Firefox OS - do you care?

1. It only matters is there's an app ecosystem
2. Open web standards do not an ecosystem make, no licensing fees that's a different story. The web is littered with stories of technology that was going to change the world but never took off, due to lack of interest from devs
3. If in 3 years, there are a sizable fraction of hardware manufacturers and app devs are working on the platform, say roughly around a quarter as many as currently working on android.

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1. There is always room for a good mobile OS. Execution will determine whether the market can hold another phone.
2. I am not a developer, yet, so I have no comment on this one.
3. Yes, I would definitely consider it. I think price drives everything in this case.

The final comment that I would want to make is that the ability of the customer base to pay is very important. In order for the ecosystem to survive, the customers have to be willing to pay for apps. If that is not the case, the ecosystem will lack developers. The number of apps and their quality will drive this OS.

The number of apps and their quality will drive this OS.

+1 That's pretty much the whole issue

I think it's interesting and hopefully this and other mobile OS initiatives will bring about more innovation, which is ultimately good for the consumer. Windows Phone has some cool UI/UX features that are making their way onto the other platforms (I'd love to see live tiles done well [not widgets] on Android!).

@James, I agree about the app ecosystem, but I wonder what the tipping point is to make an ecosystem viable for success. By "success" I mean good enough for the average user. Take Windows Phone again. They certainly don't have the apps of Android and iOS, but if/when they have Facebook (yes), Angry Birds (yes), Instagram (no), and the like, is that enough for people to consider them when shopping for a new phone?

@Nick, price is very important, but there are very good free/cheap Android phones that Firefox and others would need to beat. I think price is really only between iOS and everything else because there are just so many options for Android. Price competition between Android, Windows Phone, and others doesn't really make a difference, in my opinion, because you can pick any price point you want.

As a developer, I'll be interested to poke around the SDK. Since it's based on web standards, the learning curve should be pretty easy (especially if you already know the basics about mobile development like the application lifecycle and utilizing hardware). There is something appealing about getting in on the ground floor of an app ecosystem where any app you make has a chance to be popular (relatively speaking).

Bonus question if others are interested in this thread: How about Ubuntu for phones and the ability to use your phone with a display, keyboard, and mouse as a true portable computer?

There's another issue, I was in a AT&T store the other day and I'm not sure I saw a blackberry or a windows phone.

I think for the average user, they will probably go the store they got their last phone at and look around. If there aren't atleast a few phones on a particular platform then it's unlikely the average user will buy that platform. Which platforms the carriers stock has a major impact on the "success" of a platform.

@Ben I think this could be the game changer. I love the idea of a 6.5" - 7.5" phone/table/computer option. I think it could really change the market. The question is what would be the capabilities. I am not sure if the technology would be able to hold something that powerful. I think the tech world is moving towards one device. It is fun having all these devices, but if you could pick up and move around with one device and never be lost, that would be the best. Also, the cloud infrastructure would have to be way better. You would have to offload data to the cloud because a phone could not have that much storage on it.

Full Ubuntu on a phone would be very impressive. Especially if I can just drop it into a dock at my desk and have it function as my desktop. I think we are a while away before it's really practical though.