Firefox/Planning/2013-01-16

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Planning Meeting Details

• Wednesdays - 11:00am PT, 18:00 UTC
• Mountain View Offices: Warp Core Conference Room
• Toronto Offices: Finch Conference Room
• irc.mozilla.org #planning for backchannel
• (the developer meeting takes place on Tuesdays)

Video/Teleconference Details - NEW

• 650-903-0800 or 650-215-1282 x92 Conf# 99696 (US/INTL)
• 1-800-707-2533 (pin 369) Conf# 99696 (US)
• Vidyo Room: ProductCoordination
• Vidyo Guest URL

REMEMBER

These notes are read by people who weren't able to attend the meeting. Please make sure to include links and context so they can be understood.

Actions from Last Week

• Marco to move metro planning docs to wikimo - Update: Marco unable to attend this week, will roll this over to next week.

Schedule & Progress on Upcoming Releases

Firefox Desktop

Current Releases

• Firefox 18.0.1 (maintenance, not security-driven, desktop only) has gone to build yesterday and is planned to be released on Friday before EOD. These fixes will be included.
• Faster uptake of Firefox 18 due to bug 803181, tweaking some of the update parameters
• Blocks
  • bug 829111 - Blocklist with severity CTP for all versions of Java due to zero-day remote code execution vulnerability being actively exploited went in production Friday, Jan 11
  • Firefox Startup Crash related to Websense Endpoint 7.6 - bug 828184.This will be a part of 18.0.1
  • Planning to move ahead with bug 826002 - Consider blocklisting Adobe Reader XI on OS X

Beta (128)

• Firefox 19.0b2 has gone to build yesterday and planned to be released , Thursday .

Firefox Metro

Action From Last Week: Metro planning documents now available on public Metro Wiki.

This Week

• Team currently in California participating in Project Work Week.
• On Monday, Asa reviewed updated Feature Stories with development team.
• On Tuesday, estimates were completed for all P1 Feature Stories.
• On Wednesday:
  • functionality testing will commence on all previously completed stories to determine if they are done.
  • develop inventory of outstanding visual assets required for Feature Stories.
  • re-format Metro on Bugzilla to accommodate sprint, component, story point values and updated Feature Story format.
  • development team to pull Feature Stories they can commit to for the upcoming iteration.
• On Thursday:
  • work on draft Forecast Release Schedule.

Firefox Mobile

Beta (128)

Recent uplifts include

• bug 795045 Confine cursor positioning thumb control to edit box
  
• bug 823325 - Text cursor handle doesn't disappear when switching tabs
  
• bug 795833 - Loading page in background does not update the SurfaceView
  

Aurora (54)

• about:home customization feature review was yesterday; UX is working on refinements based upon discussion (this is an important feature for MWC)
• bug 823679 - AnnouncementPresenter notification not using simplified branding icon was uplifted

Nightly (129)

• bug 831354 We have landed on 2 open source fonts Open Sans (sans serif) and Charis (serif), they should be landing in nightly here in the next day
• bug 820491 Download support for private browsing mode has landed
• viewport caching re-landed, 22% panning improvement
• Synced tabs improvements landed bug 817739, along with a handful of other happy Tab UI refinements bug 717739, bug 824501, bug 826819
• Lot's of MWC happenings including QA running benchmarks in preparation for MWC

Add-on SDK

Release (1.12 -> Firefox 18, 19)

Stabilization (1.13 -> Firefox 19, 20)

Development (1.14 -> Firefox 20, 21)

• we spent all week grappling with Per-window Private Browsing repercussions.
• we're on track to release 1.13 in just under two weeks.

Feedback Summary

Desktop

Users are reporting that the Facebook crashes have vanished this morning.

Still seeing alot of third-party crashes. (Norton, Websense)

Malware crash is going down on SUMO, possibly due to AV vendors picking it up in their definitions

New reports of font issues:

New reports on Windows claim it started in 18: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/946575 Bug: 818164

Now seeing similar reports on Mac: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/946559

Java Script error with Ant Video Downloader: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/946716

Positives:

"Firefox 18 is the fastest and smoothest version you all have released since Firefox 7! Pat yourselves on the back!"

"The built in dev tools are awesome, especially scratchpad!! Keep up the good work, also love the new(ish) shift+F2 accessible tools, they are non-obtrusive and easy to keep open/minimized until needed, keep up the good work!!"

"I enjoy the fast loading of pages."

Mobile

We are investigating reports of slowness, trying to narrow down some causes.

Overall 18 has been well received with just a few minor issues that we are tracking.

Market Insights from the Product Marketing Strategy Team

Desktop / Platform

Google

• Chrome Beta for Android is now available. Features include Text Autosizing, 30% performance improvement in the Javascript Octane benchmark, CSS filters, improved developer tools, and more.
• Chrome Beta for Desktop now supports Shadow DOM, CSP, the Javascript Web Speech API, concurrent transactions for IndexedDB, and more.

Microsoft

• Microsoft made another critical security bug fix release for Internet Explorer 6, 7,and 8.

Nokia

• Nokia admitted that their recently-launched Xpress browser, which runs on their Asha and Lumia platforms, routes all HTTPS traffic through its servers, temporarily decrypting it in the process.

Opera

• Opera released a new TV App Store

Security

• Oracle released a fix for a critical security issue in the Java 7 runtime environment.

Mobile

• Google now allows all developers to reply to comments directly in the Android Play Store, a feature available until now only to those considered top developers.

• Google released the Beta Channel of Chrome to the Play Store. The release claims better HTML5 support and JavaScript performance. The app has an average rating of 4.1, same as the Chrome stable channel.

• Sony announced waterproof Android phones: the Xperia Go (called Advance in the US), on Gingerbread, and the Xperia Arco S, with Ice Cream Sandwich.

• Gingerbread now at 47.6%, Ice Cream Sandwich at 29.1%, Jelly Bean at 10.2%.

• A survey of 30 mobile industry leaders conducted by Chetan Sharma Consulting revealed a view of the evolution of HTML5 on mobile among other significant trends in the industry:
  • HTML5 is not at the top of breakthrough categories for the year. It comes under topics such as mobile payments, cloud services, mobile commerce, enterprise, health, security and advertising.
  • HTML5 does come on top of mobile retail, NFC, wearable computing, home automation and flexible displays.
  • The view that "The mobile Web will become more relevant" is less popular at the start of 2013 than it was at the start of 2012.
  • HTML5 is the second most likely platform to become a viable and durable 3rd ecosystem and the only major contender, with 36% of the votes, to the likeliest one, Windows (which has 45%). Blackberry is credited with 6% of the votes, Tizen with 3% and None of Them with 10%.

• The market share of phones with screens larger than 5 inches will more than double in 2013. In 2012 there were 25.6 million such devices shipped and this year we will see 60.4 million of them. Recent launches include the 6.1 - inch Huawei Ascend Mate and the 5 - inch Sony Xperia Z

• The European Commission is taking steps further to harmonize the European telecommunications market with the purpose of streamlining roaming and collaboration across the continent. In the European Union there are more than 27 regulators and 100 network operators.

Marketing, Press & Public Reaction

Marketing

Desktop

• Top line ADI growth: We seem to be recovering from the normal download spike we see around the holiday season
• Firefox 18 GA - Launched last week - Updates
  • Due to recent improvements on how we serve updates to users, we're seeing record adoption rates for Firefox 18. At 6 days after the release 50% of our user base is on Firefox 18. This normally takes around 16 days.
  • PR is working on a statement, if needed, about the improvements in 18.0.1
• A big focus for the coming weeks is MWC preparation - for Firefox Desktop that means showing off WebRTC

Mobile

• FX 18 and FX19 launches went well: ADIs & downloads were at the expected levels, and PR reception was neutral to positive
• Increased focus on industry messaging and position in preparation for MWC
• Communications
  • One-off email planned for this month to feature app improvements and highlight upcoming features. We'll also have FFA social posts and FFA snippets
  • Social Advertising (on facebook and twitter) to kick off soon, with a renewed focused on FB mobile ad units