Mozilla says it’s done with Firefox OS for smartphones

Mozilla says it’s done with Firefox OS for smartphones

Mozilla on Tuesday confirmed it will no longer develop or sell Firefox OS smartphones. The company first unveiled its mobile OS in 2013, targeting the low-cost market as its key demographic. But with the growing presence of really good affordable Android phones, it appears as though Mozilla realized it couldn’t compete with the Google machine.

As part of the news, Mozilla’s SVP of Connected Devices, Ari Jaaksi, revealed the company will continue to experiment “with the user experience across connected devices,” so don’t say good-bye to Firefox OS completely. Below is part of Jaaksi’s statement to TechCrunch.

Firefox OS proved the flexibility of the Web, scaling from low-end smartphones all the way up to HD TVs. However, we weren’t able to offer the best user experience possible and so we will stop Firefox OS smartphone through carrier channels.

What made Firefox OS different was that it pushed a web-first approach by running web applications directly.