Mozilla’s Firefox OS, the other mobile web-centric phone OS aimed at developing markets, has signed up some big name partners at MWC 2015 and hopes to tap into the forgotten niche of flip and slider phones for those of us who want something different to the larger and larger slabs to which contemporary smartphone form-factors are all converging.
KDDI, LG U+, Telefónica and Verizon Wireless will work with Mozilla to enable a new generation of flips, sliders and slates that balance the simplicity of a basic phone (calls, texts) with the more advanced features of a smartphone such as fun applications, content, navigation, music players, camera, video, LTE, VoLTE, email and Web browsing.
Panasonic has unveiled their latest line of 4K Viera smart TVs powered by Firefox OS and is showcasing them at MWC while on the other end of the spectrum the Alcatel Klif Firefox phone has a price tag of just $40, not quite the $25 smartphone that was promised, but getting tantalisingly close.
Mozilla also showed off Firefox OS’s NFC framework developed alongside Deutsche Telecom and T-Mobile Poland. Mastercard contactless payments was just one of of the solutions highlighted alongside transportation, door access and media sharing.
Mozilla has signed a deal with Orange which will bring Firefox OS smartphones into 13 new markets across Africa and the Middle East: Egypt, Senegal, Tunisia, Cameroon, Botswana, Madagascar, Mali, the Ivory Coast, Jordan, Niger, Kenya, Mauritius and Vanuatu.
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