Almost two years ago, we announced Boot to Gecko (B2G) here on Mozilla Hacks. We discussed the aims of the project and the work we were planning to do. Today, all that work has paid off and we now have official Firefox OS devices in store!

Last week the first Firefox OS phones went out in stores in Madrid, Spain, for sale by Telefónica. These phones are a great example of a low-cost telephone built on Open Web Technologies.

It means that if you haven’t gotten started at looking how to build your apps or your content with HTML5 and Responsive Design, now is the time, to have the chance to be among the early options in a brand new market.

Coming to more countries

Telefonica’s launch in Spain was the first for Firefox OS, but Poland, Colombia and Venezuela also have upcoming launches soon. It doesn’t stop there, though, look out for more countries coming soon.

Open Web Apps

Firefox OS runs the web and has a web browser, but if you want to offer an app-like experience, get access to more hardware and APIs and more, building an Open Web App could be a perfect option for you.

Reuse your existing HTML5 skills and content and just package it up. We’ve outlined Open Web Apps and new possibilities in detail in previous articles:

The Firefox OS Simulator

Tool-wise, we believe the Firefox OS Simulator is a great option to quickly test your apps.

Version 4 is just about to be released – more details in the announcement this Thursday, July 11th – but the list of highlights include:

New Connect Button, to have a developer toolbox connected to your specific app(s)

Remote Style Editor, enable remote style editing

Hidden Feature: Shift + Ctrl/Cmd-R, refreshing the app and clearing persistent data (AppCache, localStorage, sessionStorage, and IndexedDB)

Updated Dashboard Design, reduced clutter and improved usability

Touch Events, integrating Gaia’s touch events simulation, so interacting with the Simulator using a mouse now generates real touch events

Introducing payments

As part of the Firefox OS offering, we have the Firefox Marketplace, where you can upload and share your apps. We are also happy to say that if you are interested in accepting payments for your app, this is the place!

They are described in the Payments page as part of the Developer Hub aimed at app developers, and we’ve also written about them here before in Building A Paid App For Firefox OS.

We have two kinds of payment options in the Firefox Marketplace:

Purchase an app

In-app payments

Firefox OS is here

All in all, Firefox OS is here available on released devices, and we hope the capabilities for you as an Open Web Developer to offer good content and experiences sound good. We are continuously working on making the options and possibilities as good as we can for you!