Mozilla has decided to put an end to its smartphone adventures, and henceforth, Firefox OS will no longer be available on newer smartphones.
Ever since its beginnings in 2013, Firefox OS had struggled to find ground in the competitive smartphone market. Trying hard to carve a niche for itself in an industry otherwise dominated by Android and iOS, Firefox OS never became a big name in the smartphone world.
As such, at the recently held Mozilla Developer Event in Orlando (called “Mozlando”), Mozilla announced that it will no longer sign contracts with OEMs for new Firefox OS smartphones, and will instead focus more on connected devices.
This means that Firefox OS, in itself, will not be abandoned and Mozilla will continue working on it. However, the focus has now shifted in favor of connected devices, and smartphones have been dropped. As such, devices such as smart TVs will continue to be at the focus of Firefox OS.
The discussion is still going on over at Twitter, and you can follow some of the tweets here, or learn more over at Firefox Central.
Mozilla has been on a clean-up spree of late, considering the fact that it had recently expressed desires to split off its email client, Thunderbird, and has also launched an ad blocker for Safari on iOS. The decision to pull Firefox OS from smartphones is yet another step in this direction.
What do you think of this decision by Mozilla? Share your views in the comments below!
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