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The Jolla phone – first impressions

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Re: The Jolla phone – first impressions

#41

Post by marquis »

gress wrote: post #40
marquis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think long-term. What could you conceivably do on the desktop that you can't do on the browser? Media recording and management? HTML5 is well on the way and someone compiled a functional version of FFMpeg in Javascript just recently. Storage? Security? Dropbox and more of the kind. We already have document management. The only thing I can think of right now is a render farm but we'll do that in the cloud anyway (even…

But why is that better? And won't native apps keep advancing in the meantime?

I don't think it's better: I work with heavy media files and it worries me when Apple makes OSX a bit more stupid every release. But I have faith that as developers we'll make it work (maybe the industry moves to Linux, who knows). But I also LOVE the idea that my mobile phone or some tiny gadget I wear around my neck is the key to my data, and I can rock up to any monitor or use any display, glasses, microprojector whatever. I just see the changes coming, where iOS and OSX are merging slowly. It's too early to say what this is going to mean for pro developers/users.

Re: The Jolla phone – first impressions

#42

Post by azakai »

bostik wrote: post #28

As someone who spent quite a lot of time getting QtWebKit built and kept up-to-date on Mer, both for Qt 4.8 and 5.x, I'm somewhat torn to see this: > We heard at the launch event that the rendering engine is Gecko On one hand, I feel a little sad. On the other hand, I can appreciate the idea of going with a browser engine that isn't as big a political playing field as WebKit. (Or its Google-fork: Blink.) The reasons…

Interesting. I remember that Meego went back and forth between WebKit and Gecko, but that was a long time ago, I would also be interested to hear how things ended up that way.

Re: The Jolla phone – first impressions

#43

Post by [deleted] »

emilsedgh wrote: post #11
Aardwolf wrote: post #7

An observation I have been wondering: Whenever a Windows phone is presented, there are pictures of phones that have more square corners than other phones, and flashy colors like yellow and orange. It seems to be almost a requirement of a phone with the Windows software, to have colorful and squary hardware. Is that a coincidence, or a sort of design convention or requirement? EDIT: Oops, apparently it does not run Wi…

This is not a windows phone. It uses SailfishOS[0] which is basically a continuation of Maemo/Meego. [0] https://sailfishos.org/

[deleted]

Re: The Jolla phone – first impressions

#44

Post by smartaleckkill »

nl wrote: post #39

This sounds like one of those "the sky is not falling" reviews of a Maemo phone in 2009, that ignores the (pretty huge) flaws of the platform because the author is a fan. You can see hints in this review: It should be is easy to search the web, enter URLs, open new tabs, save bookmarks etc. All of this can be done with the current browser in SailfishOS. The browser seems to work pretty fast and flawlessly. We heard a…

No-one said the whole point of the phone is HTML5 apps. The reviewer thinks HTML5 apps are the future, that's all. Native Sailfish apps are Qt based; with android apps as a secondary thing, presumably to kick-start the platform while they try to build an ecosystem. (Which makes sense, developers won't come unless people are using it but people won't use it if there are no apps.)

Re: The Jolla phone – first impressions

#45

Post by smartaleckkill »

enra wrote: post #8
smcl wrote: post #3

Minor nitpick: I don't know how to say "Jolla". I mean I know that "Jolla" is pronounced "Hoya" in European Spanish ("Hosha" in Argentinian), but in most European languages it'd be "Yolla" with a soft "j" and the naive English pronunciation would be "Djolla". I don't know which was the intended one. Not that it really matters I suppose, but why go to all that trouble building an apparently lovely device and giving it…

Jolla means "light boat" in Finnish. I guess it's a tongue in cheek for the Elop's burning platform speech, where Jolla is the light boat getting a away from it. (Agree that for global products, people should prefer names that are easier to pronounce)

It also occurred to me that with Nokia's history as a rubber manufacturer they're bound to have made rubber rafts at some point (which would indeed be called `jolla').

Or I could be completely overreading this...

Re: The Jolla phone – first impressions

#46

Post by Brakenshire »

nl wrote: post #39

This sounds like one of those "the sky is not falling" reviews of a Maemo phone in 2009, that ignores the (pretty huge) flaws of the platform because the author is a fan. You can see hints in this review: It should be is easy to search the web, enter URLs, open new tabs, save bookmarks etc. All of this can be done with the current browser in SailfishOS. The browser seems to work pretty fast and flawlessly. We heard a…

> So.. the whole point of this phone is HTML5 apps.

Pretty bizarre interpretation, perhaps you're thinking of Firefox OS? Jolla includes an Android runtime, and also has its own native applications, it's clearly not all about HTML5.

Re: The Jolla phone – first impressions

#47

Post by nl »

smartaleckkill wrote: post #44
nl wrote: post #39

This sounds like one of those "the sky is not falling" reviews of a Maemo phone in 2009, that ignores the (pretty huge) flaws of the platform because the author is a fan. You can see hints in this review: It should be is easy to search the web, enter URLs, open new tabs, save bookmarks etc. All of this can be done with the current browser in SailfishOS. The browser seems to work pretty fast and flawlessly. We heard a…

No-one said the whole point of the phone is HTML5 apps. The reviewer thinks HTML5 apps are the future, that's all. Native Sailfish apps are Qt based; with android apps as a secondary thing, presumably to kick-start the platform while they try to build an ecosystem. (Which makes sense, developers won't come unless people are using it but people won't use it if there are no apps.)

Yeah, that's probably a fair point. It wasn't clear until I looked at the architecture diagram, though.

Native Sailfish apps are Qt based; with android apps as a secondary thing, presumably to kick-start the platform while they try to build an ecosystem. (Which makes sense, developers won't come unless people are using it but people won't use it if there are no apps.)

I'm guessing that was Blackberry's strategy too. Didn't work for them - be interesting to see how well it works here.

Re: The Jolla phone – first impressions

#48

Post by girvo »

nl wrote: post #39

This sounds like one of those "the sky is not falling" reviews of a Maemo phone in 2009, that ignores the (pretty huge) flaws of the platform because the author is a fan. You can see hints in this review: It should be is easy to search the web, enter URLs, open new tabs, save bookmarks etc. All of this can be done with the current browser in SailfishOS. The browser seems to work pretty fast and flawlessly. We heard a…

Actually, it's your own "bias" that seems to show through here...

Re: The Jolla phone – first impressions

#49

Post by smartaleckkill »

nl wrote: post #47
smartaleckkill wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No-one said the whole point of the phone is HTML5 apps. The reviewer thinks HTML5 apps are the future, that's all. Native Sailfish apps are Qt based; with android apps as a secondary thing, presumably to kick-start the platform while they try to build an ecosystem. (Which makes sense, developers won't come unless people are using it but people won't use it if there are no apps.)

Yeah, that's probably a fair point. It wasn't clear until I looked at the architecture diagram, though. Native Sailfish apps are Qt based; with android apps as a secondary thing, presumably to kick-start the platform while they try to build an ecosystem. (Which makes sense, developers won't come unless people are using it but people won't use it if there are no apps.) I'm guessing that was Blackberry's strategy too.…

True; and Blackberry weren't starting from scratch, either.

Personally I'm kind of rooting for them without being entirely convinced; if there are enough people like me, they're probably screwed.

Re: The Jolla phone – first impressions

#50

Post by nl »

girvo wrote: post #48
nl wrote: post #39

This sounds like one of those "the sky is not falling" reviews of a Maemo phone in 2009, that ignores the (pretty huge) flaws of the platform because the author is a fan. You can see hints in this review: It should be is easy to search the web, enter URLs, open new tabs, save bookmarks etc. All of this can be done with the current browser in SailfishOS. The browser seems to work pretty fast and flawlessly. We heard a…

Actually, it's your own "bias" that seems to show through here...

Actually, it's your own "bias" that seems to show through here

I'm intrigued! Which bias do you think I'm showing?

It's true I'm doubtful about the prospects of Jolla - but I'm not sure I'd characterise that as a bias exactly.

It's true that I remember Maemo (and more broadly, Nokia). I think there are lessons there, but I'm not sure that is a bias either.

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