This is my lucky day to be in Spain! Have been following the project from the B2G[0] days and will order a phone ASAP. If you are in Spain, you can order the phone from Telefonica[1] and if you are like me and want to talk with other Firefox OS nerds, there is a Google Plus community for that[2]<p>Also, don't forget that if you want to develop for Firefox OS but don't yet have a device for it, you can run the superfast Firefox OS Simulator[3], super simple and currently the best emulator for a mobile OS.<p>[0] <a href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G</a><p>[1] <a href="http://www.movistar.es/particulares/movil/moviles-tarjeta/ficha/zte-open-prepago" rel="nofollow">http://www.movistar.es/particulares/movil/moviles-tarjeta/fi...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://plus.google.com/communities/100988731864612801878" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/communities/100988731864612801878</a><p>[3] <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Firefox_OS_Simulator" rel="nofollow">https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Firefox_OS_Si...</a>
Huge kudos to Mozilla for branching out and trying something different. I hope it works out for them: we could really do with an open competitor to the Google/Apple duopoly.
I think Firefox OS has potentially huge geek (read: early adopter) appeal, which Blackberry and Windows Mobile do not have - they are dead. Tizen, Jolla, and others are just obscure specks.<p>I am rooting for Firefox OS to be a serious contender within a couple of years. I think it has a strong chance to be #3. Likewise I don't think it has any chance whatsoever of taking the #1 or #2 spots - those are going to stay as they are for many years to come.
I fail to see the value of such devices to the consumer. With android devices available at $100 with 1gb, android 4, a large screen, and huge market of highly optimised apps, what can Firefox is offer, except from marketing by carriers which are usually hated by consumers?<p>liliputing.com/2013/06/android-gets-cheaper-meet-the-100-quad-core-phone-59-dual-core-tablet.html
I'll be very interested to see how well these take off in the countries they're launched in.<p>I don't see them as much of a competitor in the UK/US/etc.- the people there that want a smartphone have one that's much more higher powered.<p>But in countries where most people can't currently afford smartphones, this offers them the chance of having one. And if they can then start to cannibalise sales from beneath, they have a chance of being a real global competitor.
I think we are "almost there" in terms of freedom of choice and usage of our mobile device. We are still dependent on the carrier - e.g. Telefonica - to have our phone running our OS of choice. Of course, we have unlocked phones, but that's another thing, another price too.<p>I wish my experience with mobile phones were the same as with laptops: every two years or so I step into a shop and buy a low-end machine on sale, go home and install the latest Ubuntu LTS version.<p>When I first read about Firefox OS I thought I would have the experience as described above. I would buy ANY phone, donwload the Firefox OS, install it and enjoy mobile life from a different perspective. As I said, I think we are "almost there". Maybe that's where Ubuntu Mobile is aiming to.
It seems to be the same hardware as the ZTE V790 but with half the memory : <a href="http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=5134&idPhone2=5320" rel="nofollow">http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=5134&idPhone2=...</a>
This release prodded me to look into Firefox OS again. I have a Nexus S lying around unused, and that's one of the supported "tier two" devices. So I installed it.<p>I really want to love it. I love Firefox, but Firefox OS is very much "not there" based on my experience. The browser is significantly worse than Firefox for Android. As far as I can tell, Sync is not available at all. Tapping the URL bar just/always puts your cursor where you tapped (does not select the text for easy replacement). Lots of smaller fit/polish things seemed much worse.<p>And the device experience is really strange. There's the "marketplace" but also the .. I don't know what it's called, two swipes to the left of the app launcher screen. The experience is very poor compared to Android/iOS; using familiar "apps" is really the mobile site for that service, and doesn't work as well as the Android apps I'm used to. (I.E.: Rating a movive in IMDB takes one tap to load another page, one tap to open the select box, another to pick the value, then another to submit that form. Versus one tap on Android.)<p>Lots of the "real apps" from the marketplace are also immediately greyed out if you lose data. Including simple games that totally should work offline. (Though I was recently surprised by how many games refused to run without an internet connection on my Android tablet recently, also.)
And here it is in on sale: <a href="http://www.movistar.es/particulares/movil/moviles-tarjeta/ficha/zte-open-prepago" rel="nofollow">http://www.movistar.es/particulares/movil/moviles-tarjeta/fi...</a>
While I'm excited for Mozilla and for creation of wider choice in the mobile space, Firefox OS targeted devices aren't that interesting to me. I'd rather wait for Jolla's handsets to arrive. Not only they'll run glibc Linux proper (Mer based Sailfish OS), they'll also have a Gecko based browser which will be able to run Firefox OS applications as well.
I'm curious - does it automatically get the latest version of FF when it's released for desktop/Android? And does it support all of the functionality that comes with it?<p>i.e. will it now have the asm.js optimisations and similar?