Mozilla took a Samsung Galaxy S II phone running Android and stripped off Android. Then it installed its own version of Linux with software for standard phone functions such as dialing and camera access, a web app store and a user interface powered by Gecko, the Firefox rendering engine. Apps for it are written using HTML5 and other standard web technologies; they can store stuff on the device itself or in the cloud, making the phone useful whether or not it has an Internet connection.
Oh, and its browser is — wait for it! — Firefox.
The end result is a rough draft of a smartphone with software that’s reminiscent both of Palm/HP’s Web OS (which is also based on Linux and runs apps built with web tools) and Google’s Chrome OS (which layers the Chrome browser on top of Linux to create a net-centric operating system).
This being Mozilla, Boot to Gecko is open software — more open, most likely, than Google’s Android, yet another Linux-based mobile operating system. The core of Android is open, which is why companies such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble can rejigger it to power the Kindle Fire and Nook, respectively. But Google exacts more control over the Google apps and Google Play app store which most Android devices use. Mozilla says that it’ll let others do with Boot to Gecko what they will — including borrowing its technologies for other operating systems.
There’s no news on when folks in the U.S. might be able to buy Boot to Gecko phones — which, when they arrive, will be called something other than “Boot to Gecko phones.” Spanish-based wireless carrier Telefónica says it plans to release one in Brazil early next year; Deutsche Telekom is also involved with the project.
The phone I saw here in New Orleans was too unfinished to form any real opinion about, beyond “Hey, it seems to work!” Mozilla hasn’t finished the interface and polished it up, and mobile phones, more than most gadgets, are all about interface and polish.
Web OS and Chome OS, sadly, both point out some of the pitfalls of building operating systems that are as much web as software. Web OS was always a tad sluggish, which didn’t help sales of devices that ran it, probably contributing to the software’s current neither-dead-nor-alive status. And the indifferent response to Chrome OS, which runs on laptops rather than phones or tablets, is pretty good evidence that web apps aren’t yet ready to replace conventional local apps in all instances.
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