Mozilla has announced that it will be ending putting an end to the development of Firefox OS for smartphones, an experiment that was interesting but just didn't stand up to the likes of Android and iOS.
The announcement was made at "Mozlando," Mozilla's developer event, and Mozilla said that while it would no longer develop Firefox OS for smartphones, it will continue to experiment building software for connected devices and the Internet of Things.
"We are proud of the benefits Firefox OS added to the Web platform and will continue to experiment with the user experience across connected devices. We will build everything we do as a genuine open source project, focused on user experience first and build tools to enable the ecosystem to grow," said Mozilla in a statement.
The company went on to state that it will instead focus on providing the best possible user experience regardless of discontinuing its mobile operating system.
Mozilla first announced Firefox OS back in 2013, aimed toward developing countries with low-priced smartphones, a market that is growing very quickly.
To try and differentiate from the likes of Android and iOS, Mozilla and its partners aimed to create a Web-first operating system, meaning that there were no native apps, only Web apps. However, sales were not good, and not many people were too interested in the platform. The operating system had even more problems because other manufacturers had begun releasing more low-cost devices.
Lately, Mozilla has been streamlining its services a lot, aiming to concentrate on its stronger products. Mozilla also recently announced an ad blocker, highlighting the stance that the company has on things like cookies and the tracking of users.
Via: TechCrunch
