Meet The First Firefox OS Phones: Keon And Peak

Mozilla has declared a cooperation with Language start-up Geeksphone for two cellular mobile phones that run the HTML-5 centered Mozilla OS. The free application application group had declared previously at CES that they will be prepared with the OS in two-three several weeks.

GeekPhone's Keon and Optimum are Mozilla OS-running cellular mobile phones that are particularly designed with app developers and developers in mind. The supports of both cellular phones are brandished with the terms Mozilla OS Designer Review. Mozilla desires that getting two developer version gadgets out will help facilitate the procedure of developing an app environment before the future formal release of the OS.

The Keon, which will be available in Mozilla’s attribute lemon color, has specifications that belie its smart phone origins. It is operated by a single-core 1GHz Snapdragon S1 from Qualcomm, has 512MB of RAM and 4GB of on board storage space. It activities a 3.5” show with a 480 x 320 quality, placing it directly in the low-end classification. It also has a 3 mega-pixel photographic camera (no show, though) and Wi-Fi/3G antennas. 

The other system Optimum is predicted to deliver in a flat white-colored body. Although its specifications are not interesting by any indicates, the Optimum is predicted to be a more highly effective system as it is depending on an unspecified 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 SoC. Presently, neither Mozilla nor Geeksphone has declared whether the cores are underclocked Kraits or of the aging Cortex-A5 wide range. The smart phone has a 4.3-inch qHD show with a 960 x 540 quality. On the back is an 8 mega-pixel camera, associated with a show and there happens to be 2 mega-pixel front-facing photographic camera as well. Just like the Keon, the Optimum has 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage space.

As of now, there are no company information on the cost or accessibility for the Optimum, but Mozilla considers the first groups of Keon will be delivered out by next 30 days. The great thing is that one will not have to invest big dollars to area their arms on one of these beginning versions. Geeksphone statements the cellular phones will come with a cost tag “you could never have imagined” and their Tweets consideration said they will give more information about the “price and the provision during the next weeks”. So anticipate both designs to be competitively-priced.

Mozilla is also welcoming developers to Mozilla OS App Days, where they will have to be able to understand, crack and create applications for the Mozilla OS. The Mozilla Hackers website goes on to say, “Technologists and developers from the Mozilla group will existing resources and technological innovation designed to boost and assistance the Web foundation, such as cellular Web APIs to accessibility system components functions such as the accelerometer.”

Firefox OS uses a web system, eschewing exclusive systems and developers (and gradually, users) can accessibility information and applications across several gadgets. Mozilla has also launched a Mozilla OS simulation that allows developers to analyze out their HTML5, CSS and Javascript app.

Our latest study (it's still open) requested visitors which future OS they are more likely to choose over iOS and Android operating system. One of four options, Mozilla OS rests in second place with 15 % of all ballots.

Posted by Unknown Wednesday, January 23, 2013

RIM Banking On BlackBerry Balance, HTML5, BYOD Trend

Summary: RIM is hoping to get back in the game with consumers by relying on its business-friendly device strength.

Analysis In Movement CEO Thorsten Heins stated that BlackBerry 10 is the mobile phone company's "most essential release ever" while discussing to designers at BlackBerry Jam Our country's in San Jose -- and he couldn't be more right.

Needless to say, RIM needs BlackBerry 10 to not only perform, but to be a beat hit.

Based on Heins's keynote deal with on Wednesday day, it looks like RIM is financial on several factors to create BlackBerry 10 a achievements.

For beginners, RIM has created some follies in the individual industry before, but the Canada cell mobile phone organization is trying again from a different strategy thanks to the BYOD (bring your own device) pattern.

Relying on its durability and popularity for developing relatively the most protected cellular mobile phone gadgets, Heins moved on BlackBerry Stability, a rather ignored function that really has restored significance as more individuals want to be able to use their individual gadgets for perform requirements too being that it can individual and protected expert information.

"People want to be effective on the go. We've got that," Heins stated, such as that details security and comfort are "absolutely essential as more individuals put delicate details on their gadgets."

Thus, Heins ongoing that BlackBerry 10 has been about such as and developing upon the "recognizable traits" about the BlackBerry cellular os, which he mentioned as balance and business assistance. He suggested further that these two factors issue because BYOD is a truth, and while "CIOs have accepted it," it's still a frustration that hasn't been settled succinctly.

Other acquainted BlackBerry functions consist of the laptop key pad, as Heins featured that BlackBerry has "always been popular for key pad performance," such as that BlackBerry 10 will be getting "predictive published text to a whole new stage, way beyond any dictionary" or other predictive published text technological innovation currently available.

But depending on the trial during the keynote, the overall look and feeling of BlackBerry 10 is a significant leaving from past variations of the foundation.

"BlackBerry 10 symbolizes a shift to real traveling with a laptop," Heins said. "That's why we've designed the whole foundation on a new structure."

Based on the desltop alone, the strategy is different without looking uncomfortable or uncommon. (Although at first look, it does look a bit like Windows Phone 7 and Android os had a kid of their own.)

Additional improvements that will appear on BlackBerry 10 consist of a hub that is expected to learn effectively and much better to shift through projects and BlackBerry Circulation for "total integration" of the buyer across all applications.

Furthermore, being that the controversy between developing for HTML5 vs. iOS/Android local applications is warmed enough without tossing other cellular systems in the mix, RIM's best taken is financial on the part of HTML5. Heins mentioned that the BlackBerry 10 web browser has been a concern, and that it has "the best ranking in the marketplace, better than any pc web browser."

Heins confessed that the BlackBerry foundation "was not always simple to create for," so RIM has been dedicated to developing an entirely new and versatile OS.

"We're creating followers out of individuals who wrote BlackBerry off," he said.

Still, not everyone must have published BlackBerry off as Heins mentioned that the individual platform has exploded to roughly 80 thousand customers -- up from 78 thousand at the end of Q2 FY2012.

Heins reiterated that BlackBerry 10 growth is on monitor for assistance provider examining in Oct with a release organized for the first one fourth of schedule 2013.

Posted by Unknown Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Intel SVP: Yes, HTML5 Is Over-Hyped But It Will Move Mobile Forward

Summary: Intel executives fuel the debate surrounding HTML5 on the second day of Intel Developer Forum.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The truth about computing today is that most consumers don't care about the hardware architecture of their devices, but rather about how to get tasks done, according to Intel senior vice president Renée James while speaking at Intel Developer Forum on Wednesday morning.

"Transparent processing is the primary of how customers view the encounters in estimate these days. It's about enabling what they want to do," said Wayne, describing that what customers care about, for example, is finding a way for their iPad applications to perform on their New samsung Galaxy  mobile phones.

James recognized that everyone in the technology wants to innovate, but the problem is when you commit most (or all) of your sources to just one product, you have less sources for porting and creating applications for several systems.

With that in mind, here is a overview from a latest study mentioned by Apple showing the current state of the cellular app market:

• One-third of applications on all systems produce $100-$500 per month
• Regular income produced by just one app is $1,200-$3,900 per month
• 63 % of all applications make than less $5,000 per month
• Promotion records for 50 % of development costs
• 76 % of customers stop using an app after three months

Thus, Intel's reaction to and way of the cellular industry facilities around the idea of clear processing. Wayne described that clear processing means enabling encounters to combination easily across different systems, operating-system and structure systems.

James defined three key components to clear computing:a cross-platform terminology, a versatile reasoning facilities, and solid security.

But this contributes petrol to a controversy that got warmer this weeks time about an current cross-platform language: HTML5.

In reaction to feedback made by Facebook or myspace CEO Level Zuckerberg at TechCrunch Affect SF on Wednesday, Wayne confessed, "We all believe the fact it's been very over-hyped."

Nevertheless, Wayne suggested that it's "emerging as a reliable remedy for several technical difficulties around clear processing."

"We believe its a real remedy for where customers want to go, and we believe customers will demand we go there as an industry," Wayne added.

To protect this, Apple points out that 40 % of app designers are using HTML5, while another 40 % are planning to use HTML5.

Intel is planning to launch several HTML5-focused alternatives for designers over the next few sectors. Starting these days, Wayne mentioned Stream Pathway similar additions for JavaScript. The plug-in developed in collaboration with Mozilla will be moving out this weeks time. It will become local in Chrome internet explorer to bring similar processing for web applications in 2013.

Intel also revealed the Apple Designer Area, designed to promote cross-platform growth while improving user encounters and growing businesses.

The international on the internet website has a main database with sources designed to allow designers from growth through submission, such as marketing programs, on the internet possibilities to promote perform within Apple and the app group.

Intel will be including an HTML5-focused developer focus Q4 this year, which is guaranteed to information designers through actual deployments of HTML5 applications on iOS, Android managing system, Windows Phone and Tizen.

 

Posted by Unknown Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Mozilla On HTML5: Here's What Zuckerberg Really Meant To Say

Summary: There's more to the Facebook founder's view of HTML5 than seeing it as a 'mistake' in development focus, says Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich, who laid out to ZDNet his reasons why the tension between native apps versus web technology will eventually fade away.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg seemed to take a potshot at HMTL5 on Tuesday, when he said the social-networking company had spent too much time working on that technology than on native apps.

"The biggest mistake we made, as a company, was betting too much on HTML5 rather than native," he told TechCrunch's Michael Arrington during a fireside chat.

But dig a bit deeper, and Facebook's chief is actually keener on HTML5 than it first appears, according to Brendan Eich, the chief technology officer at Mozilla, a key backer of the web technology.

After that widely quoted sentence, Zuckerberg went on to say: "It's not that HTML5 is bad. I'm actually, on long-term, really excited about it. One of the things that's interesting is we actually have more people on a daily basis using mobile web Facebook than we have using our iOS or Android apps combined. So mobile web is a big thing for us."

(For the record, that's the full quote according to Tobie Langel, an engineer at Facebook.)

Eich argues that Zuckerberg was actually making a slightly more high-level point about web standards.

"If you read between the lines, what it seemed he was saying is what they tried to do was hybridise native and HTML, and when you do that there's always a seam between the systems," Eich told ZDNet at a briefing in London on Wednesday.

"A friend of mine, Joe Hewitt, used to be at Facebook and did the first hybrid app and did a very good integration. But he left, and the skill required to keep that seamless — and possibly some of the support from Apple to do it — weren't there in the later versions," the Mozilla exec added.

Why the web will win out :

Eich's comments about HTML5 are perhaps unsurprising, given that the company is now deeply involved in its own Firefox OS platform — a bid to create an entire mobile operating system using HTML5.

The Mozilla exec did concede that HTML5 still faces standardisation issues. However, he does believe that more mature web technologies will eventually win out.

"I don't think the web ever loses. It's just a matter of pragmatics and spin that you get into with these things," he said, suggesting that politics and rivalry sometimes overshadow technological factors in making development choices.

"Companies like Facebook can afford to do a native [app], especially on iOS," he noted. "But for the long tail, developers will generally do the web and often be content there.

"If the web can be evolved to include the missing APIs and have better performance, [developers] won't need to go beyond the web."

This is particularly relevant given Zuckerberg's comment that there are more people using the Facebook mobile site than either of its iOS or Android native apps combined. This fact illustrates the strength in numbers from web users, particularly in emerging markets where smartphones are less prevalent.

Strength in numbers :

Eich hopes that by continuing to lead development of essential HTML5 standards, Mozilla will actually make developers' lives easier. This is because it can offer all the functionality and performance of a native app but in a platform-agnostic way, thereby opening up the potential audience.

"One of our hopes 10 years from now — which is very hard to forsee — is that you will have the web uplifted; you'll have these APIs we pioneered and more," he said.

"If you look at these APIs we've pioneered in the W3C, it wasn't just Mozilla — it was Nokia, Microsoft, Samsung and some of the Chrome OS people from Google. So there's enough strength in numbers there to get the web uplifted," Eich pointed out.

With the lure of Apple's ecosystem and reach, the iOS platform is often the first stop for developers. But Eich predicts that even this will change, as web technology matures.

"Apple has too healthy a balance sheet not to be around in 10 years. I'm sure they will have a native application stack in 10 years," he said. "I'm sure it will be awesome, but I have a feeling the web will be pretty darn good, and you won't have this tension between native versus web that we're endlessly debating these days."

Posted by Unknown Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Facebook Kisses HTML5 Goodbye With Rebuilt iOS App

Facebook has pushed out an update to its iOS app. Users won't see a major redesign or many new front-facing features. But they may notice the app works much more quickly than before. That's because instead of using HTML5, the new Facebook app is native to iOS. Making a native app may speed up performance, but it could also complicate the process of developing an app for multiple platforms.

Facebook has released a new version of its iOS app, one that the company rebuilt from the ground up using Apple's Xcode integrated development environment (IDE).

In doing so, it got rid of HTML5, on which the previous version of its iOS app relied.

The move to native iOS has sped up the app's performance, Facebook stated. While HTML5 allowed the social network's devs to leverage much of the same code across iOS, Android and the mobile Web, among other things, it wasn't especially fast.

"There's a real preference for native apps due to performance and the ability to access native features on the device," Michael King, director of enterprise strategy at Appcelerator, told TechNewsWorld.

"There is likely a disillusionment phase for HTML5 where the technology behind some apps may get reworked in native platforms," remarked Al Hilwa, program director, applications development software, at IDC. "Anyone who thought that HTML5 was a panacea for mobile development is probably reconsidering that." 

 

The New Facebook iOS App:

This new app is the first created without the use of Facebook's open source Three20 framework, the social networking company said. Over the years, the framework has become less relevant.

The update does not include a major revision of the previous version's layout, interface or features. However, the new app implements various techniques to speed things up, Facebook said. For example, it rebalances when certain tasks are performed. Tasks that require lots of computational power, such as networking activity, JSON parsing, NSManagedObject creation and saving to disk, are performed in the background.

Further, the new app asynchronously calculates the sizes for all strings and caches CTFramesetters when it downloads new content, Facebook stated. It uses all these calculations later when it presents the story in its UITableView.

The new app also shows previously cached content immediately.

Facebook will continue using HTML5 code in areas within the app where it anticipates making changes more often, as this will allow it to push updates on the server side without requiring users to download a new version of the app.

"Software development is iterative in nature, and ... I think the Facebook folks have ... changed the underlying technology so that they can begin to address the actual substantive functional issues more efficiently," IDC's Hilwa told TechNewsWorld.

Facebook did not respond to our request to comment.

HTML5 and the Mobile World:

The promise of HTML5 is that, like Java, it lets devs write an app once and run it across many different platforms.

However, that's a vision that has been brought to its knees by reality.

"The write once, work everywhere performance of HTML5 isn't being realized," Appcelerator's King said. "The manufacturers of mobile devices and operating systems each have their own browser, and these don't necessarily implement the pre-ratified standard in the same way."

Appcelerator has found that there is "a 30 percent differential in features that are activated in all these different browsers," King continued. The differences exist in Android devices from the same vendor, with different versions of Android, or with the same version of the OS on products from different vendors. The form factor also is an issue, because "a tablet is different from a smartphone and a 7-inch tablet is different from a 10-inch tablet."

HTML5's Still a Contender:

The market will rationalize around two tiers of apps, IDC's Hilwa suggested. Native apps will be used "for optimal user experiences or for use of specific hardware capabilities or for appealing to the user base of a particular platform. Mobile Web apps based on HTML5 will be made "for enterprises needing to address employee access or mobility to back-end systems."

"Facebook gave up a lot by going this [HTML5] route," Sam Abadir, chief technology officer at AppMobi, told TechNewsWorld. "You have to wonder what would have happened if they'd invested the engineering cycles into making the experience better, as opposed to recoding in iOS."

The new app has drawn mixed reviews, and that indicates switching from HTML5 to Objective-C "didn't fix the experience," Abadir continued. "We know from experience ... that native scrolling, speed, and smooth transitions are very fixable issues on both iOS and Android."

Posted by Unknown Sunday, August 26, 2012