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What Is KaiOS

What is KaiOS? If I were to answer that, KaiOS would easily pass as the dark horse of the mobile OS makers, powering more than 40 million feature phones around the world. Most of you might have not even heard about this new player in the market, even though it’s steadily making its way into the big player league. Google’s massive $22 million investment on KaiOS proves this fact which means this “Dumb phone” OS has grabbed the attention of the competitive market.  

We can also say that the KaiOS is a revived OS since it’s a modification of the previously abandoned project “Firefox OS”. Being an open source platform, Mozilla has made available the source code of the project, allowing the emergence of KaiOS. Bridging the gap between the feature phones and the smartphones, the US-based company was able to grab a huge market in developing countries, which still have demand for feature phones within low budget range. Which apparently brought a huge success to KaiOS, that we didn’t see coming.

KaiOS already partnered with around 20 carriers, including Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and Reliance Jio with a diverse team spread across America, Europe and Asia. Driven by the primary goal of closing the digital divide, the KaiOS team thrives to add value to their product. They allow affordable but smart services to the public.

Features and Technologies behind KaiOS

KaiOS is based on HTML5 that requires only a limited memory, even though it includes many features that do not come with other non-smart phones. It supports 4G/LTE, Wi-Fi, GPS and NFC. One thing that makes it more appealing is that it’s one of the three mobile operating systems that supports third-party applications like Facebook and Twitter. KaiOS also has their own app store named “KaiStore”, which was launched recently and will be available in most countries by the end of 2018. It includes most of the popular mobile applications. As a result of the involvement with Google, it carries most of the Google services like Google Assistant, Google Maps and Google Search. Since KaiOS runs on basic feature phones without the touchscreen and extended keyboard, the voice input brought with Google Assistant is a huge plus point. Since it also supports JavaScript, the development of applications is relatively easier.  

The affordability of the phones that run KaiOS greatly lies in its hardware requirements. Since it works well with all the chipsets of major manufacturers, it supports innovative back-end services, consuming only less memory and energy. Which results in longer battery life as well. By taking out the touchscreen, they have managed to reduce the cost drastically. This concept of KaiOS has managed to deliver internet facilities to most people who have never used the internet in their lives.

How it Came to be

We think it’s the era of smartphones. But when we have a look at the actual statistics, only 30% of the world population use smartphones currently. Which means that the majority of the people still use basic feature mobile phones or don’t use them at all. KaiOS has able to gap this division with their affordable price and by offering the ability to connect with the world through their clean and simple interface.

KaiOS made their first breakthrough appearance with the recently launched Nokia 8110 4G or widely known as “Banana Phone”. The rise of KaiOS from no name to the third most used mobile OS was not a surprise considering the market growth of feature phones. Which is higher than the smartphone market. With this new concept of “smarter” feature phones of KaiOS, there’s no doubt about the decision of Google to invest in this project. As proof of their innovative technology, KaiOS has announced the Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough at the MWC’s Asia Mobile Awards 2018.

As an end note, here’s a fun fact; Some of you might think KaiOS is named thus cause of it rhymes with iOS. Well, no. Kai actually originated from the Chinese word 开 (kāi), meaning “open”. If you’re interested in more details follow their own website here.