Not so much. The whole point of FirefoxOS is that the browser (Firefox) is the OS. Everything else on top is built on HTML and run by the browser.
Guess what the browser app is? It's pretty much just a HTML-app letting you set the location a iframe container should point to. It really is HTML all the way down.
Lots of people look at this as some sort of lock-in, because hey! you can't switch browser. Which is sorta true.
But IMO they miss the point: Firefox OS is about the opposite of lock-in: It is all about promoting openness and standards on an application-level, because all applications will first and foremost be web-applications and none of those will be locked into Firefox OS.
So if you ever decide to move on, away from FirefoxOS, you lose nothing. Because all those apps works everywhere else as well.
IMO it's the only revolutionary mobile OS out there right now, it's the only one offering something truly new and unique and it's the only player promoting open web-standards over their own technology and walled gardens.
And for that reasons, I'd really wish it would get more support in the community, instead of these typical HNesque reasons "But it's closed because I can't change browser!" (which I'd like to think of as a Chrome Stockholm sort of effect)
If that is your objection, you've clearly missed the point.
WRONG on both counts. Firefox OS only allows apps to run under its javascript VM engine. Under no way shape or form can you compare the performance of a native app to those running under a javascript VM.
Since Firefox OS limits you to running HTML5 apps, the best you can do is create a new skin for Mozilla's browser. The same limitation that iOS imposes on its users.
> Since Firefox OS limits you to running HTML5 apps, the best you can do is create a new skin for Mozilla's browser.
Right.
> The same limitation that iOS imposes on its users.
And wrong. With Firefox OS there is a major difference: Should you ever decide to leave it (or should Mozilla do so), you don't lose your apps. Because those are web-apps and they are not locked into a closed eco-system.
> And wrong. With Firefox OS there is a major difference: Should you ever decide to leave it (or should Mozilla do so), you don't lose your apps. Because those are web-apps and they are not locked into a closed eco-system.
Only IF those apps run on your next device. Considering HTML5's track record of cross browser incompatibility, that's a big IF. The HTML5 "standard" is so broken and performance so poor, that's one eco-system I'd rather not be part of.
Guess what the browser app is? It's pretty much just a HTML-app letting you set the location a iframe container should point to. It really is HTML all the way down.
Lots of people look at this as some sort of lock-in, because hey! you can't switch browser. Which is sorta true.
But IMO they miss the point: Firefox OS is about the opposite of lock-in: It is all about promoting openness and standards on an application-level, because all applications will first and foremost be web-applications and none of those will be locked into Firefox OS.
So if you ever decide to move on, away from FirefoxOS, you lose nothing. Because all those apps works everywhere else as well.
IMO it's the only revolutionary mobile OS out there right now, it's the only one offering something truly new and unique and it's the only player promoting open web-standards over their own technology and walled gardens.
And for that reasons, I'd really wish it would get more support in the community, instead of these typical HNesque reasons "But it's closed because I can't change browser!" (which I'd like to think of as a Chrome Stockholm sort of effect)
If that is your objection, you've clearly missed the point.