Tag Archives: flame

Managing Your Contacts with Firefox OS

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Since the era of iPhone and Android, you’ll rarely heard cases about “losing contacts” because your phone was lost or just stop working. There’ll be no worry because you just need to get a new device, log in to your (gmail/apple id) account and voila! your contacts is restored. It’s so easy compare to Nokia/Blackberry era when you have to hook up your device to computer and do the manual backup as often as you can.

In this post, I will share about importing contacts from your Google account to your Firefox OS device.

1. Open your contacts app

2014-07-26-11-18-182. Click on the Gear icon on the top right corner of the screen. I have only 1 entry in my contacts.
contact-2014-08-01-00-20-46-b

3. You can choose how your contacts will be displayed in order. Based on last name or first name. You can also sync with Facebook. Click on Import Contacts to start import.contact-2014-08-01-00-20-54

4. There are various sources of contact you can import from. SIM Card, Memory Card, Gmail and Outlook. I’ll use import from Gmail for this article.contact-2014-08-01-00-21-05-b

5. You need to log in to your Google account contact-2014-08-01-00-21-16

6. You need to confirm to start importing contacts from your Google Accountcontact-2014-08-01-00-22-10

7. Firefox OS is starting to look up your Google contactcontact-2014-08-01-00-22-18

8. Firefox OS will display all of contacts in your Google account. You can select which one you want to import. Of you can just simply select them all. You have to click on Import button at the top right corner yo start importing.contact-2014-08-01-00-22-43-b

9. Firefox OS is starting to import contact from your Google accountcontact-2014-08-01-00-22-53

10. Voila! You have your contacts populated in your Firefox OS device :)contact-2014-08-02-09-07-10

Exporting your contacts is a bit old school because you can only export your contacts to memory card of other devices via Bluetooth. I wish at least it can be export/copied to my Google / Mozilla account.

A Week with Firefox OS Flame

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Firefox OS Flamedisclaimer:

  • I’m still using the stock version of the o/s shipped with Flame which is 1.3.0.0-prerelease
  • I haven’t hook the device up to my Mac and do something with either AppManager, AppMaker or anything else

Following my previous post about unboxing Firefox OS Flame, it’s now time write a little review about the device. I was using the phone for the past week, not doing much actually. Mostly i used it for making couple of calls (voice and ussd), browsing, trying some apps, taking screenshots and photos.

So here it is.

For a very young O/S, Firefox OS has done pretty well to serve the basic, as a phone O/S. The screen is bright and nice. I hate the vibrate-when-you-press-buttons so i’ve disabled it (did it too on my G2 and Mi3). It’s somewhat different than I am used to, but seem to work fine after playing for a while. The battery is so good IMO. It can be a day phone compare to … my iPhone 5 :) You can leave the Flame unplugged overnight after some playing around with it and it just cost you about 25% of the juice. I was using it in 3G GSM mode most of the time, not yet trying to use it for tethering.

Mail is one of my must-have app. And Firefox OS mail app is doing fine. Setting up account, fetching the mail and reading and compose. Right now, you can only attach video, music or photos from your gallery or taking picture with the camera.

 

As photographer and heavy Instagram user, I use camera a lot. Flame’s camera is decent enough to take pictures but not by my standard. It might be unfair because I’m using iPhone’s and G2’s camera so far. Well leave the metering filter and all the fancy things, it’s nice if you can at least pick your own focus instead of the “auto focus” offered by the camera app. You’ll now what I mean when you try it.

These are some picture i took. Indoor in CGK airport. The light was enough to take pictures without adding flash. And I was surprised that online exif viewer I used said the photos were taken at f/2.6 :) My Mac’s Preview app said it’s f/2.8.

Sample of EXIF reading

These are photos taken with my iPhone 5 for comparison:

Good thing is in Firefox OS 2.0 the camera app seems to have an upgrade. Rara showed me her Flame (which’s been upgraded to 2.0 nightly) camera app can do manual focus selection. You’ll see that green square box showed up when you touch a focus area in your screen. But still. the JPEG output still need a lot of work.

Apps.
Well like i said, i used the Flame for browsing. So i have nothing more to say about the browser. It’s Firefox anyway :D
I’m still using the stock apps. Camera, Messages, Facebook, Twitter and Market Place. Annoying part is when you run an ‘app’ there’s a time when you need to go back to the previous stage/screen of the app. There’s no Back button in place. Instead, there’s a tiny face down white arrow in the bottom right corner of the screen. You have to gently slide/touch it up to bring up the set of back-forward-refresh button.

I haven’t test the FM Radio yet.

The voice call is also crisp and clear. But the first major problem i’ve encountered was from the dialler app. I was filing a bug for not being able to make USSD calls using ZTE Open C with Firefox OS 1.1. Now in 1.3, the USSD feature is still buggy.

In Indonesia, USSD is the main course for operators to help their customer accessing their services. Because its menu driven view. My case was:
1. making USSD call to *888# (Telkomsel) to check my balance. OK, hung up.
2. after top up, make call to *888# again and hung up.
3. call to *363# to view the data related services offered by Telkomsel. browse along the menu, and found 1 menu taking too long to get the response. hung up
4. retry #3 and try different menu, found 1 menu too long to response. hung up.
5. retry #3 and after press call suddenly FFOS gave me session expired confirmation.
6. trying different USSD short codes, same behaviour appeared. Session expired message right after you press that green call button.

So i have to do the Blackberry way, take out the battery, wait for couple of seconds, put it back and turn the phone on. USSD back to normal. (????) :P

Once, i left the phone powered off for a whole night. When i turn it on in the morning everything looks normal. I saw the red Thundersoft splash screen followed by the blue firefox os boot up screen. But after that blank. Only a screen with that green grass background, no icons, no text, nothing. I’ve press all the buttons, slide up down left right still no changes. It went back to normal after i turned the phone off and wait for couple of seconds and turn it back on.

I also have a case when my SIM card suddenly not recognised. Back to normal after i set the airplane mode on, wait for couple of seconds and turn the airplane mode off.

Last update, when i’m writing this post, I call to *363#, choose menu #8 and then #1 to check my status, got Radio not Available. Then i enter 9, it should return incorrect keyword but i got stuck in “sending….” status instead. And it went like that for minutes until i took off the battery.

iphone5_480x640_IMG_2067

Stuck in this state for minutes until remove the battery

*yawn* That’s all i can write this time. I think FFOS 1.3 still has many issues, specially the USSD and the O/S stability. I’ll try to play it around a little longer before decide to try the FFOS 2.0 nightly.

Anyone know how to import my Google/iCloud contacts to the Firefox OS contact?

Unboxing Firefox OS Flame

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At MozSummit 2013, me and a fellow developer from France asked (or maybe complaint :P) at Chris Heilmann class about the difficulties on getting Firefox OS device. Sometimes simulator is not enough. You need to test your functions, your app in a real device to get the feel and to get to know that it will actually work.

At that time, only Geeksphone selling Keon and Peak to open market. But they seemed to be unable to fulfil the developers’s enthusiasm to get the device. They’re just small company anyway (we’re talking about Samsung, Huawei class of manufacture :P).

Meanwhile, device makers like ZTE/Alcatel only sell the device as part of operator’s bundling program. You need to have contract with the operator (other friends said you must be a citizen of the country where the carrier operates). Even at last MWC Barcelona where Mozilla has a big booth there we couldn’t buy any devices. They were for display and testing only :P

So when I read Asa Dotzler (Director of Firefox OS Participation at Mozilla) post at hacks.mozilla.org that we could pre-order Firefox OS Flame device from everbuying.com for about USD 170. I didn’t think twice. Paid my order on May 28, and got the device in my hand last Friday :)

So, Firefox OS Flame is the reference phone and considered as the flagship of Firefox OS powered device. It’s not a super high end phone, but it is higher end than any of the previous devices such as Geeksphone Keon, ZTE Open C for example. It’s got dual sim cards, front and rear cameras, adjustable memory, etc.

It’s unlock and this is the specs:

  • Qualcomm MSM8210 Snapdragon, 1.2GHZ Dual core processor
  • 4.5” screen (FWVGA 854×480 pixels)
  • Cameras: Rear: 5MP with auto-focus and flash / Front: 2MP
  • Frequency: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
  • UMTS 850/900/1900/2100MHz
  • 8GB memory, MicroSD slot
  • 256MB – 1GB RAM (adjustable by developer)
  • A-GPS, NFC
  • Dual SIM Support
  • Battery capacity: 1,800 mAh
  • WiFi: 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, Micro USB

I’ll try to use it for a couple of days during mudik and make review of it :)

DHL charged me IDR 281,000 for tax and handling, but i heard Andi @belutz has to pay IDR 400,000. Is it right, Ndi?