mobile-firefox-dev is a better mailing list for Fennec development and discussion.
On Mar 31, 2015, at 9:03 AM, Paul <[email protected]> wrote: > I would like to raise an issue that's concerning me. We're currently dragging > our heels and prioritising the wrong things. The reality is that users that > install alternative browsers, particularly for Android are niche users, > generally tech-savvy that want the additional features and are at the > forefront of platform changes. We want to target these users. > > Google's design team launched Material Design a year ago, it was a huge thing > and they gave everyone a huge heads up as to what was coming. A year on and > we're still filing bugs to refine the visual design of Fennec that fits a now > dated operating system visual design aesthetic. With people and thus > people-power being limited, you have to wonder at what point we'll be able to > update the visual design of Fennec to keep it modern. It's probably worth > stating that the notoriously slow American OEMs are currently rolling out > Lollipop to Samsung owners. > > It goes without saying that there are concerns about how Fennec will depart > from the overall mobile visual design strategy of Mozilla but the reality is > that looking dated only serves to surrender users who really don't care about > how similar it looks on another platform. If that is to hold back the ability > of Fennec to look modern, then it goes without saying that we're doing it > wrong. There have been proposals for the advancement of the mobile design > language across the various different platforms, but it goes without saying > that at least for now, Fennec is the front-runner due to having a larger > install base than FirefoxOS or Firefox for iOS. With Fennec you get access to > over one billion devices. On top of that, we're about to see cars shipping > Android Auto and televisions being shipped with Android TV, that's two more > sets of users to target and we don't have a product that looks like it > belongs on those platforms. > > Every app that has unveiled their material redesign has gotten a huge wave of > free marketing within the Android developer and Android design communities. > This is something that Fennec should be looking to ride on the wave of too. > Even Evernote got a huge wave of free promotion. I fear that by the time > Fennec gets around to actually moving towards a material design let alone > unveiling it, we'll have missed the boat in that regards. Being at the > forefront of Android developments is how you ensure relevance. > > Just to be succinct here, we're designing for a year ago and Google are on > the verge of unveiling the next big thing in regards to their platform. Which > in fairness isn't likely to be huge visual design changes, but while we're > playing catch up with visual design, how much are we going to be able to put > the people hours required for utilising say the memory improvements > techniques and battery consumption improvement techniques that may be > unveiled? > _______________________________________________ > dev-planning mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-planning _______________________________________________ mobile-firefox-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/mobile-firefox-dev
