@JessTheUnstill@infosec.exchangeFor some reason I just remembered how the iPhone didn't even have an app store in the first version, and didn't get copy/paste until like the 3rd or 4th iOS version.
@JessTheUnstill@infosec.exchangeTBH, the first couple iterations of the iPhone were really... Not very good. Which I guess goes to show you just how terrible cell phones were in that era. BlackBerry REALLY fucked up.
@JessTheUnstill One of the big fuckups for BlackBerry was just the delays in getting BlackBerry 10, plus the Z10 and Q10, to market.
I got to use BB10 for a couple of months, and it was nice. It was built on QNX, with a modern swipe/gesture based UI built with Qt.
Arguably a better OS than the iOS and Android releases at that same time.
There was a feature called the Hub, which wax a unified inbox for your email messages, social posts, and text messages. Plus a modern app store, and separate personal/work profiles built into the OS.
There was a version without a physical keyboard (Z10) and with (Q10).
The problem is they didn't start working on it until 2010, and BB10 wasn't released until 2013.
For about two years before BB10 came out, BlackBerry didn't release any new phones.
Had BB10 come out earlier, it *might* have saved the company.
@kkarhan@ajsadauskas @JessTheUnstill also #BlackBerry's #PlayBook #Tablet was released as a accessory screen for their Phones, which gave it "#WiiU-Effect" in terms of marketing.
- Plus #RIM relying hard on business clients and their proprietary applianced mail systems and having big carriers upsell to business people made them look outdated & quite literally out of touch once #iPhone went mainstream.
I mean, the hardware was never their problem and #SMS-Typists swear by their #BlackberryCurve's #keyboard but BlackBerry's #toolchain - just like #SymbianOS's - was just hideous to the point that devs like @fuchsiii didn't even want to try making #Apps for those devices.
- Unlike #Mozilla fucking up #FirefoxOS by refusing to sell devices to #developers, by the time RIM & #Nokia came from their high horses, their market shares had been squeezed into mere "rounding errors" by #iOS and #Android as it was way cheaper and easier to get #Apps developed, tested, sold, bought and use them than on their devices.
#Sony even released some #Symbian #S60 devices but since they didn't have the same signing keys, one couldn't even #sideload apps (not to mention they didn't had the #OviStore on those either!)...
@kkarhan @JessTheUnstill @fuchsiii On Nokia, I know @tomiahonen is on Mastodon, and might be able to shed more light on what happened internally there?
But the short version is Nokia chose the worst of all possible worlds by going with Windows Phone.
Yeah, Symbian was reaching the end of its life. There were three choices to replace it:
a) MeeGo. Ended up only shipping on one phone: The Nokia N9 in 2011. People still rave about that phone today. Possibly the best option.
b) Android. Basically, what Nokia's successor HMD is doing, except they would have had far more momentum by going early.
c) Windows Phone. History shows how that multi-billion-dollar blunder worked out. And I liked WP. I used it for around a year at one point. But MSFT completely mishandled it.
As for Firefox OS, I think Mozilla completely misjudged the market for it.
No, the first market for an open source phone with an app ecosystem based on open web standards shouldn't have been underpowered devices for emerging economies.
It was for people who run Linux on the desktop at home, people who run deGoogled Android, and people who work in software development/IT/InfoSec.
@kkarhan@ajsadauskas @JessTheUnstill @tomiahonen yes, and to add insult to injury #Mozilla didn't even wanted to sell people like @fuchsiii or me a #FirefoxOS device, with the only one being "launched" in the #EU being a #SimLock'd & #NetLock'd #prepaid phone in #Spain one could only attain in-store with all the "#KYC" nonsense they had, demanding a legal address in Spain back then.
- So whilst Firefox OS had the most "#accessible" #Development #tools (literally using #Firefox for it and having every #App as #WebView|s / #HTML5+#JS5+#CSS3 files in a container), they didn't even sold us said devices, making it a worse flop than #UbuntuTouch which at least still gets some devices made that support it...
And #nerds like myself are far from the "#consoomer #Normies" for whom stuff that isn't on shelves at Staturn/MediaMarkt, BestBuy, Walmart, ... doesn't exist. I'm used to importing #tech that I want!
- Feels even more half-assed [www.youtube.com] than #MobileCoin in hindsight…
@kkarhan @ajsadauskas @JessTheUnstill @tomiahonen @fuchsiii FirefoxOS got turned into KaiOS - whose apps are still html/css/js “containers” - and is what comes on smart feature phones like the Nokia Flip: https://www.hmd.com/en_us/nokia-2780-flip?sku=16WNDR11A01
@kkarhan@punkfairie @ajsadauskas @JessTheUnstill @tomiahonen @fuchsiii Yeah and #Symbian is used with cheap phones of a brand named #Swisstone.
Case in point: #KaiOS nee #FirefoxOS is now drowned in obscurity because of #Mozilla mismanagment and hamfisted approach compared to #Android.
@kkarhan
HMD hasn't issued a new kaios phone for a couple years, they only use S30 now. Plus kaios repo has been dead with zero commits for more than 6 months. So it was quite successful for a time with millions of devices sold, but their idea of closing most of the software, plus mozilla killing all firefoxos code from the repos very quickly made it unsustainable.
@punkfairie @ajsadauskas @JessTheUnstill @tomiahonen @fuchsiii
@kkarhan@bohwaz @punkfairie @ajsadauskas @JessTheUnstill @tomiahonen That's exactly the problem, cuz #KaiOS nee #FirefoxOS was a good and solid basis not just for #LowEnd-Devices but could've been excellent for a more #secure mobile OS, as it has good potential for #sandboxing and #KISS-principle'd #Apps that are lean and efficient.
But then again when enthusiasts like @fuchsiii and I were shouting "#ShutUpAndTakeMyMoney!" to #Mozilla, they basically refused to sell any #device, and then we get the "#PSvita-Effect":
- Noone's gonna build an #App for a platform that is essentially a rounding error from the start! [www.youtube.com]…
@kkarhan
Just like anything mozilla does, they don't have a long term plan, if it doesn't work in 2 years they drop the project... Firefoxos was more successful as kaios... Which says a lot.
@punkfairie @ajsadauskas @JessTheUnstill @tomiahonen @fuchsiii
@kkarhan@infosec.space@bohwaz @punkfairie @ajsadauskas @JessTheUnstill @tomiahonen @fuchsiii that's a general problem with #Mozilla.
- They completely loose #focus and I think they should hand over #Firefox to @torproject and turn #TorBrowser into the Upstream...
@JessTheUnstill@infosec.exchangeThat would be a nice concept for a change - start with the most locked down, private, and secure upstream you can think of, and then let other projects decide how many pinholes to open up.
@kkarhan @bohwaz @punkfairie @ajsadauskas @tomiahonen @fuchsiii @torproject
@kkarhan@JessTheUnstill @bohwaz @punkfairie @ajsadauskas @tomiahonen @fuchsiii Exactly...
Coincidentially, that's why #Android (and #iOS) doesn't let users have #root access because billions of devices owned by mostly "#TechIlliterates" that hardly get #SecurityUpdates would be an even bigger risk if they didn't boot a locked-down #ROM image, thus only allowing for #malware in user-privilegued userspace!
- I'd even go so far that I'd wish for @torproject to basically merge fmr. #FirefoxOS / #KaiOS & @tails_live / @tails / #Tails to build a #privacy-focussed #ROM for #Smartphones and #Tablets i.e. "#TailsMobile" or sth.
Cuz having a mobile OS that shoves everything through #Tor and only allows #userspace-Apps in the form modern web technologies would be a big #security and #privacy gain.
@kkarhan@JessTheUnstill @bohwaz @punkfairie @ajsadauskas @tomiahonen @fuchsiii
But I also consider why @torproject hasn't done so:
- Because they'd rather focus on the few projects they can maintain at their staffing and budget than become the next "Apache Foundation" piling up #Abandonware.
And lets be honest @tails_live / @tails / #Tails is way more important to maintain as with #TorBrowser, literally human lives depend on it!
@JessTheUnstill@infosec.exchangeYeah... That's certainly a major problem of a web browser. Literally its job is to run untrusted input. So it has to be an operating system in and of itself in order to be secure. And that much developer time and resources ain't free.
@kkarhan @bohwaz @punkfairie @ajsadauskas @tomiahonen @fuchsiii @torproject @tails_live @tails
@kkarhan@JessTheUnstill @bohwaz @punkfairie @ajsadauskas @tomiahonen @fuchsiii
Granted, @tails_live @tails / #Tails and @torproject / #TorBrowser are propably one of the best & most battle-tested options that are useable for #TechIlliterates...
- OFC #OpenBSD + #LynxBrowser forced through #Tor would be more #secure (on paper) but we can all agree it's neither feasible nor practical to expect "#Normies" to work within a 80x25 TUI and learn #BSD.
THAT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!
If not for being absurd then for the fact that people need to get things done!
- And it's not as if I haven't taught people how to get started, ranging from having to crash-course someone remotely via chat to hand-on #CryptoParty sessions: If it's way more complex than an AKM [www.youtube.com] chances are people won't stick with it!
So you can imagine how glad I was when @thunderbird merged #Enigmail into #Thunderbird so there's no more fiddling around getting #PGP/MIME to work!
