Mobile/ProductPlanning/Notes-2014-11-04

Roadmap & Funnel update

Jenn

• Roadmap
• Review of nightly features...lets try out in a different tool

Fennec Tracker in Trello

Hot items

Everyone

• Ability to provide a real-time metrics ping of clicks (but not impressions) -> mfinkle, bnicholson to investigate

Goals check in

Mark & Karen

• [ON TRACK] FxMobile: Ship new Search Activity for Android in Fx35.
• [ON TRACK] FxMobile: Establish a GTM plan for project 105 v1 release, including deployment, marketing and required Cloud Services resources.
• [ON TRACK] FxMobile: Agree on joint e.me Android launcher & lock screen plan for a Beta Launch in Q1, including fulfillment of all assets and UX flows as required
• [ON TRACK] FxMobile: Add required content server metrics for tracking Suggested Sites in Fx35
• [ON TRACK] FxMobile: Land a set of client-side password improvements (for FxAccounts) in Fx36

Insights

Something to Think About

(Note: repost from last-week's desktop planning meeting. Apologies for repeating if you've already seen it)

Lifehacker posted an article last week (the day after this meeting is on, sorry) all the things you can do from within Chrome's address bar. Firefox can do a number of the same things, but it's interesting to see the continual improvements the Chrome team has made around search (and service) integration, and also the productivity hacks (like searching drive without going there) that people come up with to make a feature more useful than it's intended design.

Why we should care: Chrome's modifications to the address bar aren't ground-breaking, nor are they changes that came about overnight. They are a series of iterative changes to a core function that work well with Google's external services, and focus on increasing utility which, not coincidentally, increases the value and stickiness of the Google experience as a whole. Continued improvements to existing features (and watching how people are riffing on those features) is a good thing, and is something to consider as part of our general product upkeep, particularly around the opportunity to do more with services (both ours, and others) that promote the open web as a platform.

Worth a Read

• IDC and Strategy Analytics both released their smartphone market data reports, which had a couple of surprises in there. Xiaomi is now regarded as the number three vendor behind Samsung and Apple, with Lenovo (who finished acquisition of Motorola's mobile business) and LG tied for third. Smartphone shipments are well over 320MM units/quarter now, up 25% yoy and just under 10% over last quarter, with a focus on lower-priced devices for every OEM except Apple. Android continues to grow market share, with iOS staying relatively flat. We're probably getting close to a leveling point now, but we'll see how that goes.
• Amazon posted a half billion dollar loss last quarter, with many people looking squarely at the Fire phone as a big part of that. There's all kinds of reasons, including acquisitions (e.g. Twitch at almost $1B), investments in other services and building out for the holidays, and their revenue and cash flow are both up. The Fire phone was an experiment, and an expensive one, but don't expect Amazon to slow up. Their Q3 report is worth a read, just to get an idea of the breadth of things Amazon is doing.

Notes

• As some folks have discovered the hard way, Android Lollipop is rolling out.
• #Fx10 is getting some pickup with the dev browser.
• MS has released a streaming app to allow non-Windows developers to test their work in IE. Interesting bit of outreach.
• iOS 8 uptake has stalled pretty hard. It's up a little to 52%.
• IDC also released it's tablet report, which shows stronger growth with Chinese OEMs at the expense of Apple. Related, many rumors that Apple is going to kill the Mini and focus on the Pro to try and turn the iPad line around.
• Windows Phone has a wallet, and it works everywhere Apple Pay does, too. Interesting times ahead in the mobile payment space.
• Big, established electronics companies continue to lose the high-end market. Still flogging the dead horse because others are, but Samsung and Sony are both getting hit hard on the high-margin devices, and are going to have to do something interesting to counter the likes of Xiaomi, Karbonn, and Intex if they want a piece of the smartphone pie (vs. the components side, where they both do reasonably well).
• Android's co-founder, Andy Rubin, has left Google to pursue other ventures (namely helping start-ups build hardware). Not a huge surprise given how little Google has said about its robotics side of late.
• iOS 8.1.1 was released to developers. Nothing of note, seems like a fairly normal point release.

Feedback

Rob

Release

• Increased reports of flickering
• 3 pieces of casting feedback
• A few reports of new Add-On compat issues

Pre-Release

• Some reports of black-screens on Video [One user claiming it's only MP4]

Search-Activity Survey

• Small survey on Nightly/Aurora users to see where early Search Activity usage stands

Marketing

Arcadio

Partner review

No notes - in-meeting updates from Mark & Karen

Roundtable

• Project 105 update
• Password meeting
• Roku channel update
• Video solutions for Android Lollipop