What Firefox Mobile OS Needs to Win
And then there was ... five? If you haven't heard, Mozilla has thrown their hat in the ring in the mobile space to compete against iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry. A Firefox Mobile OS is in fact under development. Here's what you should know.
The Firefox Mobile OS is Linux based like Android and will depend on HTML5 for its web apps. The plus here is HTML5 apps can run both on mobile and traditional desktops; a clear advantage Mozilla would have over the aforementioned heavyweights (yes, RIM still counts). You may share my sediments that it's awfully late for anyone new to vie for mobile supremacy, but the same was said about Windows Phone a few years back.
Microsoft is struggling, yes, but no one can deny that over 100,000 apps later in less than two years that Windows Phone's fight isn't exactly hopeless. But can Mozilla be so fortunate? Judging by the latest screen grabs I've seen on the blogs, I'm going to say no ... for now. So this begs the question: what does Mozilla need to do to make the Firefox Mobile OS succeed?
1) The Look: Developers, don't kill me. I'm a developer myself, but vanity counts for so much now. To sell devices to the masses who judge everything on appearance alone without any knowledge of the goodness within, Mozilla needs to look like a winner.
Right now, it looks like iOS and Android bumped uglies one drunken evening, and the Firefox Mobile OS is what happened nine months later. For the love of originality, Mozilla needs something that won't land them in court, a la Apple vs. Samsung. Microsoft took a gamble with its Metro UI, and admittedly, the reception wasn't a slam dunk, but this is where Firefox can learn from others. Notice I said learn, not copy.
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