Mozilla Launches Firefox OS 3.0 Simulator 75
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla on Thursday announced the release of Firefox OS Simulator 3.0, polishing all the features in the preview release as well as making a few more improvements. You can download version 3.0 now for Windows, Mac, and Linux from Mozilla Add-Ons. The following features included in the simulator are now functionally stable, according to Mozilla:
- Push to Device
- Rotation simulation
- Basic geolocation API simulation
- Manifest validation
- Stability fixes for installation and updates to apps
- Newer versions of the Firefox rendering engine and Gaia (the UI for Firefox OS)."
Mozilla needs to explain ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Perhaps a tagline or a some consistent, widespread marketing message would help.
Re:Mozilla needs to explain ... (Score:5, Insightful)
So that we can have truly Free mobile OS?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Mozilla needs to explain ... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, some Android firmwares are Free as in freedom. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyanogenMod [wikipedia.org] and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicant_(operating_system) [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Nobody uses WebOS
So why would anybody use Firefox OS? We've been down the path of free, open source, html5 app based operating system before and as you said nobody uses it.
Re:Mozilla needs to explain ... (Score:5, Insightful)
android is riddled with closed binaries for drivers and shell environments. the shells are one thing as they can be replaced, but the drivers truly hamper maintenance and development on hardware.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Funny, I can download complete source code and assets for Android, compile it and run it on my phone.
The default Android shell is open source and is probably the best to use compared to vendor proprietary shells. Which drivers aren't open source specifically?
Re: (Score:2)
android is riddled with closed binaries for drivers and shell environments. the shells are one thing as they can be replaced, but the drivers truly hamper maintenance and development on hardware.
And why does Firefox OS use the Android kernel? For compatibility with those same closed drivers! FFOS is just as riddled with closed source binaries and you won't prevent OEMs from differentiating by applying closed-source shells just like they do with Android.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Mozilla needs to explain ... (Score:5, Informative)
1. There's the version of Android maintained by the AOSP that is fully open source.
2. Then there's the version of Android that Google releases exclusively for its Nexus line of devices. Although it contains some codes common with the open source, AOSP, codes, it also contains some closed source features like Photosphere. Note that Photosphere is not merely an additional application, but Google is marketing is as a part of Android 4.2 released for the Nexus devices. Since Photosphere is closed source, thus this version of Android cannot be said to be open source.
So, if someone says that Android is open source, he's correct. But if someone else says Android is not open source, he's also correct. They're just talking about different Androids.
Re: (Score:2)
The page clearly says that Photo Sphere is a feature of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
The parent isn't informative, it's incorrect.
Re: (Score:1)
I just had a thought... I wonder if the OP is so indoctrinated that he/she can't understand how Android, an open source operating system, could be the dominant market leader, as if it's so successful that it must be proprietary or closed.
End User Apathy (Score:1)
Re:Mozilla needs to explain ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's fairly obvious what they are hoping to do. Same bloody thing they did to the web.
Try this tagline for size:
"Hi we are Mozilla and we aim to knock down walled gardens and remove the need to whore every last bit of your privacy just so you can call your mother every now and then"
Re:Mozilla needs to explain ... (Score:5, Informative)
Mozilla have an interest in expanding the open web ecosystem. Webkit has a monopoly on mobile (very few mobile devs test on anything more than Android/iOS native browsers), and apps compete directly with web technology for users (Android/iOS rely on non-web or proprietary frameworks).
Now it could be said that people need the proprietary or non-web platforms to accomplish tasks, but remember that asm.js and webgl and many other technologies are coming to Firefox OS. There's always an argument for not changing, and there's always an argument for legacy, but encouraging open standards and web tech for users is an important goal for Mozilla.
For users: Because Firefox OS targets lower-spec mobiles than iOS/Android so it will be cheaper (indeed, Mozilla aren't targetting conventional markets).
For developers: because it uses web technology everywhere (it's like every app is a Phonegap/Cordova app) it will be easier for most developers.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS/Introduction
Re: (Score:2)
Webkit has a monopoly on mobile
Soon it will be Webkit and Blink, of course you can have Gecko on Android devices as well. Tools like asm.js, mandreel and emscripten are equally valuable across existing platforms as they will be on Firefox OS. So that's all well and good and it's a neat idea but the question remains: what is the benefit (to the user) of Firefox OS over Android (or anything else)? Why will it be any different to webOS?
Re: (Score:2)
How do you put Gecko on an Android device?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Mozilla needs to explain ... (Score:4, Informative)
Because competition is good. Drives prices down, features up and forces cross-scrutiny.
Re: (Score:3)
If it was just another phone OS, you might be right, but it isn't.
I don't think you understand what a benefit something like Firefox OS will offer corporates. Once IT departments understand what it really is and how it simplifies/secures their work, they'll be all over it.
Re: (Score:3)
Considering mozilla's track record with corporate IT departments, I'd say there will be a cold day in hell before anyone sane from those departments will trust mozilla's products enough to actually start using them ever again. The epic bait and switch they pulled with firefox and versioning system followed by the whole "we don't care about corporate" quote from the Asa "foot in the mouth" Dotzler, ensured that any dumbass intern in IT who decides to peddle a mozilla product will be hit on the head with a mo
Re: (Score:3)
Times change.
Just 10 years ago, Nokia/Symbian dominated the smartphone market. Since then, Microsoft WPx hung on to around 30% for a while before crashing to near nothing, while RIM/Blackberry had the lead in business phones for a while, then ceded it to Apple. Apple's iPhone dominated everything for a few years, but looks like having single figure global market share before this year ends. Android's relative flexibility has hauled it to the front of the pack for now, but this is a dynamic market.
That's wha
Re: (Score:2)
Times change.
True, but it takes disruptive features that directly benefit users for that to happen, I don't see that with Firefox OS or Windows Phone or webOS or Tizen or any of those other operating systems.
Re: (Score:2)
Because some people in IT are zealots and will not give up on the message, even if that message directly harms them. But the dip firefox took, and continues to suffer from due to corporate dropping them was very noticeable, and still is.
Re: (Score:1)
In Mobile, the single biggest factor of commercial success is your relations with carriers.
That's because they had the best carrier relarionships that Nokia was #1 until 2011, and that's because carriers hate microsoft and fear skype that Nokia collapsed post Lumia, and that's because they have the best carrier relations now that Samsung is now #1 (heeck, their strategy has long been "say yes to carriers whenever Nokia said no").
Firefox OS has support of big time manufacturers (so you know devices are going
Re: (Score:2)
ZTE is a corporation with close to 100k employees with growing hardware and software businesses. All they lack is a brand, but if Samsung (which used to be the Yugo of home electronics) can be turned into a popular brand, then why not ZTE or Huawei?
But yeah, Firefox OS looks like it's going to be DOA. The fact that this comment is only the 60:th comment is a bad sign. If Mozilla can't get people who read Slashdot excited about their OS then there's probably no hope for it. I suppose ZTE is primarily working
Re: (Score:2)
Android is a mess, it's insecure, it's developed by a data hungry advertiser and it isn't offering a real alternative for app developers. Android also offers very little for hardware companies. If you're not Samsung then you're fighting over scraps and probably in financial dire straits.
So I do think it's needed and it relies on web so it's not exactly creating vendor lock-in.
Re: (Score:2)
The reason the world needs another mobile OS is the people making the current ones. Apple wants my money, Google wants my data, and Microsoft wants my patience, and frankly, I'm not inclined to give them these things. That leaves me out in the cold unless another mobile OS comes along.
Re: (Score:2)
sim? (Score:2)
battery life is too good.
Re: (Score:1)
This is great for the consumer. More options and more competition is always good for the consumer.
Actually, studies seem to indicate that too many choices cause confusion for the consumer and may actually have a detrimental effect.
The same could be said for developers picking what platforms to supports, but "It sucks" basically says that more succinctly.
Re: (Score:2)
> Actually, studies seem to indicate that too many choices cause confusion for the consumer and may actually have a detrimental effect.
20th century dictators used to state the same kind of thing, and maybe they were right.
Let's make people free from the responsability of their choices, let's make the big corps choose for them:
Meet the new boss(big corps), same as the old boss (nazists, fascists, totalitarian communists and other dictatorship forms).
You seem to think that the opposite of an excess of choices is a limited set of choices controlled by someone else. There's no room in your philosophy, Horatio, for any other cases.
does it support the HOSTS file? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
But... (Score:1)
Does it run emacs?
MeeGo (Score:1)
Nokia, Nokia, why hast thou forsaken me?
can it run native C code? (Score:2)
Does all the apps need to be HTML5, or can I write apps in C/C++ too, like Android's NDK?
Re:can it run native C code? (Score:5, Informative)
FxOS only runs open web standards (HTML, CSS, JS, etc.) - C/C++ not being one of them.
Any web apps should then be able to run on Android (via Firefox) and in the future Chrome OS, Ubuntu Touch, etc. I say "in the future" because I don't know that everyone has yet settled on an app packaging standard.
If Firefox OS included C code in apps, among other implications, those apps would not be usable everywhere.
Currently though, C/C++ code can be compiled via Emscripten to asm.js, a Javascript subset. It will run in any browser, but Firefox is including an optimized module for asm code which gets closer to native compiled speeds than previously seen. It looks as though Chrome may be including their own asm module as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the information.
I get the cross-platform point of being web-only, but it's still sad if it won't be able to run native code as well.
I'm about to rewrite my photo management software (currently written in Perl/SDL) so it can be more portable, particularly to Android tablets; and, even more importantly, future-proof. I haven't yet settled for the new language, but C (or C++, if possible) would be the preferred one. (Actually, I would prefer D, but it's not widely supported.)
Quick turn-around development (Score:1)
.
More and more websites have stopped working properly.
More and more plug-ins have stopped working.
Since version 18, http proxying has become very problematic, to the point that it is no longer a working function of Firefox.
So I will ask a question that I have asked previously, what is the benefit to me of the accelerated Firefox development cycle if there are mo
Re: (Score:3)
If you have any real issues, file a bug report or complain with details. Don't vaguely spread bullshit.
Doesn't simulate very well (Score:1)
Though the native apps seem to work alright, and it feels like a modern phone to me.
Sadness (Score:2)
And here I thought for a second that Mozilla was offering a download of a simulator for their 3.0 version of Firefox.
I believe 3.5 was the last version that added a feature I actually wanted...and that was just the new tab button on the tab bar, which I've since stopped using anyway.