Mozilla has been making much noise about the Firefox OS mobile platform, and new $25 phones that it wants to bring to emerging markets. The company plans to deliver a $25 smartphone by the end of this year, the Wall Street Journalreported last week. Now, TIME is pronouncing the move “a brilliant game-changer,” but let’s remember that mobile phones are all about the apps, and even Mozilla officials have stopped short of calling Firefox OS phones “smartphones” in the sense that they run the robust apps that iOS and Android phones do.
Android and iOS smartphones have the best apps available for them precisely because they dominate the market and attract developers. In the final quarter of 2013, Android OS had 78% of smartphone users, Apple’s iOS had 18% and Windows Phone and other platforms grabbed the remaining share.
