Mozilla Firefox OS Roadshow, Part 1

Yesterday we attended the first Mozilla Firefox OS aka Boot2Gecko roadshow in the Philippines in partnership with Globe Labs to give members of the media and developers a taste of what this upcoming OS is all about. We also get to play with a Nexus S device ported with the said OS and were able to clarify some of facts about B2G.

We’ve previously featured the Mozilla Firefox OS about a month ago and it has clearly sparked interest to most of you guys. Although the OS is still on its development stage, almost all the features that users expect out of an OS are already functional. At this time, devs are just polishing these functionalities and making sure that it’s as bug-free as it can be before they release it. Here are some interesting facts about the OS that was discussed during the event.

Firefox OS was inspired by Mozilla Fennec (Firefox for Mobile) and it compromises of 3 integral components. Gonk, which is the low-level OS, Gecko, which the main engine of the OS and Gaia the company’s fancy term for the OS’s UI. Much like the browser, the OS makes use of HTML5 which makes it easier for devs to easily develop apps for the OS or port their existing apps from different platforms to the Mozilla Marketplace.

The model unit, which is a Google Nexus S that runs on Firefox OS, boots significantly faster than when it’s running on Android. It was mentioned during the conference that users can also try porting the OS on their device but they’d have to manually compile it themselves. This means that there’s not download file that you can flash to your device.

According to the spokesperson they’ve seen devices such as SGSII, ZTE Skate and cheap China knockoffs being able to run the OS smoothly. And while there are no established hardware requirements to run the OS, the devices they’ve seen running the OS usually have a configuration of 1GHz, 512MB RAM and at least a decent GPU.

Some of the plans for this OS were also discussed during the conference including the company’s target release date and partnership with device manufacturers. So far there are a handful of companies such as Alcatel and ZTE who have already expressed their interest in using the OS to their upcoming device. But the first phone to carry the full version of the OS is Telefonica and is set to launch in January of next year in Brazil.

As far as the local scene is concerned, they reiterated that although they’ve been negotiating with local telcos, they have not signed any deal yet with any of them. But we think it’s clear who’s got the upper hand here (the conference is sponsored by Globe Labs, go figure). They said that they plan to release a Firefox OS phone locally in the 1st quarter of 2013 and there’s a big chance that these phones will fit the majority of Pinoy’s budget.

As mentioned earlier this is just the first leg of the Mozilla Firefox OS roadshow and they promised to bring us more as we inch closer to the official launch. If you want to find out more about the OS and how you can be involved with its development, you can check out their site here or you can follow them on Twitter (@MozillaPH) or on Facebook. You may be part of their B2G Beta Testers who will walk home with a brand new Samsung Galaxy S2.