In a world dominated by Android and iOS, it is extremely difficult for other mobile operating systems to survive. Mozilla tried its luck with Firefox OS which was presented as an extremely low cost smartphone alternative in developing worlds, but the idea simply didn’t click.
Last year, we saw a couple of low cost Firefox OS phones like Spice Fire One Mi-Fx2 and Intex Cloud Fx in India, and surprisingly, they are still on retail shelves one year down the line.
The platform includes web apps based on HTML 5, which means developers didn’t have to go that extra mile to develop separate apps for the platform. Firefox OS phones also shipped with third party alternatives like Connect A2 for WhatsApp access. Mozilla’s smartphone OS is resource efficient, and runs smoother than Android on dirt cheap entry level hardware, but all apps look like web pages and the experience is incomplete.
“We are proud of the benefits Firefox OS added to the Web platform and will continue to experiment with the user experience across connected devices. We will build everything we do as a genuine open source project, focused on user experience first and build tools to enable the ecosystem to grow. Firefox OS proved the flexibility of the Web, scaling from low-end smartphones all the way up to HD TVs. However, we weren’t able to offer the best user experience possible and so we will stop offering Firefox OS smartphones through carrier channels,” said Ari Jaaksi, Mozilla’s SVP of Connected Devices.
We have often iterated that OS wars are over and Android and iOS have already emerged as winners. We would like to know your opinion on the matter. Do you believe there is room for another Smartphone OS?
