KaiOS on track to becoming 3rd major mobile OS

[Underseer]

Article on Google investing in the tech: https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/28/...ture-phones-firefox-os-apps-services-strategy

Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS

I haven't heard about this OS before. Looks pretty cool.

Some time back, Firefox tried to make a mobile OS. That attempt failed, but because it was open source, someone was able to take it, and strip its features down until it could run on feature phones (dumb phones) without the need for a touch screen, yet it brings features that are sort of like what smart phones offer.

So now feature phones can live in a nebulous nether region between feature phones and smartphones.

It turns out there is a huge market for this in emerging economies (e.g. India, much of Africa) where lots people can afford feature phones, but not smartphones.

This could be a game-changer for a very large number of people around the world, providing smartphone-like features to people who otherwise couldn't afford them. Given that the American middle class is still shrinking at an alarming rate, the tech could probably help a lot of Americans who find that they can no longer afford full smartphones with their expensive data plans.

 

[fromderinside]

Very, very nichy.

 

[James Brown]

Very, very nichy.

So was Linux once.

 

[phands]

Just like Android, it's Linux based. I predict that it will be absorbed into the greater Android pool. Either that or it will disappear entirely, like the abysmal windoze phone.

 

[Underseer]

Very, very nichy.

That's funny, because there's a much larger potential market in the world for KaiOS devices than Android or iOS. Those of us who use smartphones are the niche market.

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Just like Android, it's Linux based. I predict that it will be absorbed into the greater Android pool. Either that or it will disappear entirely, like the abysmal windoze phone.

It's already got a huge customer base in India and other emerging markets. I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon.