Test Firefox OS on a desktop computer with new B2G nightly builds
The Firefox OS home screen running in the B2G nightly on Mac OS X — Mozilla is creating a new kind of mobile operating system that is aligned with standards-based Web technologies. The platform, called Firefox OS …
Context & Ripple Effects
The B2G nightlies arrive at a moment when Mozilla is visibly concentrating its resources: two weeks earlier the organization pulled staff off Thunderbird, arguing continued innovation there was not the best use of resources against its organizational goals, while Firefox 14 shipped days ago with HTTPS-by-default Google search. Desktop builds of Boot to Gecko are how a browser vendor with no handsets yet seeds an operating system.
The story traveled unusually widely for a developer-builds item — pickups at Engadget, Business Insider, Computerworld, Phone Arena, IntoMobile and others on or about July 20, 2012 — reflecting curiosity about whether standards-based web technologies can carry a full mobile platform.
First-order effects
- Web developers can now install a B2G nightly on Mac OS X and run the Firefox OS home screen and apps on a desktop, building and debugging HTML5 apps before any Firefox OS hardware exists to target.
Second-order effects
- Desktop-based development lowers the barrier for the HTML5 developer community to accumulate an app catalog ahead of launch, which is the asset Mozilla needs to make the platform credible to the carriers and manufacturers it will pitch.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the browser engine becomes the application runtime for an entire mobile OS — a structural challenge to closed, native-app-store models, and consistent with Mozilla's broader push to put web standards on devices, as with its iPad-browser challenger Junior positioned against Safari in June 2012.
The trend: Mozilla is betting that the web stack itself can serve as a mobile operating system, using desktop nightlies to grow the developer ecosystem before the first handset ships.