Thanks Enrico for sharing! I think this helps give a little insight and is much appreciated.
On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 6:28 AM, Enrico Ghiorzi <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm a FxOS user since its beginnings and I would like to share my > experience with it. Please consider that the only Android version I ever > used is Gingerbread, so I may miss many recent Android features and my > arguments may resent from it. > > The first experience a FxOS user has is isolation. Your friends and > colleagues have never heard of it, leave alone actually using it. While > this may partially be pleasant, as you can introduce them to something new > and prove an "early adopter" feeling, you mostly have to defend your > unusual choice. Up to now I honestly can't find a practical reason to > justify it. It's to be told that impressing Android/iOS users is difficult, > since they have been "spoilt" by OSs refined by long years of work and > profusely funded by giant industries. While ideological reasons (free > software and independence from Google/Apple) may be valid, in my experience > they make poor arguments. > > A common misconception is that FxOS app ecosystem is short in numbers. I > think that actually there are all the apps you need. To actually be few are > users: most apps on Marketplace have no more than a handful of reviews. > Maybe as a consequence of this, apps' quality and support is generally > quite low, as I guess developers see no point in working hard for so few > users. > > When I say that there are all the apps you need on the Marketplace, I'm > not saying that there are all the apps you want. A very common experience > for FxOS users is missing apps that all of your friends with Android/iOS > have. You may have analogous apps (often of inferior quality), but you > don't have THAT app to share with your friends, which means you can't play > the same games or use the same utilities. > > By the way, the FxOS ecosystem situation may not be as bad as it looks: > while I still think many apps lack quality, they may be made by young > developers finding no space on the more competitive Android/iOS ecosystem. > Thus, FxOS may be fostering a new generation of developers who may keep > developing web apps and, with time, may prove to be an invaluable resource. > > Thus, there is no magic solution to this issue, as far as I can see. Every > new system/platform face an initial scarcity of users. This can be improved > by providing users with great products and content. Reguarding the product, > I think FxOS is already quite good and constantly improving. Content > depends on developers, of which FxOS already has a fair amount. I think > these developers have to be supported as much as possible. > > Then, Whatsapp. That's the single most annoying problem I've had. Openwapp > and Loqui IM are intended to substitute it, but uncountable issues make a > poor user experience. I'm not blaming Openwapp and Loqui IM developers: > it's unsurprising that replacing Whatsapp is so difficult, given its > closed-source nature. My current solution is having my old Android phone > connected to Wi-fi with the single purpose of receiving Whatsapp messages > and routing them to Whatsapp Web on my desktop. > > While having a proper Whatsapp client on FxOS would be awesome, I'm most > puzzled by the ACL solution. Looking back, what all minor mobile OSs tried > to do, failing quite badly, is to be more Android-like by being compatible > with its apps. It usually turns out that the best Android-like experience > is provided by Android. I don't know whether an ad-hoc solution like ACL > for Whatsapp would be any good or not, but something worries me: Openwapp > and Loqui IM are among the most complex and participated projects in the > FxOS ecosystem. Whatsapp by ACL could potentially undermine those projects > by taking users and motivation away, damaging that community of developers > FxOS desperately needs. > > Another most pressing issue for me, as a user, is the lack of FxOS > devices. To be more specific, the lack of FxOS devices I can thrust the > manifacturer to regularly update and support. While I can solve this issue > by manually flashing my own device, this is not something I can reccomend > my friends to do. As a matter of fact, at the moment I could not reccomend > FxOS to non-tech-savy people because of this. I know there is an ongoing > effort to solve the fragmentation issue and I think it's most needed. > > About user feedback, there are features I miss most and I request them > when I can (for example on the Participation Hub's dashboard). Though, I > think it's much more preferable for FxOS to provide a coherent, > full-flashed experience while still missing some features, rather than > advanced features among an inconsistent user experience. This doesn't mean > ignoring user feedback and requests, of course, but developers have the > duty of mantain a coherent and comprehensive vision of the project, which > at times may even be against users' requests. > > Forgive me for writing that much. I wonder whether my experience with FxOS > represents the majority of its users. Anyway, there it is. I hope it may be > of some use, at least in understanding FxOS users' perspective. > _______________________________________________ > dev-fxos mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-fxos >
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