Geeksphone to bring Firefox OS to consumer market with Peak+
The Spanish company is expanding from the developer market to the broader consumer market with the Peak+, a higher-end phone than other Firefox OS models on sale.
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Consumers who want a higher-end Firefox OS than the Alcatel One Touch Fire and ZTE Open that just went on sale soon will have an option: the Geeksphone Peak+.
Geeksphone, a small Spanish company, makes the higher-end Peak and the low-end Keon. Both are for developers who want to contribute to Mozilla's Firefox OS project or to make sure their Web apps will work on the browser-based operating system. On Monday, it announced it will sell a "new and improved" version of the Peak for consumers, too.
"After the success achieved by Keon and Peak Firefox OS Developer Preview devices, the Peak+ 'based on Mozilla technology' is the evolution of the Peak handset now available for end users too," the company said in a newsletter announcement.
The company didn't share details on pricing, availability, or hardware specs, and a company representative declined to share details. The newsletter said the company will launch a "pre-reservation list" in coming days. "All Web-registered users [of] shop.geeksphone.com will have priority in getting their new handsets at a promotional price."
Firefox OS is Mozilla's attempt to bring its principles of openness to a mobile market that today is dominated by Apple's iOS and Google's Android. Several carriers and handset makers have embraced the technology for their own efforts to reclaim some control over the mobile market. The first two to begin Firefox OS phone sales are Telefonica in Spain and Deutsche Telekom in Poland.
The Peak+ is the result of commentary from Geeksphone users, the company said.
"There have been many contributions from the Geeksphone Users Community regarding our handsets; we have carefully listened and analyzed them, and today we are pleased to announce that we are finalizing the new and improved version of our most demanded smartphone, in which we have introduced new hardware features," the company said.