News - Mozilla and Geeksphone reveal new Firefox OS smartphones

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Specifications of two new smartphones named “Keon” and “Peak” are detailed.

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Read more.

And they accuse Samsung of doing iPhone rip offs? :rolleyes: These surely will have the Apple legal team rolling up their sleeves and getting the sue-o-matic powered up.

That said, I'm really very unconvinced that we need yet another smartphone OS, especially as (reputedly) the effort that was going into the Thunderbird email client (which arguably is needed) was diverted to this.

I mean, hell look at it:
http://i.imgur.com/AQrf0c5.jpg
Who the hell thinks that looks good?

Its boring. Absolutely boring.

I sure hope they have widgets.

Is it really necessary ? Nokia are struggling , you know.

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Originally Posted by TheAnimus

I mean, hell look at it:
http://i.imgur.com/AQrf0c5.jpg
Who the hell thinks that looks good?

Its boring. Absolutely boring.

I sure hope they have widgets.

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Ugly like an iPhone.

I [not so] boldly predict that along with Symbian, Meego, Maemo, Bada, Jolla et al. that Mozilla OS will sink or at best grab a tiny slice at the arse end of the pile in emerging markets.

I'm really sticking my neck out on that. Not.

iOS, Android, BB, Windows - four major mobile OS already, where is the room for another? Particularly one with a small-fry backer.

The desktop has only managed to support Windows with some Mac OS, and slim pickings for Linux. I count Linux as one because it's mostly all compatible versions of the same code packaged differently (whereas all the mobile OS are different base code). Even Mac OS is a nix base...

Commodity servers are basically either Windows or Linux, and most embedded devices are Linux with a little Windows CE... High end servers are almost all Linux or Unix. Whatever market you look at only a 2 or 3 incompatible OS really "make it big" and the rest flop or remain niche.

I wouldn't be suprised to see the mobile market trimmed soon, either BB or Windows... my bold (no pun intended) prediction is Blackberry OS will croak it when RIM get bought out by a bigger player and "do a Palm".


Edit: On another note both these Geeksphones have 512MB RAM - that's distinctly low end.

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Originally Posted by kingpotnoodle

I wouldn't be suprised to see the mobile market trimmed soon, either BB or Windows... my bold (no pun intended) prediction is Blackberry OS will croak it when RIM get bought out by a bigger player and "do a Palm".

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I can't really see Windows diving out of the market - Nokia and HTC are (locally at least) doing pretty good promotions and, incidentally, the latest Lumia's and 8 series phones look to be pretty reasonable devices - and the HTC's are very competitively priced. Oh, and it's definitely contrary to Microsoft's interests to have it fail - as that'd leave a fairly large whole in their "MUI everywhere" strategy
BB on the other hand looks pretty weak to me. Pretty much everyone I know who was a BB loyalist has now moved on to iOS/Android, and a friend of mine was remarking the other day that perhaps BBM would be better/more-profitable if done as a cross platform service rather than a USP for a platform. Doesn't RIM also have a couple of "valuable" patents in which case, as you say, they're ripe for acquisition and break up.

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Originally Posted by kingpotnoodle

Edit: On another note both these Geeksphones have 512MB RAM - that's distinctly low end.

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Being rude, that's part of the problem - as a geek I want my "shiny, shiny" to be the best. And I honestly can't come up with a single reason why I'd want one of those FF phones. The Jolla/Sailfish ones look a lot more technically "interesting".

I think they'll maybe sell a few here and there and then the project will fold (for lack of interest) or merge with one of the others.

What I think is that this project is going to fail miserably.
I don't see any future for a 'Firefox OS'...

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Originally Posted by crossy

I can't really see Windows diving out of the market - Nokia and HTC are (locally at least) doing pretty good promotions and, incidentally, the latest Lumia's and 8 series phones look to be pretty reasonable devices - and the HTC's are very competitively priced. Oh, and it's definitely contrary to Microsoft's interests to have it fail - as that'd leave a fairly large whole in their "MUI everywhere" strategy

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Yeah I agree I think it's very unlikely Microsoft would throw in the towel (just slightly more likely than Android or iOS) and they have the money to burn, especially now Nokia are recovering there is a buzz behind the platform. If Nokia had bombed out then it would have been a bigger struggle with only humdrum hardware and/or lesser brands. Android or iOS would need to have some huge disaster to happen before they drop out though... But things change, before 2007 Nokia and RIM had it all to lose...

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Originally Posted by crossy

BB on the other hand looks pretty weak to me. Pretty much everyone I know who was a BB loyalist has now moved on to iOS/Android, and a friend of mine was remarking the other day that perhaps BBM would be better/more-profitable if done as a cross platform service rather than a USP for a platform. Doesn't RIM also have a couple of "valuable" patents in which case, as you say, they're ripe for acquisition and break up.

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Heh, Lenovo news today... like you say they have some good patents and ideas now lost in the sea of shinier devices with better ecosystems. The cross-platform service idea is a good one but they would probably need to keep the OS and some devices for the real security hardcore crowd, the like DoD in the states.

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Originally Posted by crossy

Being rude, that's part of the problem - as a geek I want my "shiny, shiny" to be the best.

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Yeah Geeksphone handsets don't seem much like phones for geeks to me, more like phones for the cash-strapped.