Schedule & Progress onUpcoming Releases
Firefox Desktop & Platform
Current Releases
- Firefox 26 looks good, no major issues heard after the break.
Beta (27)
- Firefox 27 Beta 4 for Desktop shipped yesterday (1/7)
- Firefox 27 Beta 5 for Desktop will go-to-build tomorrow
Nightly (29)
- Working on a plan for FFA-authenticated sync in FF29. sync-dev should have the biggest details.
- Quick discussion about how/if we’re going to incorporate this into Australis onboarding experience. Contact your local PMM (lforrest?) or Product manager (Chad or Rob Lord) for more details.
- Details are still being ironed out. Magic 8 ball says: Reply hazy, ask again (or try sync-dev or PMs as listed above).
Firefox Metro
- Team working on Iteration #22 until Friday January 17.
- 10 out of 49 points completed to date for Iteration #22.
- 8 out of 29 bugs resolved to date for Iteration #21.
- To date, 23 bugs are blocking our uplift to Beta 28 – View Bug List
Firefox Mobile
Current Releases
- We shipped a 26.0.1 to fix bug 951776 in order to remove graphical corruption when tapping Google search suggestion
- General PSA, Two things we are looking into
- Rating Dip
- We have been investigating a ratings dip that appears to have started around Dec 10th 2013. Ratings dropped by hundredth to 4.39. We received about 42k new ratings in the past couple of weeks vs 10k last month of which only 65% (vs 71%) were 5 stars. The daily average rating for the past month has been fluctuating between 4.23 & 4.56 (vs 4.4 six months ago)Currently, we think this could be related to three main issues:
- a Google UX change in the Play Store and
- Slow performance on mid to low end devices.
- No Flash support on KitKat, http://snorp.net/2013/12/11/flash-on-kitkat.html and bug 935676
The first is not really in our control, but if we can feedback to Google, we probably should. #2 is within our control and we have been working on improving pageload performance. We need to make sure we include mid and low end devices when profiling/testing. Some of the data we have been gathering shows that regions, like Brazil, where we are growing, are the same regions where we are being rated poorly due to performance. Those regions also seem to be using mid to low end devices. The third we may have a solution for, glandium and snorp are investigating.
- Crashes Trending up
- .2, while 24 and 25 increased to around 1.5-1.6 and now with 26.0 shipped we’re almost getting up to 2.0 again
- Top crash is SQLite Database related. The”fix” is based on patches in bug 949639 and bug 949913. We are looking at these in Aurora right now and will uplift if possible
- Approval received which should help prior to next release bug 945327, bug 930735, bug 935831
- The remaining for Fx27 are pretty well balanced across components http://mzl.la/19QJn1Z 1video/audio, 1graphics:layers, 3 JavaScript Engine, 1DOM, 1Web Audio, 2ImageLib)
Beta (27)
- We are just under 3 crashes per 100 ADU
- We are otherwise on track: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Roadmap#Firefox_27:_.28Beta.29
Aurora (28)
- Number one risk is Action Bar for Text selection:https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Roadmap#Firefox_28:_.28Aurora.29
- Needs to be frozen by 01/24
- You can read more about the feature here: http://digdug2k.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/action-modes-for-android/
Nightly (29)
Attempting to load balance to make this release more sane, we’re getting there and sync is part of that: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Roadmap#Firefox_29:_.28Nightly.29
Developer Tools
- The tracing debugger has landed but is preffed off for the forseeable future. Toggle ‘devtools.debugger.tracer’ to check it out.
- we now automagically pretty-print minified JS according to some sensible heuristics
- the theme-apocalypse is still happening, things are getting flatter
- Add-on Builder is now read-only
- outbound will be slow until the end of the month
Feedback Summary
No updates. Getting back into the swing of things and working on Australis/Android reports.
Market Insights from the Market Strategy Team
Mobile
- Here is how the device landscape will look like in 2014, according to Gartner.
- There will be 2.5 billion units shipped throughout the year of PCs, tablets and phones, which is 7.6% higher than 2013.
- There will be 1.9 billion phones sold, 5 % more than last year.
- Tablets are growing at a staggering 47% rate, but their number is smaller: 263 million will be shipped in 2014. ** PCs sales are only by very little larger than tablets and they are the only segment that is declining year-over-year (by 7%), with 277 million units forecasted. In 2015, tablets are expected to out sell PCs, with 324 million over 268 million.
- In terms of operating systems, across all forms factors (PCs, tablets, phones), Android is on top, with 1.1 billion shipments, followed from a distance by Windows with 359 million, and iOS / Mac OS with 344 million. Chrome OS is on 5th place, with a forecasted 1.8 million device sales.
- Before the holiday season Opera released version 2.0 of Coast, it’s iPad browser. The browser moves the location bar from its traditional place further down and centre of the page. Its start page interface is heavily customised for gesture interactions and allows an unlimited number of 3×3 grids of shortcuts, that can be modified with already opened tabs by swiping them from the edge of the page. Screenshots here.
- Dolphin released a version of the browser with enhanced privacy controls called Dolphin Zero. They are putting a twist on “Do Not Track” by claiming to shred all user data that is stored while browsing.
- Google announced the Open Automotive Alliance, an alliance of industry players that has the aim to bring Android to cars. Founding members include Audi, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai and Nvidia.
- LG launched their first TV that runs WebOS. Minimum system requirements are a 2.2 GHz dual-core CPU and 1.5 GB of RAM. The device promises a more intuitive interface for easier control and a more pleasant experience.
- South Korea and the European Union are starting to plan for the implementation of 5G networks. The Asian nation is planning to start testing a nationwide network in 2018 and have a commercial service in 2020. The European Commission is starting a 5G Public-Private Partnership at the beginning of 2014 with the charter of researching implementation of greater network speeds. The founding members of the association are Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia Solutions and Networks, Orange. Also in Europe, a 5G Innovation Centre is planned with the help of the UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, and backed by industry players such as Telefonica, EE, Vodafone, Huawei, Samsung.
Marketing, Press & Public Reaction
- Engagement Team work-week next week in Santa Cruz (Tue – Thur) — we will be offline, working hard planning how to help Firefox reach its 2014 goals
- Brazil Desktop campaign turning on again now that the ‘airwaves’ have cleared after the holidays
Questions, Comments, FYI
- FYI – Tree closure this weekend. Could take longer to get code landed / merged. bug 951731
Planning Meeting Details
- Wednesdays – 11:00am PT, 18:00 UTC
- Mountain View Offices: Warp Core Conference Room
- Toronto Offices: Finch Conference Room
- irc.mozilla.org #planning for backchannel
- (the developer meeting takes place on Tuesdays)
Video/Teleconference Details – NEW
- 650-903-0800 or 650-215-1282 x92 Conf# 99696 (US/INTL)
- 1-800-707-2533 (pin 369) Conf# 99696 (US)
- Vidyo Room: ProductCoordination
- Vidyo Guest URL