One of the first Firefox OS tablets could be coming to America soon. Last month Mozilla’s Asa Dotzler showed off Firefox OS running on an InFocus New Tab F1 tablet, and now the F1 has made its way through the FCC.
InFocus is better known for making projectors than tablets, but the InFocus F1 is already available in some parts of the world as a 10 inch Android tablet. The Mozilla version has the same hardware, but it’ll ship with Firefox OS software.
The tablet features solidly mid-range specs including a 10.1 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel IPS display, an Allwinner A31 ARM Cortex-A7 quad-core processor, PowerVR SGX 544MP2 graphics, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage.
It has 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, a 5MP rear camera, 2MP front-facing camera, a micro USB port, microSD card slot, stereo speakers, A-GPS and a 7000mAh battery.
You can find photos and test results for the InFocus F1 at the FCC website, but the user manual is for the Android version of the tablet. We know this is a Firefox OS model though, thanks to the FCC label which refers to the tablet as a the F1 for Mozilla and includes a Firefox OS logo.
Firefox OS is an operating system based on the open source Firefox web browser. It’s designed to run apps written using web technologies including HTML5, which theoretically allows the platform to be even more open and accessible to third-party developers than market-leader Android… although Mozilla is primarily marketing Firefox OS to device makers and wireless carriers as a platform that gives them more control over their devices without ceding authority to Google.
Still, the platform has a lot of potential for open source enthusiasts. While Android is generally developed behind closed doors and the source code is only released when Google thinks it’s ready, development of Firefox OS and the open source version (called Boot 2 Gecko) happens in public.
thanks Dave Zatz!
It’s spelled “Dotzler” 😀
Google needs to be preparing a strategy which addresses their loss of market share.
Mark Shuttleworth needs to be preparing a strategy to invent new (if there ARE any he hasn’t tried) diversionary promises.
I really think that mozilla should join with cannonical to do a single product with more strenght. Dividing the market ain’t making anyone a winner, cause corporations will always beat NGO’s and non profit organizations.
Same applies to the linux, enough distros that are discontinued through time by creators, let us just stick with one good distro and work the crap out of it. Power through product unification, not through market division
@ Mr Rosado:
With all due respect, business alliances are formed because each party brings a strength to the venture not owned by the other.
Canonical has nothing of any value which any technology company would want, or need.
What, exactly, do you think Mark Shuttleworth’s strategy for the past four years has been?:
To be the ultimate “horse-trader”, or “camel-trader”, or “used-car-salesman”: convince some poor slob that he should hand over to you his hard-earned money for a worthless beast.
Oh, and for your information: the company which is going to be manufacturing FireFox OS devices (Foxconn, I think) has JUST ADDED 3000 software engineers to support the FireFox OS project. THEY think it’s going to be THAT BIG.
Tell me again: what does Mark Shuttleworth brings to this party?
I completely agree with you. All the strengths of open source OSs are set off by this one weakness- fragmentation.
“corporations will always beat NGO’s and non profit organizations.” Truly said.
Those who want to, may keep modifying the Linux OS to their taste. But there has to be one solid, reliable distribution/flavour (call it whatever you like) with crap worked out of it and fit to replace proprietary software.
I am sure the number of applications will also increase manyfold; some of them will be on payment but able to compete with proprietary software on all parameters.