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Sailfish Mobile OS

sailfishos.org

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Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#21

Post by written-beyond »

distances wrote: post #13
yazzku wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am skeptical too, but the company is Finnish. Anybody know more about them? Edit: looks like a non-free OS indeed. The developer tools just seem to include an SDK. It's a pass for me.

For those curious, it's a continuation from where Nokia left with their Linux efforts, that's the roots in a nutshell. They did ship a smartphone with their own hardware in 2013. I still have it in my drawer. Definitely ambitious, and an achievement, for a small company tackle OS, hardware, dev experience, everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolla_%28smartphone%29

I had a Nokia N9, their second attempt at Meego/Maemo, to this date it's the weirdest consumer device I've ever owned. The device shipped with a front camera but it was not accessible through any default app. The closest I got to it working was a mirror app someone made in a Hackathon.

Issues aside it was a beautifully designed device, you could see real innovation. Unfortunately Nokia killed it before it even shipped.

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#22

Post by vrinsd »

BoredPositron wrote: post #16
getwiththeprog wrote: post #2

Does anyone use or have feedback on Sailfish?

Not great, not terrible. The android support is hit and miss and the official store is mostly full of junk. Their SDK is rudimentary and there is close to no documentation. After they signed a deal with the russian state I gave up on them. I am on Plasma now which has an overall better experience.

Do you use Plasma on a phone or tablet? If phone, can you say which hardware platform and how "well" it works as an actual phone, making calls, texting, etc?

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#23

Post by hansvm »

zamadatix wrote: post #17
brunoqc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> good luck running banking apps without Google SafetyNet. Doesn't most banks have a mobile version of their website. Maybe not the best but it could be a good compromise.

If you want to go in and do the basics (check balance, do a normal transfer, look at activity) this can get you by. A lot of the more useful features tend to be app only though. E.g. "scan to deposit check" is an app only item for my bank.

I can do that sort of thing from the Ally website. Which is good, because Google is actively killing off support for devices more than a few years old, and I can't run most new apps on my phone, banking or otherwise (old apps are hit-or-miss, but the practice of forcing updates to the latest version poisons most of them).

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#24

Post by cycomanic »

vrinsd wrote: post #18
getwiththeprog wrote: post #2

Does anyone use or have feedback on Sailfish?

I've used it for several years and the feedback from a user point of view is not positive. My sample size includes me and several members of my family who used Sony Xperia devices running SailfishOS for several years. The Sailfish guys for some odd reason decide to invent their own "user interactions" where you click-slide ("one handed") to do certain opertaions. This makes the UI not only awkward, but NOT intuitive.…

Funny, I used the Nokia N9 back in the days and the UI of (what was called Meego back the IIRC) was head and shoulders above everyone else. I believe the they were the first to have general gesture navigation so your comment about reinventing the UI is somewhat off the mark. Android implemented things after them, it's sort of like the argument that unix terminals should adopted ctrl-C for copy because it's the "standard".

I actually bought a Sony Xperia 10 and sail fish because I wanted the UI back so bad, but unfortunately I have some apps which didn't seem to work with android emulation (mainly banking...)

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#25

Post by izacus »

brunoqc wrote: post #15
desdenova wrote: post #3

I wish it was feasible to have alternative mobile systems, but it's not really. You can't simply give up every popular app for a system nobody else uses or develops for. Sailfish has Android emulation, but good luck running banking apps without Google SafetyNet. Even pure Android ROMs, like LineageOS, can't do that. Also good luck with proprietary firmware for mobile networking and cameras. Another thing that usually…

> good luck running banking apps without Google SafetyNet. Doesn't most banks have a mobile version of their website. Maybe not the best but it could be a good compromise.

Most banks here in Europe require Mobile apps to login into their website.

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#26

Post by fuomag9 »

brunoqc wrote: post #15
desdenova wrote: post #3

I wish it was feasible to have alternative mobile systems, but it's not really. You can't simply give up every popular app for a system nobody else uses or develops for. Sailfish has Android emulation, but good luck running banking apps without Google SafetyNet. Even pure Android ROMs, like LineageOS, can't do that. Also good luck with proprietary firmware for mobile networking and cameras. Another thing that usually…

> good luck running banking apps without Google SafetyNet. Doesn't most banks have a mobile version of their website. Maybe not the best but it could be a good compromise.

Here in Europe you cannot login to bank websites without the bank app on your phone for 2FA codes

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#27

Post by silisili »

desdenova wrote: post #3

I wish it was feasible to have alternative mobile systems, but it's not really. You can't simply give up every popular app for a system nobody else uses or develops for. Sailfish has Android emulation, but good luck running banking apps without Google SafetyNet. Even pure Android ROMs, like LineageOS, can't do that. Also good luck with proprietary firmware for mobile networking and cameras. Another thing that usually…

Today sure, it just needs support from a major player. Not -that- long ago, nearly every mfg had their own OS(Blackberry, Meego/Symbian, Win Mobile, Palm, etc) and each had enough apps.

If Samsung or Huawei or probably even Motorola decided to ditch Android and go all in on Sailfish, we'd see support for apps in short order. But as a third party OS you have to install yourself, it's basically dead in the water.

What BlackBerry did before giving up was a smart approach, they basically just converted Android apps to BlackBerry ones for you. And that'd be a fast way to get bootstrapped. They just didn't have enough steam left in them, sadly.

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#28

Post by vrinsd »

cycomanic wrote: post #24
vrinsd wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used it for several years and the feedback from a user point of view is not positive. My sample size includes me and several members of my family who used Sony Xperia devices running SailfishOS for several years. The Sailfish guys for some odd reason decide to invent their own "user interactions" where you click-slide ("one handed") to do certain opertaions. This makes the UI not only awkward, but NOT intuitive.…

Funny, I used the Nokia N9 back in the days and the UI of (what was called Meego back the IIRC) was head and shoulders above everyone else. I believe the they were the first to have general gesture navigation so your comment about reinventing the UI is somewhat off the mark. Android implemented things after them, it's sort of like the argument that unix terminals should adopted ctrl-C for copy because it's the "stand…

I am not saying the gestures in Android and iOS (app switching, etc) are actually the value add, but in fact things like toggles for options, or a "=" where the options are available to turn on/off. Sailfish forces gestures for things inside an application as well.

No doubt Meego innovated on ideas, but just because they came up with something doesn't make it "good" and just because Apple/Google copied it doesn't prove the validity of the idea.

To that point I would prefer we used more screen real estate (Android, iOS, whatever) and REDUCED the usage of gestures, it would end up being faster. It sometimes takes me multiple attempts to swipe from the bottom on a Android/iOS to get it to do something because I have a screen protector and/or case and the way I'm interacting the with the device is different than the developers who might have worked with a "nude" device.

The screen protector/case issue made UI navigation even worse on Sailfish devices because you had to use this gesture inside a program, not just to switch between applications.

Ubuntu Touch also has a swipe, but from the side where a screen protector is slightly less likely to affect it's ability to register the gesture.

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#29

Post by FormerBandmate »

silisili wrote: post #27
desdenova wrote: post #3

I wish it was feasible to have alternative mobile systems, but it's not really. You can't simply give up every popular app for a system nobody else uses or develops for. Sailfish has Android emulation, but good luck running banking apps without Google SafetyNet. Even pure Android ROMs, like LineageOS, can't do that. Also good luck with proprietary firmware for mobile networking and cameras. Another thing that usually…

Today sure, it just needs support from a major player. Not -that- long ago, nearly every mfg had their own OS(Blackberry, Meego/Symbian, Win Mobile, Palm, etc) and each had enough apps. If Samsung or Huawei or probably even Motorola decided to ditch Android and go all in on Sailfish, we'd see support for apps in short order. But as a third party OS you have to install yourself, it's basically dead in the water. What…

BlackBerry was a huge player. They declined, as with Nokia, entirely because they didn’t use a platform

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#30

Post by clhodapp »

yazzku wrote: post #10
BSDobelix wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Na thanks no closed source "near scam" OS/Company for me.

I am skeptical too, but the company is Finnish. Anybody know more about them? Edit: looks like a non-free OS indeed. The developer tools just seem to include an SDK. It's a pass for me.

What's the significance of the company being Finnish?
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