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.<p>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 when ever I flick between pages.<p>The links are tiny and impossible to click on without zooming in.<p>It's just a terrible, terrible experience.<p>How do we get from this broken UX experience story of <i>right now</i>, into the magical compelling 'mobile web app' future that OP talks about?<p>I just don't see a roadmap for it. :(
<i>And if your problem is with JavaScript as a language, you can already use a myriad of languages that reliably compile to it. Do you come from a Java background? You’ll probably like Dart, from Google. More of a functional kind of developer? Try ClojureScript, which is an impressive, well-maintained and well-performing implementation of Clojure on top of JavaScript. Coming from Ruby? You’ll be almost at home with CoffeeScript. You get the picture.</i><p>God no. Instead of having to use a single awful language all the time I get to choose what language to transpile to javascript and I never have to look at or think about javascript at all. Unless of course there are bugs and then you get to experience the pleasure of debugging machine generated javascript. Maybe some people are filled with joy by the thought of debugging generated js, all I can say is that those people are certifiably insane.<p>How about we work on platforms that support more that one language as first class citizens. Is that really such a crazy idea in 2013?
This is a real question and no trolling:<p>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 but the client stuff would have to be written again.
Delivering apps and linking between them like the web does is awesome. Building sophisticated apps is not awesome but on Android and iOS it is. Why not take the best of both worlds...now....not in 10 years when some standards might agree on something. Just think about how very important the web is. Everyone is using it. The whole world largely depends on it, but it's increasingly not up to the task.
And why do web developers seem to be so satisfied with the state of the technology which drives the web. Oh, you think css is great because you can code a hack for putting a footer on the bottom of the page even when there is no content in the attention area? What? It's so strange.<p>Why has nobody ever tried to create such a browser?
Some people on this thread are completely missing the point of Firefox OS.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
I'm really excited for Firefox OS, but I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I have a lot of respect for Mozilla and the high quality of their software. Having a fresh ecosystem is always going to attract developers who haven't bothered with the current platforms due to overcrowding (among other things), even if it never rivals the size of Android/iOS.
Some people are not getting the main goal of the Firefox OS: To give emerging markets (cheap) smartphones and keep the web as open as possible. Therefore, HTML/CSS/JS is a damn good combo to keep the web open, and to enable rapid development of apps.
Glad to see this coming out - I think the technical chutzpah of FirefoxOS is fantastic, now let's see Mozilla Market it in the same clear vision and spirit.<p>I mean I simply did not know there was an emulator (<a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/12/firefox-os-simulator-1-0-is-here/" rel="nofollow">https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/12/firefox-os-simulator-1-0-i...</a>) until this post, and honestly I looked.<p>Edit: oh and can someone tell me if persona is taking off or not - are there stats from login.persona.org?
I'm starting to feel like html/js/css is starting to become the 'this will be the year of linux on the desktop' of apps.<p>They're flexible technologies, but don't think they'll ever have the feel of purpose built native API's.
Good article. The main reason for FFOS is not to take over the world but rather disrupt the closed ecosystems that Google, Apple and Microsoft are creating; the same way that Firefox broke Microsofts monopoly on the browser market.
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.
I can easily see it beating Android/iPhone (or at least competing). I can't wait to get my hands on such a phone and I'll definitely be making apps for it. I think a lot of developers are like myself since 1) it's all JavaScript/HTML5 which is cool and 2) it's by Mozilla and company. Once there are a bunch of apps the people will come, unless the mobile industry decides to make this fail or Firefox OS turns out to be terrible.<p>Also I think people miss, this isn't just a phone full of webapps, it's about opening up the native functionality of the phone to JavaScript. So operating the camera, accelerometer, contacts list API, etc.
Interesting if this is in fact the goal. I would argue you still will have a mix of both. No ubiquitous environment, but Web apps will get first class support on upcoming platforms. At least this seems to be the most logical route. If you've ever used Cordova or "PhoneGap" you would know about the plug in architecture and how it is in fact still the wild west. Developers write native extensions to do things the underlying JS API can't, this won't change for a long time until the Web API does. The future is a mix of both Web and native, not just the Web.
I would have liked to have heard a story like this one at FOSDEM. You had a room full of interested IT people/devs/... and missed selling the 'spirit' of fOS. Too bad...
There are plenty of js/html frameworks for mobile. That mission was (and is??) the _promise_ of webOS. So I don't see how you can say "even in the unlikely event that Firefox OS itself disappears in the process, if web-apps become mainstream it will have succeeded" since it's far from a controlled experiment.<p>Mozilla always seems to have the same answer to "what if we just started from scratch": which is "let's do it". It's endearing I guess.
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.
In the abstract FireFox OS is appealing.<p>But the likely realities aren't. It's hard not to assume the ease with which Firefox the browser can be installed by my Mom when thinking about the OS. But doing so is plain wrong.<p>For most end users it will be as tied to a particular device by the manufacturer as any other mobile OS. And the likelihood that the end user will, as a practical matter, be able to load Firefox OS on their own is low because there is no ISA for mobile and the mobile ecosystem is so mined with patents.<p>It's not that some people may not be able to hack Firefox OS onto an iPhone - I actually expect it. It's that such hacks will kludged beyond utility for most non-technical people.
Interesting. I'd love to see Firebooks in the future along with Chromebooks. It would be nice to have two cloud-based operating systems for the desktop out there.
"But how is it going to beat Android or iOS?”<p>I'm more interested in how it stacks against other open source mobile OS's, most importantly Ubuntu, but also open webOS and Tizen.
At the end of the day , the only user will care about is the app store and performances. If the apps are great and run fast then people will not care how they are made. That's the only thing we should care about.If FFos doesnt deliver on these levels then it wont work. There is already an os for cheap celphones , android. Cheaper hardware means crappy software.