Firefox Enters the Mobile OS Market, Defying Current Conventions

by Michelle Maisto

However excellent iOS and Android are, developers have to buy into one or the other, and when they do, “they’re pretty much tied to it,” said Mozilla’s Eich. Firefox “is an open ecosystem for everybody.”

“We believe that smartphones need to be more open and that the Web is the platform for making this possible,” Telefonica CEO Luis Miguel Gilperez said in a July 1 statement. “Consumers should … have the choice to consume the content they want and the flexibility to take it with them when they change devices. This first Open Web device marks a significant milestone in making that possible.”

Telefonica plans to offer Firefox-running smartphones in all the countries it covers by the end of 2014. In addition to ZTE and Alcatel, Huawei, LG and Sony have committed to the OS, as have more than 18 carriers worldwide, including Sprint.

Mozilla says it worked closely with Facebook and Twitter to ship with their apps preloaded. Contacts from Facebook inform the Contacts app on the phone. Users can send Facebook Messages directly from their Contacts.

Because the Firefox OS is Web-based, users can sync their desktop history, bookmarks and passwords to the smartphones for easy browsing. The phones ship with Nokia’s Here Maps, with offline capabilities and smart walking and driving directions, and the Home page is easy to customize.

Firefox can run on Android smartphones, and its icon grid will be familiar to any smartphone user. However, the phones are being marketed to first-time smartphone owners, particularly in emerging markets.

As on higher-end phones, there’s a photo editor and lots of filters and photography features for users to play with.

“You can search based on your intent,” according to Chris Lee, director of Firefox at Mozilla. On the Webcast, he gave the example of searching for sushi, which would turn up not only apps with the word “sushi” in the title but restaurant recommendations and instructions on how to prepare sushi. “It’s a smartphone that really adapts to your needs,” said Lee.

Mozilla has created the Firefox Marketplace. Building apps for the Web, it says, gives developers full control over their content and access to hundreds of millions of Firefox users through the Marketplace.

Deutsche Telekom will soon begin shipping the Alcatel One Touch Fire. Board member Claudia Nemat called it an important step toward driving innovation, as well as competition between ecosystems.