First Images of Firefox OS for Phones Look Familiar

Mozilla is trying to create yet another mobile platform, and now we finally have an idea of what it will look like.

The new images come from Tech Week Europe, and show a mobile platform that takes a few cues from the big players in the space. At first glance the OS looks like a skin for unlocked iPhones, or an Android skin made to look something like an iPhone. The status bar at the top of the screen looks just like Apple’s as do the lock screen notifications.

There’s just enough difference in the screens that users can see that it isn’t iOS, but the similarities are impossible to deny. Despite the similarities, Firefox OS looks like an interesting platform, at least interesting as a first attempt in the space.

The design of the platform might change between now and release. We at least hope the final release will be able to correctly identify the difference between Angry Birds and Evernote.

Mozilla plans to launch Firefox OS in South America early next year, with other markets following after. The company has at least one U.S. carrier on board (Sprint), but we don’t know when or even if the platform will come to the U.S.

The promise of Firefox OS is that it’s an open-source platform based entirely on HTML5. The company claims its OS is more open than Android, but until it’s released to the world, we don’t know how true that claim is. All we do know is that it’s hard to deny that Android is the only viable “open” platform in the mobile space right now.