By Stephen Schenck

Mozilla’s Firefox OS is one of the smartphone platform underdogs we’re going to be keeping an eye on as we get into 2013. It’s an ambitious effort, and while it may not shake-up the smartphone ecosystem as a whole, there’s a lot of potential for it, especially with the kind of super-budget-priced hardware we’ve been hearing about. We’ve known that the whole platform, apps and all, will be built upon HTML5, but haven’t seen much as to how you’ll actually get your hands on those apps. A new leak attempts to reveal some of those details, showing off the Firefox Marketplace.

Compared to the relative glitz of the Google Play Store, the Firefox Marketplace looks positively spartan. Maybe that’s a good thing, though, and Firefox OS will represent a more no-nonsense alternative to what we’re familiar with from currently-available platforms. Of course, there’s a flip side to that, and we’ve got to wonder if app discovery might suffer as a result, leading to frustrated users and perceptions of a lack of available software.

We’re still a way’s off from the platform’s retail debut, so there could still be plenty of changes in store before then. Do you like what you see here, or would Mozilla do well to fancy things up a bit?

Source: Engadget