Mozilla Foundation is improving the performance of its Firefox OS software for smartphones, and devices running it will soon go on sale in more European and Latin American countries.
Firefox OS is built around applications written in HTML5. Mozilla Foundation is pitching it as a better option for low-end smartphones, and devices running it will compete head-to-head with cheap Android smartphones and other platforms such as Nokia's Asha.
However, the operating system has yet to live up to that promise, with the first round of phones suffering from performance issues. "And boy, is the device slow, even for simple tasks like opening emails. Don't expect to finish every action; trying again is part of the experience," Infoworld said when reviewing the ZTE Open in August.
Mozilla Foundation, which leads the development, is looking to address that with version 1.1 of Firefox OS. The organization promises "faster application load times and smoother scrolling," it said in a blog post on Wednesday. The upgrade also includes new features such as MMS messaging and enhancements to email, contact management and calendar. Existing devices will be upgraded to the new version soon.
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