In a plot twist that you could only expect from an M. Night Shyamalan movie, Mozilla has announced the upcoming release of Firefox OS for smartphones.
Though some rumors and speculations have been floating around the web for some amount of time regarding the possibility of having a Firefox OS become a real thing, Mozilla collectively blew our minds with its announcement on July 1st.
Among the list of cool features one can expect is built-in functionality to all the big social networks, integration with HERE maps (powered by Nokia and prominently used in Windows Mobile phones at the moment), seamless integration with HTML5. You can check out a short demo of the OS right here:
While the operating look-and-feel of the device may remind you of earlier versions of Android, Mozilla’s new OS does have a greater emphasis on the integration of various applications in the user’s experience with the device. Many of the stock apps will have features that you would usually find only within certain vendors, like photo editing and seamless sharing.
Firefox OS’s debut release will be under Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica, its launch devices being the ZTE Open and Alcatel One Touch Fire. While there’s almost no doubt that these phones will find themselves on some obscure marketplace within a week of their release, users looking to sign up for these babies will need to hang on just a little longer.
With all this information piling on, and as impressive as features are looking, it remains to be seen if Mozilla’s foray into the smartphone market will strike hard enough to penetrate the already ruthless market. As the various OS’s are fighting tooth and nail for their share of the market, can Mozilla’s creed of bringing the web back to its users be enough to carry it through, or is Firefox OS another doomed attempt at making a dent in a saturated market? Time will tell, I for one, am keeping my hopes up.
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