Firefox OS is an operating system designed around the technologies used in the Firefox web browser. It can run apps that use web technologies such as HTML5 and JavaScript which makes it easy for developers to convert existing web apps into Firefox OS apps.

The first commercial devices with Firefox OS software were smartphones. But it can also run on tablets, TV sticks, and TVs. This year Panasonic announced it would be using Firefox OS for its smart TV family.

Now the developers of Firefox OS at Mozilla are giving us a closer look at how the operating system works on TVs.

ff home

The TV interface uses a cards-and-decks metaphor. Live TV, for instance, is the top card in a deck. Choose Live TV and you’ll view a list of channels (or other cards in that deck). You can pin any of those cards to the top to give you quicker access to your favorite channels in the future.

ff fav

Other cards include applications, favorites, devices, and browser.

That means user-downloaded apps won’t show up on the home screen, but they’ll be one click away and you can pin your favorites for quick access.

ff apps2

One of the default home screen cards is called Dashboard, and it’s sort of the smart TV equivalent of a home screen or lock screen on a smartphone. It can display information including the time, weather conditions, number of notifications available from your other apps, and even details about currently-playing music or other apps running in the background.

ff dash

The first TVs with Firefox OS should launch soon, starting with the Panasonic CX850, CX800, CX750, CR730, CX700, and CX860.

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6 replies on “This is what Firefox OS looks like on TVs”

  1. What do they want with web apps really? Many say that dalvik is slow, but it is actually a speed daemon compared to web apps. Web development is not easy if you want to do it right, but it is if you make a piece of crap with it.

    1. They’re talking about HTML5/Javascript-based web apps, not Java. Yes, they have to be well designed, but millions of people already use these web apps on their phones, tablets, and smart-TVs just fine. Most of the new ARM chips are perfectly fast enough for the purpose.

  2. This looks interesting and I really like the idea of having a browser on the TV for those niche cases. However that is my main curiosity here. Firefox on Linux has an older Flash version. And between the continued use of deprecated crap like Silverlight and other sites requiring newer version of Flash, Firefox on Linux is horrible for watching video sites.
    I mean Youtube or Vimeo or whatever work fine. But Netflix or HBO-Go or Amazon Instant Video or PBS or… Forget it. Rarely works on more official sites like that. Of course the hope would be those providers would make FirefoxOS apps. But if wishes were fishes we’d all eat well.
    I presume this will correct somewhat as those sites eventually get around to using modern web standards. But that won’t help me today. And I rather doubt tomorrow or the day after. Could be a while.

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