There’s another mobile operating system on the rise, but this one is special for a few reasons. First, it’s not necessarily trying to unseat iOS and Android — it’s designed to run on feature phones. It also has received significant investment from Google, and in most cases, Assistant and other Google applications are preinstalled.
The operating system in question is ‘KaiOS,’ and it’s already shipping on a handful of phones, including the 4G version of the Nokia 8810 and the Jio JioPhone. I’ve been using KaiOS for a while on the Maxcom MK241, and while it’s definitely better than the average feature phone, it still has rough edges.
A KaiOS device is definitely on my list of devices, since it’s a popular operating system I haven’t yet had the chance to try. I like the idea of having a more focused, less capable device, with better battery life and less distractions.
I had an interest in KaiOS when first heard about it being based on B2G (aka Firefox OS) but Google’s involvement doesn’t exactly make it an alternative to Android.
Not just Google. They’ve “partnered” with Facebook, Twitter and a bunch of other companies. This other tidbit throws me off a bit:
“KaiOS is a USA-based company with additional offices in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, India, France, and Brazil, together housing a team of over 170 people.”
So they’ve partnered with some of the greatest trackers and data-miners in the industry, have offices worldwide, already employ over 170: all of this for an OS that first appeared in 2017. That’s a lot of progress in about 1.5 years and I expect the phone to be just as bad as Android (maybe even worse since there hasn’t been any scrutiny).
“KaiOS may succeed where Android Go Edition has failed” – nope, because is comparing apples with oranges, the two OSes are targeting different classes of devices.
Spot on. KaiOS may success where FirefoxOS has failed would be a more accurate description. FirefoxOS was trying to compete with Android, while KaiOS tries to compete with tons of dead man walking operating systems (Brew, S30, etc) who do not have that many functionalities and such a small power envelope .
Wow, way to help the little guy.
What scrutiny do you need? They came up with an idea, “Keep it as simple as possible” and they’ve found a niche.
Big techs immediately got interested, hence the investment. If you don’t want to use Facebook, Google Map, or Gmail, don’t use them, but don’t bash something which you haven’t even tried. At least pick up an 8810 and give it a go. Then, and only, then you can comment. Read about the team whilst you are at it. Those guys are passionate about delivering as affordable and efficient a product as possible.
I am not sure who you were replying to but the whole you have “to buy it to comment on it” is totally ridiculous. One can evaluate something and determine if it meets one’s requirements before buying it. LOL I wasn’t talking about apps but Google putting Assistant and Chromium in the OS itself (and it’s analytics of course). That is defeating the purpose of looking for an ANDROID alternative and would be a downgrade on top of it.
I was replying to Gazoo which seems to imply that because many big techs have made investment in the platform and it are so quickly, it must be bad, potentially worse than Android. (No I don’t know what he meant by that either?). I didn’t say that someone needs to buy it before commenting but that someone needs to try it before commenting. Chromium isn’t part of the OS but Maps and Assistant are. This platform is for non touchscreen devices so voice commands make sense. Facebook and Twitter less so.
From the last link in the article (via Android Police)…
“The web browser currently uses Mozilla’s Gecko engine (since KaiOS is based on Firefox OS), but given Google’s continued investment and recent changes in Chromium, the browser will probably be Chrome soon.”
I am not aware of any 3rd-party browsers for the OS.
My point was if one is already using an Android phone and looking for an alternative that is NOT Google this does not make sense.
Oops, I missed that comment about Chrome in the article. It doesn’t make sense though. KaiOS is an HTML5 based OS basically a browser. How would you install a browser on top of a browser?
whatsapp support is key here. Technically the OS supports it, but the 8810 doesn’t actually have it.
SMS and Calls doesnt reflect modern day communication mobiles are used for.
Yep, apparently the JioPhone and JioPhone 2 have WhatsApp, but it’s only available from the Jio app store. So the JioPhone 2 seems like it might be the best choice for testing this OS out. It even has a BlackBerry-esque physical keyboard! The issue is getting your hands on one outside of India, not to mention that the first SIM slot is apparently locked to the Jio mobile network while the second is 2G-only, which I guess could seriously hamper practicality outside of India.
On the other hand, I am planning a prolonged visit to India in the next year or so, and if I get a chance I’ll review the JioPhone 2. 🙂
I keep meaning to write a KaiOS review for OS News, based off my experience of the CAT B35 rugged phone.
The short version is that I could not recommend anyone use KaiOS. It has two advantages over S30 & S40; Google Maps and central notifications. But it is a major step back in phoning and texting experience, even compared with a Nokia 1100 (colour and camera aside).
The predictive text is broken in a variety of ways. For example it often gets confused after entering punctuation and turns the subsequent word into garbage. The British English dictionary is still in large part in American English (but not entirely). You cannot add words to the dictionary. You cannot choose capitalisation in predictive text mode and it won’t automatically capitalise the first letter after a full stop.
The contacts list starts entering string into the search bar in numbers, then switches to predictive text after about three seconds. When you do get a list of results from your search, it isn’t comprehensive (e.g. “Bob Williams” may not show up if I search for “Williams”, nor even if I search for “Bob” if there are too many “Bob”s in the address book).
There are a variety of places around the OS where it crashes in vague ways that are very confusing. For example it consistently crashed back to to the settings menu whilst I was editing the APN settings; sometimes saving the changes, sometimes losing them, sometimes deleting the entire setting-set. In the end I just gave up and did without a phone for the week long trip to the States.
Ah, and sometimes when typing in a number to ring it will double the key-strokes.
This is just the bugs; there are a variety of other ways in which it is more limited than a comparable S40 phone.
In short, don’t.
Battery life is good though. In fact, the CAT B35’s hardware is excellent. Shame it is let down so badly.
Wait! “KaiOS Technologies Launches KaiAds to Give Advertisers Access to New Audiences and Offer Users a Better Mobile Experience”
That statement lost my interest in KaiOS immediately.