Firefox OS phones confirmed for South Africa

[Kevin Lancaster]

Firefox OS phones confirmed for South Africa

Mozilla has announced that MTN South Africa will support the launch of Firefox OS devices in the country

 

[Ockie]

Crappy low budge phones ..... which is ok I suppose. Big market out there for it, but no support for WhatsApp or Telegram. Bleh.

 

[10i]

From what I have read Firefox phones run well even on lower hardware.

I would love to see one first hand before buying it though.

Too many > R10 000 phones out there.

If it can whatsapp, web browse and have an ok camera I would be interested. And if it was dual sim then I would get it just for that.

 

[LCBXX]

Who cares whether the O/S carries support from the local carriers? Of more importance is support from App Developers.

 

[AstroTurf]

I want to play with one

 

[Fulcrum29]

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/whatsapp-alternatives-firefox-os

WhatsApp client: ConnectA2

ConnectA2 is a WhatsApp client that enables you to send and receive messages, photos and videos using WhatsApp protocol.

Install ConnectA2 from the Firefox Marketplace.

Open ConnectA2 and follow the prompts to enter your nickname, country and phone number. Put a check mark next to WhatsApp NET Experimental and continue to the next screen.

You'll receive a text message with a confirmation number. Enter this confirmation number in the ConnectA2 prompt.
After you followed the prompts and created your account, you're ready to start chatting!
ConnectA2 is a third-party app and is not affiliated with WhatsApp. ConnectA2 is still in its early stages. If you are experiencing problems with the app, please contact the ConnectA2 developers.

 

[Ockie]

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/whatsapp-alternatives-firefox-os

Neh. dont want.

 

[Fulcrum29]

Neh. dont want.

I will test the phone, but I remembered that the FF OS marketplace is applicable to the FF browser... so I'm to see to install ConnectA2 in the browser to test the application.

 

[alchamy]

Who cares whether the O/S carries support from the local carriers? Of more importance is support from App Developers.

Tried ordering the Flame for development purposes and it was a complete disaster. The partner chosen to distribute the devices spent a month sending me from pillar to post eventually escalating into a Paypal claim.

Judging by similar complaints on the forums I imagine that dozens of developers have simply given up on Firefox OS for now.

 

[elvis_presley]

From what I have read Firefox phones run well even on lower hardware.

That was the theory, but reviews of some of the cheap handsets show it doesn't fare too well on low-end handsets.

Here's the review of a $35 (!!) Firefox OS phone. Sure, it's really cheap- but when you consider what you get for $40 (R500 here) in an Android phone, or a $40 Lumia 520 in USA/Aus, this isn't a good start.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/10/testing-a-35-firefox-os-phone-how-bad-could-it-be/

Some choice quotes from the review are:

. Low-end smartphones need a low-end-appropriate operating system, and Firefox OS isn't up to that task

Early versions of Android and iOS certainly ran better on similarly specced devices in the past

And then the funny bits:

The [camera] output from the Cloud FX is more like a vague recollection of the colors and, if you're lucky, a shape or two.

The shell does at least serve its primary purpose of holding the phone together

Let's hope this isn't one of the phones we're getting

 

[elvis_presley]

Judging by similar complaints on the forums I imagine that dozens of developers have simply given up on Firefox OS for now.

I actually installed the Firefox OS SDK to try and see what it was all about. Was a bit fiddly, but I got a hello world app to work in the emulator, and then changing it and running again just nothing happened. Needed to reboot the machine, then it worked again for a while and then stopped working again.

The whole thing feels very alpha'ish - I don't see the launch going well.

 

[Elite Override]

This is great news, I can't wait to try one out.

 

[kianm]

Is this meant to try and topple or eat from Android's share?