HTML5 Apps for Firefox OS are Easy and Worth It

Who doesn’t love Firefox OS? Built by the non-profit Mozilla in San Francisco, the Firefox OS is the mobile successor to the Firefox browser, made famous a decade ago when it emerged as  the first great alternative to Internet Explorer. We all owe them for that.

Adoption of Firefox OS in the US has been nonexistent — currently no phones use the OS, not with titans iOS and Android dominating the market. But that’s not what Mozilla is targeting. They’re going after the markets that don’t have access to iPhones or Galaxies. In May, Mozilla announced the first Firefox OS phones went on sale in Senegal and Madagascar, and they would begin rolling out across Africa and the Middle East. In India, with a robust developer community, the Cloud FX phone is expected to sell 500,000 units by November — priced at about $33 USD. Mozilla claims they have Firefox OS in 29 countries using 14 network providers. Not too shabby.

Instead of shackling you to a proprietary operating system like Apples iOS, Firefox OS uses web technology, mostly HTML5, Javascript, CSS and C++. That means developing apps for Firefox OS is as simple as designing them for the web, because Firefox OS is the web. The beauty is that these web apps can be installed and accessed offline, and you can access APIs to use device features like gyroscope and camera. In short, you get the ease of a dedicated app, without the hassle of dedicated app. Consider Worldreader, a reading app with more than 15,000 ebooks, which a teacher in Zimbabwe is using to teach his second-grade students, because, it’s awesome.

That also means you are not hampered by discovery in a crowded app store. In addition to listing the “app” in the store, you can simply install it directly from the web. So if your SEO is top notch, users can discover your app though a simple search or visit to your website. Then they are only a click or two away from adoption. No need to search by name or scroll through endless choices in the app category in a big store.

Mozilla prides itself on privacy, with robust do-not-tracking features, and security. Right now, the biggest threats to mobile security — 75 percent — are the result of poorly configured apps. Firefox OS and its web-friendly approach gives us an early glimpse of an “app” eco system in a post-app world. If you’re not making HTML5 apps now, it’s time to start.

Learn more about HTML5 by contacting our San Francisco web developers at Appstem today.