The mobile marketplace looks rather plain, but the focus should be on usability

Sep 4, 2012 18:11 GMT  ·  By

Mozilla has been working hard on the upcoming Firefox OS. It's still way too early to say anything about it, whether there's room for yet another mobile OS, whether its pure web approach is the right one and if it can work, but we'll definitely get to find out since Mozilla is not giving up.

In fact, it's working on getting ready for the big launch early next year when the first phones land. We've already got an idea of what it's going to look like, in fact you can run the interface and the default apps on your desktop with a little bit of elbow work.

But a solid mobile OS is not even half the battle, just look at Windows Phone. The apps will make or break the OS so the Firefox Marketplace is crucial to the entire project.

Mozilla's web app, open Marketplace is yet another big project, alongside Firefox OS, through which the organization hopes to counter the Chrome Web Store. The desktop version is still not open yet, but it's getting close to launch.

But the Firefox OS Marketplace is even more important, people are going to use Firefox on the desktop with or without the Marketplace.

But the first thing people do after buying a new Firefox phone, after a snapping a photo with it maybe, is checking out the apps that are available for it.

Finally, we've got an idea of what the Marketplace for Firefox OS will look like thanks to a number of "leaked" screenshots. Granted, the design could still change by the time Firefox OS rolls out, being an HTML5 app, the look and feel of it is trivially easy to change.

It's not the snazziest looking app, but the emphasis seems to be on usability. Considering that the biggest problem for marketplace apps, four years since the App Store launched, is still discovery, maybe usability over looks is a good idea.