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Jolla

jolla.com

211–220 of 259 posts

Re: Jolla

#211
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the people who are genuinely confused, Jolla is a company that sells smartphones, their first smartphone is also called Jolla; it runs Sailfish OS, which is effectively a fork of the Meego operating system which Nokia used in its N9/N900 phones, before they switched to Windows Mobile. This is not very surprising, because Jolla is a Finnish company principally made up of ex-Nokia engineers, including a lot of the…

Please forward this paragraph to their web folks. Just put it right at the top as a first-read. Then everything else makes a lot more sense.

The first paragraph on a sales page should never include the word "pulseaudio." It probably shouldn't even include "Linux" unless you're selling server hardware.

Re: Jolla

#212

Why should I buy this device now? 400EUR a lot of money and on Twitter they write: Calendar sync is not supported at the moment. MMS is not supported at the moment. We do not have DLNA support at the moment.

You cannot buy it now, thus... If - I'm speculating - we 'normal' people can buy the device in spring it will have more features.

(I'm interested as it's linux based, and a good alternative to the closed apple world and the dominant 'Android-one-Google-data-collecting' universe.)

Re: Jolla

#213
post #42
post #2

Perhaps I'm not in the know (I'm not) but it took me way too long to figure out it was a phone and not some UI overlay/Android enhancement suite.

It's like a lot of things that appear on HN... strange and unfamiliar words without context. Yep, a smartphone.

It's the title's fault, OP made no effort to explain what he was linking. Pretty annoying actually.

Re: Jolla

#214
post #40

Can anyone comment on how free this device will be? From what I recall, Sailfish is partially free software, but contains proprietary software as well which is a real shame.

What is your alternative?

Replicant is the only project committed to software freedom that I know of.

Re: Jolla

#215
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as their business is based on selling hardware, it might not be a problem. Then they are not competing with Google in mobile OS development, but with Samsung etc. Sailfish OS could then allow them to differentiate from other handset makers, without advertising it as such. In other words, market the capabilities, not the Sailfish "brand".

Would Sailfish also run apps that use google play services?

No, not as far I know.

Jolla CEO Tomi Pienimäki went on record last month stating that devices will ship with its own app store partner, Yandex http://store.yandex.com I believe, not Google Play.

So apps consuming Play Services might work if a user was able to install the play services .apk, but I guess this would not be in a supported fashion.

Seems all very murky. Jolla claims full Android compatibility but I don't believe it has Android(™) compatibility. Would be a good developer FAQ.

Re: Jolla

#216
post #174

Can anyone comment on how free this device will be? From what I recall, Sailfish is partially free software, but contains proprietary software as well which is a real shame.

https://sailfishos.org/about-license.html Our goal with the Sailfish OS is to develop an open source operating system in co-operation with the community, thus ensuring the development of a best-of-breed operating system. So it looks like the software will be open source. I just hope that the device will not be locked down..

So far there is no detailed information about which packages are free and which aren't. But it should appear fairly soon. I hope community will enumerate non free components.

Re: Jolla

#217
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the people who are genuinely confused, Jolla is a company that sells smartphones, their first smartphone is also called Jolla; it runs Sailfish OS, which is effectively a fork of the Meego operating system which Nokia used in its N9/N900 phones, before they switched to Windows Mobile. This is not very surprising, because Jolla is a Finnish company principally made up of ex-Nokia engineers, including a lot of the…

You mentioned it won't have access to Google Play or Play Services APIs. That will be a serious challenge, and they are bound to end up with a lot of frustrated customers. I don't see how they can advertise that it runs "top Android apps" & "latest Android apps" without supporting the Play Services APIs.

Yeah, it'll be interesting. This really is also the key question as to whether non-Google Android distributions are actually viable. Essentially whether controlled Play Services means you control Android. Although, bear in mind that they are running their own App Store, so they should be able to filter for reliance on those APIs, which would at least mean you wouldn't have software crashing (just people somewhat mystified as to why certain Apps aren't available).

Re: Jolla

#219
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the homepage "Jolla.com" it says: Jolla is powered by Sailfish OS, a truly open and distinct mobile operating system. Navigate effortlessly with the gesture-based user interface and load the phone with top Android™ apps. So it is a phone since they call it a phone. :)

I'm confused too. I don't understand if they are a manufacturer selling the phone directly to customers, or if they are an OEM selling to carriers. It looks like it is different than android, but it runs android apps? Is this another skin for android that is tied to the physical device?

Here, use this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6809444

Re: Jolla

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've missed plenty of calls because I was in the shower or washing dishes and couldn't get my hands dry enough quickly enough to pick up the phone. I've also missed calls intentionally because I didn't want to take my gloves off in below-zero-Fahrenheit weather just to answer a call, and I couldn't answer a call with my gloves on. I do wish smartphones phones came with a fallback "answer call" feature that didn't rel…

Headsets always have a physical answer button, if you put one in, you don't even have to handle the phone.

They're tricky to take in the shower with you, though.
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