Open-source Firefox OS smartphones have begun to ship in Africa. Running on Orange’s Network, the Orange Klif, a 3G smartphone is now available in Senegal and Madagascar.
Mozilla has announced that they want to step in the untapped market that is Africa – in order to bring smartphones to the continent, and also to make themselves key players in the region. “Through these launches, Mozilla and Orange deliver on the promise of putting the mobile web within reach of millions more people not previously addressed by mobile offers.” an official Mozilla blog post states.
Firefox OS was announced in 2011, and it was put to work almost immediately in February of 2012 – a demo presented Mozilla’s OS running on Android-compatible devices.
The new OS isn’t going to stand-up to iPhones or Android-based flagships, instead it tries to offer an entry level option to individuals that haven’t seen a smartphone before. Smartphones are the tech of the decade, and they will continue to evolve to God knows what – here’s hoping to automation of daily tasks.
Pairing with Orange, Mozilla wants to cement their position in the African continent – a potential marketplace that could significantly grow their shares, and presence in the world.
It has been received well by critics, but Chris Ziegler of The Verge has stated some concerns regarding Mozilla taking the app-distribution to pre-iPhone era which required developers to abide by a carrier’s, and their app store, rules.
It’s a fine line they are walking on, and it can blow directly into their face. Nowadays accessibility to apps break or make a new mobile platform, not hardware, and Mozilla seems like it’s trying to take advantage of this by implementing the built-in search functionality – a core feature to the Firefox OS.
The Firefox OS is compatible with a couple of devices for:
- Developers
T2Mobile Flame
Geeksphone Keon
Geeksphone Peak
ZTE Open
ZTE Open C
- Consumers
Symphony GoFox
F15 KDDI Fx0
Intex Cloud FX
Spice Fire One MI FX1
Alcatel Onetouch FireC 4020D
ZTE Open II
APC Paper
And the Firefox OS has been successfully ported to the following devices:
Sony Xperia SP
Huawei Ascend Y300
Huawei Ascend G510
HTC Pico
Nexus 4
Nexus 5
Nexus 7 (2013)
