My-Symbian ~ My-Maemo ~ My-MeeGo

[Michal Jerz]

Quote:

Even if it is a state backed OS in Russia, for it to have any significance customers need to buy it.

It is enough that the government decides so that all state services, offices, agencies etc. must use it as their official devices, which is quite possible given that they're afraid of being spied by CIA/NSA and they suspect that Android and iOS may contain such threats. In large (and bureaucratic) countries like Russia it still means millions of units.

Anyway, be it true or not, it still means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for ordinary users. They won't benefit absolutely anything from such a partnership. Or even worse - if Jolla profits from such a scenario then they will be even less willing to do anything for individual end users, and they won't need guinea pigs anymore, either.

Quote:

So what does this say over the other contributers then? This is a blatent insult to all contributers who are excluded. That is how I would feel....

And to people like me it is actually DOUBLY insulting because I was one of the very first persons to have sacrificed my time and ported all my apps to Sailfish OS, and then I was prevented from being able to release them, and in fact completely ignored. Now I am excluded from their developer program because I am not considered a contributor as I do not have any applications published -- and that only because they made it impossible.

Quote:

The only purpose of a tablet is to run apps, so it makes absolutely no sense to buy a non Android tablet for Android apps.

Fully agreed. And even though the purpose of using a tablet is to also browse the web, I seriously doubt that for anyone it would make any difference whether he does it in an Android or Sailfish OS web browser as the results would be identical.

In my opinion, their only chance is that some authoritarian government scared of alleged CIA/NSA espionage really decides to get rid of Android/iOS etc. in their offices and considers Sailfish OS the most transparent alternative (that's of course only if Jolla provides full source code - yet another thing that they promised their users years ago and never did) - only that could provide Jolla some new "market" to "conquer". Other than that, I can't see for them any commercial viability, after they completely wasted 2 years and ended up with 300 or so native applications made by some weekend coders in their spare time. During the same time, Blackberry got tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of commercial quality native apps and so did even the lousy Windows Phone.

Anyway, if you look at this very forum you'll notice that all threads have thousands of views, and many of them even way above 10000 or 20000. Which is more than the number of views of majority of the most voted for topics on together.jolla.com, i.e. Jolla's official end-user portal. Yet still no one cares to participate in discussions like this one, it's just views. If Jolla users don't care to voice their concerns, why should we.

[Kleuter]

Quote:

Less than 50,000 people (1/40th) bought the Jolla in 17 months, despite its Android compatibility, but hardly any native apps.

And In the first six months of this year, Samsung has sold one million of its Tizen-powered Z1 handsets in India.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-z1-with-tizen-tops-1m-sales-in-in dia-more-handsets-planned/

They are doing better then expected. So much for Jolla´s BRICS strategy...

[Casanunda]

There is an interview in German business Magazine Wirtschaftswoche with some representative of Fairphone B.V. (they are not stating what function Daria Koreniushkina has, though).

Towards the end, they are talking about opennes and how they would like to have their software as open as possible.
She explicitly mentions Ubuntu and Sailfish as future possibilities to install on their device ("thinking about it").

Quote in German:

Quote:

Und was die Software angeht, so bedeutet Langlebigkeit das Gewährleisten von ständigen Updates und hoch bleibender Sicherheit. Wir glauben außerdem, dass die Fairphonecommunity auch Zugang zum Quellcode der Software haben sollten um sie selber verbessern zu können. Das heißt, jetzt kommt die von vielen gewünschte Open-Source-Software zum Zug? Das nächste Fairphone wird mit der neuesten Androidversion ausgestattet sein. Wie auch bei dem ersten Fairphone wird es die Möglichkeit geben andere App-Stores als die Google-Playstore zu verwenden. Des Weiteren erwägen wir bald, Open-Source-Softwareproduzenten wie Ubuntu or Jolla’s Sailfish als Betriebssystem anzubieten.

My rough translation:

Quote:

Regarding Software, longevity means assuring regular updates and sustaining high security. We also beleive that the Fairphone community should get access to the software's source code in order to be able to improve it themselves. That means, now the open source software that many wish for will come into operation? The next Fairphone will be equipped with the newest Android version. Like on the first Fairphone the possibility will exist to use [EDIT:] other app stores than [/edit] Google Play Store. In addition, we are considering to soon offer open source software producers like Ubuntu or Jolla's Sailfish as OS.

That would make the upcoming Fairphone 2 quite interesting for me.
Ideally with the possibility to install any OS on it to try or use, that will come close to what I'm dreaming of as an Open Platform.

[edit: link to fairphone homepage added, translation fixed re "other app stores"]

[Kleuter]

5” Full HD display

AndroidŸ 5.1 Lollipop™

QualcommŸ Snapdragon™ 801 platform

Dual SIM 2 cards in 1 device
Pre-orders start in summer 2015

€525, including VAT is rather expensive, isnt it?

[Casanunda]

Quote:

€525, including VAT is rather expensive, isnt it?

Compared to other mass-market Android devices, yes it is.

Two main reasons for higher price:
1. Small scale production (similar issue as for Jolla).
They sold 60.000 Fairphones of the first generation, calling it a huge success. They started production after receiving 5.000 pre-orders.

2. The whole concept of a "Fair Phone": they are sourcing material from conflict-free mines and use fair traded products as much as they can. Also, the chinese manufacturer pays higher wages while producing Fairphone, and additional payments are made to a workers' welfare fund.

They published a "cost breakdown" for the first Fairphone:
https://www.fairphone.com/2013/09/12/costbreakdown/

This second iteration will also not be something for the huge mass market, but what they are actually trying to do is raise awareness for the problems that are connected with the production of mobile phones.

Apple stated they are not able to influence the situation for the workers at Foxconn - Fairphone (orders of magnitude smaller) apparently CAN influence their manufacturing conditions.

At least this whole business is a nice idea...

[Casanunda]

Some news from Jolla:


First Sailfish OS licencing partner is company Intex from India, see Jolla Press Release (PDF) .

They announced the partnership on MWC in Shanghai.

Press release from Intex:
http://www.intex.in/Administration/Resources/BlogRecources/20150716013 858.pdf

Also a new blog post by Jolla concerning SailfishOS 2.0 including a video.

Sadly, the video shows almost nothing of the OS itself.


Meanwhile, new SailfishOS version 1.1.7 / "Björnträsket" has been made available for early adopters, see t.j.c. post.
Release notes show a lot of stuff related to Android apps (e.g. you can now give each Android app the right to run as service in background an be started on system boot), new gcc 4.8 based toolchain and support for switching layouts for external keyboards (just in time for TOHKBD users).

BTW I just received my TOHKBD (Other Half Keyboard) last week and I'm pretty impressed. Not perfect, but I like it a lot.
Will make a longer post about it when I find the time.