Fennec/NativeUI/Aurora

Plan to introduce Firefox Aurora into the Android Market

Background

Mozilla is embarking on the ambitious target to re-architect Firefox using a native Android user interface. With the ambitious plan to produce a Native UI Firefox Beta by January 30, 2012, we will need more users engaged in the mobile development cycle to ensure adequate testing and quality.

The existing plan is to offer the Native-UI product to Firefox Beta users and leverage our larger use base on that channel.

Concerns:

• Product has not been tested enough to be branded as "Beta" quality
• Firefox Beta users want a more stable experience, but we would be giving them essentially an Aurora build
• This does not grow our channels
• Backpedaling on our rapid release/Aurora story

Recommendation

The newest channel, Firefox Aurora, has great potential for adoption, but has not yet experienced the tremendous growth we anticipated. Firefox Aurora for Android currently has 10,500 profiles, and 900 active users. Recent branding efforts, promotions, and product improvements helped grow Aurora users by 950% in 4 months.

We recommend that we release the next build of Native UI as an Aurora (and release it into the Android Market) rather than straight to a Beta.

Motivations:

• Would more truly reflect product expectations of Aurora quality and honor user expectations (Aurora users welcome instability and experimental features, Beta users want stability and this could hurt ratings)
• The Aurora brand shows the most promise for growth, and is the brand we want to lead with (as there are discussions to potentially consolidate channels
• Gives us an opportunity to promote this as an "event" and create hype, rather than just another beta merge with a strange gap in functionality and performance for users
• Aurora audience is more willing to file bugs and get involved than the Beta audience

Goal

Reach 18,000 Firefox Aurora for Android users by X.

Requirements

More info on preparing for release: http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/preparing.html
More info on publishing: http://developer.android.com/guide/publishing/publishing.html

QA:

• Test

SUMO:

• Incorporate Android Market reviews/input monitoring

Release Management:

• Confirm update behavior and mechanisms

Marketing:

• Promo graphic: Bug 704596
• Description copy: Bug 704679
• Application icon:
• Screenshots:
• Update Aurora download buttons
• "Announcement" launch activities
  • Branded swag
  • Moz.org promotions (Snippets, blog posts, etc)
  • Aurora online ads

Release Eng:

• Prepare account in Android Market

Contingencies

Scenario 1: Reach 18,000 users

If Firefox Aurora reaches the goal of 18,000 users by X, then the product will stay in Aurora until it reaches Beta on January 30, 2012.

• Recommendation to suppress Beta adoption for Aurora until then, and focus growth on Aurora

Scenario 2: Do not reach 18,000 users

If Firefox Aurora does not reach 18,000 users by X, we release the product to our Beta users on X date

Timeline

Dec 14 - Application is prepped and configured
Dec 15 - Graphics and marketing materials hand-off
Dec 16 - Staged, final testing
Dec 20 - Release to Android Market
Post Dec 20 - Assess Aurora growth and adoption rate, and determine whether to merge with Beta users
Jan 30 - Release into Beta channel