672221 - The www.mozilla.com page for Firefox Home doesn't blame Apple for the lack of real Firefox

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(www.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

Description

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen)]

I agree with http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/2011/07/goal_1_vs_goal_2.html that we should make clear who is preventing users from having Firefox on their iPhone.

Currently, if you load http://firefox.com/mobile get redirected to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/mobile/ and click "Learn More" to navigate to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/mobile/home/ , you see nothing explaining why there's no Firefox for iOS and why Mozilla's iOS offering is just a Sync data reader.

This may immediately make sense to people who know about Apple's policies but (based on anecdotal--not scientific--evidence) may confuse users who have obtained an iOS device without being aware of the details of Apple's iOS App Store policies and look for Firefox for their device. To these users, Mozilla's current Web site communication makes it look like the less than ideal product offering is Mozilla's choice for no apparent reason.

I think the Web site communication should ensure that the blame for the unavailability of Firefox for iOS falls on Apple--not on Mozilla--in people's minds. I think the Firefox Home product page should start with a brief but unambiguously Apple-blaming text like "Apple's policies don't allow us to deliver Firefox for iOS. However, we are allowed to offer Firefox Home to let you to access your history and bookmarks from Firefox on your iOS devices."

Comment 1

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Steve Fink writes, in the comments on my blog post:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/2011/07/goal_1_vs_goal_2.html


Personally, I'd rather not point the finger directly at Apple, for the simple reason that I want the downfall of closed platforms, not Apple.

"Get Firefox Home! Firefox Home is the best experience we can deliver on a closed platform."

"Get Firefox Home! It brings you those benefits of the Open Web that are still possible on a closed platform."

We don't want to belittle the product. That is indeed marketing fail, and unnecessary besides. We do want to belittle the closed nature of the platform. Readers can draw the inference that the product is not as capable as another one on a different platform, but that's not the fault of the product -- you don't blame a photo app for not working as well on a device lacking a camera. That is the message to convey, that the closed platform is fundamentally inferior to an open one, in a similar way that a device lacking some bit of hardware is inferior. "This device has a camera, a microphone, openness, a 34324x3830 pixel display, ..."


I agree with Henri that we need to say something about the situation, but the exact slant (criticising Apple vs. criticising closedness) is an item for discussion.

Gerv

Comment 2

[John Slater]

I think a note briefly explaining the background of Firefox Home would be a good addition to the FAQ, but wouldn't recommend making it the main message of the page or anything. It would also have to be worded very carefully - I agree with Gerv in comment #1 that we need to be really careful about not belittling the product or apologizing for what it isn't in the process of making this point.

Jaclyn/Mayumi, what do you guys think? Do we have any current plans to update the Firefox Home landing page?

Comment 3

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> I think a note briefly explaining the background of Firefox Home would be a
> good addition to the FAQ, but wouldn't recommend making it the main message
> of the page or anything. 

That seems a bit of an (unnecessary) dichotomy :-) This blog post:

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/2011/07/goal_1_vs_goal_2.html

explains why it could be considered important for our marketing for Firefox Home to make it clear that it's not the best possible solution.

> It would also have to be worded very carefully - I
> agree with Gerv in comment #1 that we need to be really careful about not
> belittling the product or apologizing for what it isn't in the process of
> making this point.

We shouldn't belittle the product, but we may need to apologise for what it isn't. Currently, the way it's marketed (see e.g. http://blogtalk.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/331976299.jpg) downplay the differences and suggest that Firefox Home is roughly the full Firefox experience. In fact, we should say: "We'd love to offer you proper Firefox on iOS, but it's a closed platform and the platform owner (in this case, Apple) only allow applications downloaded from their App Store and they ban software like Firefox from that store." Or some shorter, clearer version.

Gerv

Comment 4

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen)]

(In reply to comment #2)
> I think a note briefly explaining the background of Firefox Home would be a
> good addition to the FAQ,

It's already buried in a FAQ in vague language that says we aren't shipping on some platforms due to technical or policy limitations without being candid about which platforms have technical shortcomings and which ones have hostile policies. The point of this bug report is that it's not good enough to bury it in a FAQ in roundabout marketing talk when iOS-ification of operating systems is the biggest threat to Mozilla's mission currently.

I think we shouldn't belittle the Firefox Home product, but I think normal-company marketing reaction of politely moving aside the elephant in the room (Apple's iOS App Store policy) is harmful to the extent Mozilla is an organization with a Freedom and Choice mission and not only an organization delivering user experiences within the constraints posed by the operating system proprietors.

Comment 5

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

Firefox Home has gone.