see the hardware will be Brazil, Hungary, Mexico, Colombia, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela.

As for the United States and Western Europe? The platform likely won’t launch until 2014.

But can it really compete?

That’s good question. Based on hands-on reviews coming in from the net, the existing ZTE Open and Alcatel One Touch Fire are sluggish and the operating system itself is a bit buggy – but the hardware is still a few months out from shipping to its first few markets. Additionally, just because it is running a little choppy on 256MB of RAM doesn’t mean it will be the same story when brands like LG launch hardware, as I highly doubt their offerings would have less than 512MB of RAM.

To put it frankly, it is just too early to judge. While operating systems that lean heavily on open web technologies haven’t exactly taken off in a big way just yet, Firefox’s modest approach of going first after developing countries and second after first-time smartphone users could potentially pay off if they play their cards right.

The biggest challenges will be convincing consumers that haven’t made the jump to a smartphone just yet that Firefox OS is worthy of their time. The second issue will be building up their store and continuing to expand partnerships with hardware vendors, app developers and others in the mobile industry. What do you think, interested in Firefox OS or not?

The post Mozilla Firefox OS is Here, Should You Care? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Believe it or not, ZTE is actually the fifth largest smartphone company in the world. And now the Chinese company is preparing to broaden its horizons by unveiling its first smartphone powered by Mozilla Firefox OS. Yes, we’ve got another operating system on our hands.

Just as people can choose between Safari, Internet Explorer, Chrome or Firefox for their desktop web browsers, the same is quickly becoming true with cell phones, choosing between iOS, Windows Phone, Android and, soon, Firefox too. There isn’t much in terms of details being released by ZTE’s foray into Mozilla’s mobile efforts, but an official statement from ZTE says that they have two major announcements at MWC 2013, the Android-based Grand Memo and a new Firefox OS-based ZTE handset.

 I’m not sure how a ZTE Firefox phone will do in this increasingly crowded and complex market, but it’s good to see that one of the “big five” is on board with Mozilla. Ultimately though, Mozilla isn’t looking for major piece of the pie, instead the company simply wants to reach out to the low-end market segment, and the developing world. Whether that strategy will work or not? That remains unseen for now.

[Source]

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With Ubuntu, Blackberry, Android, Windows Phone and iOS in 2013, we’re already pretty spoiled for choice this year, but that’s not stopping Mozilla from stepping into the smartphone arena and showing the masses what they’re capable of.

Talk has been quite small regarding the Firefox mobile OS, but Mozilla have now announced their developer preview phones equipped with their new mobile OS. The new phones have been built by Mozilla in partnership with Telefonica and Geeksfone, and come equipped with a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 processor, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of internal storage. The screen on the new phone will be a 3.5 inch screen with a grainy resolution of 480×320. The phone will also come with a 3 megapixel camera, and a 1580mAh battery.

The specs look extremely outdated, but what’s important to remember is that the OS is focused on the mid-end and low-end range, and Mozilla seems confident with their new OS, regardless of the hardware. The operating system seems to be heavily based around HTML5 and Mozilla has said the Firefox OS will use it to do tasks like make phone calls and send texts.

Stormy Peters, Director of Websites and Developer Engagement at Mozilla, seems quite content on making the OS a powerful community, similarly to the desktop web browser. “We are working on bringing the power of the web to mobile, through Firefox OS, along with all the power of open standards and an open community, and once again, we’d like to invite web developers to join us.”

Seeing as Telefonica is partly behind the new mobile project, it’s possible that the low-spec’d phones will be marketed along with different contracts binded to certain mobile networks, such as O2.

[Source]

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In the past we’ve covered development about Firefox OS, including their browser-based simulator for testing it out on your PC.

Still, when is Firefox OS actually coming? We’ve been hearing 2013 for a while now, but the good news is that Mozilla is finally giving us a bit more information about what the future holds.

According to Mozilla, Brazil will be the first market this year. Mozilla has also confirmed Alcatel, Qualcomm and ZTE are all partners involved in the effort to bring Firefox OS out to the market.

So what’s in store outside of Brazil? Mozilla is talking about these plans right now it seems. “Telefonica has announced plans to ship devices in Latin America in 2013. While we have no further announcements at this time, interest and momentum continues to grow in Firefox OS,” says Mozilla’s VP of products, Jay Sulivan.

The good news is that ZTE is filling in some of these blanks for us. ZTE says that they are working to bring their handsets over to Europe this year, and are also considering aiming at the North American market. Their US launch will hinge on how well Firefox OS takes off elsewhere.

So why Firefox OS? The idea is that it uses open-source technology that makes it fast and easy to use, even on low-end, low-cost hardware.

The idea is that it could be appealing towards those in the developing world or those in major markets that just can’t afford or refuse to spend high-dollar on a phone.

Additionally, since the entire OS uses technology such as HTML5, any web programmer should be able to easily be an app developer for the platform. This should make it very easy for programmers to come out with interesting apps, in theory at least.

The smartphone world is getting crowded, but Mozilla believes that Firefox OS could be perfect for the lower-end market. What do you think, do they have any chance at all?

[ source ]

The post Mozilla Prepares to Launch Firefox OS in Brazil, Working with ZTE and Alcatel Going Forward appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

While Firefox OS isn’t here yet, it is coming soon— sometime in early 2013. If you are interested in the OS and want to give a test drive, you previously could use a nightly build and throw it onto the Raspbery Pi or even flash it to a Galaxy Nexus. These methods were both quite complicated, though. Good news, a new Firefox browser plug-in allows you to emulate FireFox OS on Mac, Linux and Windows.

The plug-in is called r2d2b2g and works pretty well. The Windows version is said to be the least stable, but I actually didn’t run into too many problems with most of the apps and settings I played around with. The only real issue came when I tried to use the browser, all it did was crash the plug-in. Luckily, reloading the plug-in only takes a few second so no big deal.

The interface seems to be a bit of a cross between iOS and Android in many ways. For example, downloading apps works similarly to iOS in that you click an app and it goes to your front “homescreen” for installation. In fact, all your apps are stored on the pages of the homescreen in a similar manner to iOS.  I haven’t had tons of time to play around, about an hour. My overall impressions? While it’s hard to truly rate or review the OS unless its on an actual touch-based smartphone– I like it. It’s sleek and seems to work rather well. In an emulated environment it runs very quickly and page-turns and other actions are very smooth. Whether or not it runs this smooth on real hardware? Only Mozilla knows for sure.

If Mozilla can optimize the OS to run on very low hardware and if carriers are willing to carry it for really cheap (like $50 or less with contract), it could very well have a market. I don’t see this doing as well on high-end devices as first, but if it is cheap enough, first time smartphone users might be willing to give it a go.

If you want to take Firefox OS for a spin yourself (I recommend trying it), here’s how:

1) First launch Firefox. If you don’t have Firefox on a Mac, Linux or Windows PC– download it first.

2) Next, click here to download the add-on/plugin.

3) After it finishes downloading and installing, go to the upper-left “FIREFOX” tab. Click on “Web Developer” and then navigate to “Firefox OS Simulator” within this sub-menu.

4) This will launch another screen that has a tab on the left that says “Stopped”. Press it and Firefox OS will boot up. That’s it, you are now ready to play around for yourself.

After you try it, comment below and tell us what you think of your first impression of Mozilla’s mobile OS. Has anyone else tried it already? What are your thoughts?

The post Want to take Firefox OS for a spin? Firefox Plugin Makes it Easy appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

For a while now, Mozilla has been talking about its upcoming Firefox OS and how they hope to have it ready to market by 2013. Firefox OS isn’t designed for those that want a high-end phone, instead it has the entry-level market in mind.

How appropriate then that one of the first companies to come forward about working with FireFox OS is ZTE. For those that don’t know, ZTE is a major Chinese company that makes mostly low and midrange electronic devices. They aren’t the best brand out there, but their products aren’t all that bad either.

According to ZTE, they hope to diversify its line of products and reduce reliance on Android and Windows Phone going in to the future. One of the ways they hope to do that is through Firefox OS.

Mozilla’s HTML-based platform is certainly intriguing, but it’s still to early to call on whether or not Firefox OS can truly make a difference in an increasingly crowded mobile OS marketplace.  Are you interested in Firefox OS? If so, would you consider a ZTE smartphone, or would you rather buy a Firefox OS device built by a more popular brand?

[ source ]

The post ZTE Hopes to launch FireFox OS Smartphone in 2013 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Google’s Android is starting to get caught up in legal battles against Apple. Many feel Apple is too bossy, pushy and is too locked down with iOS. There is a lot of people on both sides, here. Some say Apple is evil, some say Android (and Samsung) are reaping what they sow.

Many are in the middle and aren’t taking sides. While Android and iOS might not be in an immediate danger when it comes to their solid position in the mobile market, now is probably the best time to prepare an alternative to both iOS and Android. None of the alternatives will likely kick Android or iOS off their perspective thrones, but they could still a little bit of their thunder- and customers.

Sure, there will be readers that say “Nah, I still stick by Android”, and some who say the same about Apple. But there will be those that are just buying whatever phone looks coolest. Some of these people are also sick of the drama between Apple, Samsung and, to a lesser extent, Google.

This is probably why any news about Windows Phone 8 devices have been met with a lot of views and comments. People aren’t necessarily sold on switching to another platform but they are curious. Windows Phone 8 and the upcoming BB10 might be getting most of the attention when it comes to alternative OSes, but they aren’t the only upcoming player.

Mozilla is preparing to launch its own mobile platform, FireFox OS in 2013. We’ve already seen some pictures from nightly test builds, but we have little information about the look or feel of the app store- until now.

The pictures above paint a very similar store that is designed to get in-and-out as quick as possible. It’s not super detailed, but it has a minimalist charm to it. Is this how the store will actually look when we finally see Firefox OS land on smartphone hardware? It’s hard to say for sure. The release is still a half year or more away, that’s plenty of time for it to change.

What do you think of the “Firefox Marketplace”, based on the limited screenshots you see here? Like the look, or not?

[ source ]

The post Firefox Marketplace Finally Leaked, Utilizes Minimalistic Approach appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Today’s mobile environment is largely dominated by two operating systems, Android and iOS, although there are many more options such as Blackberry (and its upcoming B10), Windows Phone and Bada. With so many mobile operating systems is there really room for more in this increasingly crowded space? Mozilla seems to believe so, as it is getting increasingly closer to its final work with FireFox OS. For those that don’t know, this project started under the name Boot 2 Gecko and has quickly evolved from there. The idea of FireFox OS is to create a very open OS that uses the Gecko HTML rendering engine, a thin hardware enablement layer built on the Linux Kernel and a custom user face that completely is made up using HTML and JavaScript, called Gaia.

Mozilla is targeting in early-to-mid 2013 for the first handsets to feature its Firefox OS, all of which will likely be entry-level Qualcomm-based smartphones designed for newcomers to the smartphone world. For the moment though, anyone with a little compiling knowledge can get ahold of the nightly build updates of FireFox OS which can be ran with Mac OS or Linux with a little bit of legwork which includes fetching the Gaia code from its GitHub repository and generating a profile to make use of the environment.

So what makes Firefox OS different or worthy of your attention? In many ways, Firefox OS is a lot like Chrome OS notebooks- it is a web-centric operating system that aims to use web-based apps to accomplish many of the same things that other mobile operating systems are doing with native apps. Unlike Chrome OS though, this thing does have real functionality outside of always-connected web-use. Another key part of Firefox’s plan is to create a truly flexible mobile OS that is customizable from a carrier or vendor level, similar to Android, but perhaps with even deeper flexibility. At this point it’s hard to say one way or another if Firefox OS has a chance at making any ground, but the screenshots certainly show its come a long way, even if it looks a little like a cross between all existing mobile operating systems. For example, the black status bar on the top looks a bit like something out of iOS, the typography is reminiscent of Windows Phone 7 and it also seems to have a bit of an Android look going on as well.

If you are interested in trying it out and don’t mind jumping through a few hoops, Mozilla’s Wiki has a Gaia Hacking page that will help you get it up and running. It’s important to note that these images aren’t necessarily up to date as FireFox OS’s look-and-feel continues to evolve on almost a nightly basis, so getting the most current look and feel can only be achieved through compiling your own build for now.

It’s hard to say what Mozilla’s FireFox OS future will look like, but it’s an interesting project that’s worth following at the very least.

[ source ]

The post Does Firefox OS Have What It Takes To Compete In The Mobile OS Space? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

This comes by way of Statcounter and it looks at the week of May 14 to May 20, 2012. During that time period, Chrome had a higher traffic share than IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, or any other web browser. More tech-savvy people have a higher likelihood of using Chrome, but regular consumers still dominate the market of course.

In North America, Internet Explorer (37%) is still the leading browser (Chrome has 26%). The same can be said in Asia where IE has over 50% in Japan and nearly three-quarters in China and South Korea. IE continues its massive lead in Oceania too, whereas Firefox is the leader in Europe. So, where is Chrome making up its numbers? As it turns out, South America is where it’s at: Chrome has nearly a 50% market share there and along with incremental growth everywhere else, that was enough to dethrone Microsoft’s browser.

[Source]

The post Google Chrome Becomes Most Popular Browser in the World appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Palm may have been the company to produce webOS, but Mozilla might be the company to produce one of the first truly web-based operating systems for smartphones. Dubbed Boot 2 Gecko, it’s a mobile OS that relies primarily on the web… not unlike the Chrome OS for Chromebooks.

The new OS is currently under development as the Mozilla team is working on its “proprietary, single-vendor stacks.” Various APIs for the camera, phone, SMS, and so on are also be developed. The idea here is to have a truly stripped down OS for contacts and phone, and getting everything else through the web.

You’ll notice that early drawings depict an icon-based OS, which will largely fall in line with people already familiar with iOS, Android, and even webOS. We also hear that Boot 2 Gecko will use Android for booting and drivers, but HTML5 for most other functions. In any case, I’m not sure we need yet another OS option. We’ve already seen the slow death of webOS, the diminishing market share of BB, the less than optimistic outlook for QNX/BBX. Even WP7.5 is having a tough time.

In any case, I’m sure the legal types in Cupertino are already readying their papers for another patent infringement suit. I can feel it in my bones.

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