Perhaps it wasn’t really an official release, but Mozilla developer Rob Hawkes has tweeted a picture of the new Firefox OS running on a mobile phone. It’s not much of a leak and it really doesn’t show off the new operating system, but it is enough, for now, to serve as notice that another contender is on their way to the mobile market.
The OS is pictured running on a Samsung Galaxy S II, which is traditionally seen running Android, but apparently this was the device of choice for much of the development for the Boot to Gecko-based OS. The Firefox OS will actually be optimized for lower end devices, making it a competitor for entry-level smartphones like the Lumia 610.
Mozilla doesn’t plan to get Firefox OS to market until 2013, and it will launch first in Brazil, so U.S. users have quite a while to wait for handsets. It also remains to be seen if the operating system can even compete with what has become the big three – iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. It’s possible that, with Symbian and Blackberry falling out of favor, there will be room for another mobile OS, but we will find out for sure over the next year or two.
