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Jolla CEO: You will soon be able turn your Android device into a Sailfish device

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Re: Jolla CEO: You will soon be able turn your Android device into a Sailfish device

#41

Post by puller »

Zigurd wrote: post #25
pinaceae wrote: post #18

Android is so widespread due its nature as the QNX of the mobile world. A manufacturer gets it for free and then can add shit on to it. The vast majority of users chose a cheap smartphone, not Android explicitly. Samsung and others do not even mention Android anymore, that for specsheets like the processor being used. China has this large number of Android devices which are non-Google, no Play Store, no Google Now, n…

iOS compatibility is not impossible, but it is much harder, and would require a budget, shooting from the hip, 5X more and 2X the time to arrive at something end-users would find usable. You would have to do something like OpenStep, except with iOS APIs. With Android you can use the AOSP bits.

Not to mention that iOS compatibility would make a HUGE legal target for Apple

Re: Jolla CEO: You will soon be able turn your Android device into a Sailfish device

#42

Post by [deleted] »

eropple wrote: post #39
da_n wrote: post #33

I've already decided looking at 4.4 that I will do as much as possible to avoid Android for my next phone. I am interested in Jolla, but not as convinced about them being truly open as Mozilla is etc, they need to convince me better of their real motives and philosophy. Google have become very clear, now that they have decided to close almost everything on Android, no more SMS app, Google Now baked into the launcher,…

I'm curious how Android's choice of default applications implies less "freedom". Don't like SMS being folded into Hangouts? Use Handcent--it's better anyway. Will the Gallery app disappear? Use QuickPic--it's better anyway. Don't like the new launcher? There's Nova and Apex and Smart and a dozen other really good choices. (They're better anyway, too!) And if that's not enough for you, sure, go try something else, but…

[deleted]

Re: Jolla CEO: You will soon be able turn your Android device into a Sailfish device

#43

Post by jordanthoms »

hablahaha wrote: post #21
jkldotio wrote: post #7

Good, Google is beginning to really frustrate me. Why can't I cut and paste from the description box on a Youtube video? Serving up a totally broken Google images page to Firefox for Android may be Firefox's fault but they should test with other browsers. It has a totally broken permissions model, notably for location access which after struggling with its nagging for a year I just gave up and now Facebook et al are…

Oh man the Samsung version is the epitome of a train wreck. At some point, without my knowledge, NFL Mobile got installed on my phone and now every time I try to open a link, it completely ignores my preferences and asks me what program to open it with, one of which is NFL Mobile. It's just so nonsensical it's laughable. Nonstock Android is worse than Windows vendor bloatware.

If you open up settings -> applications and find NFL mobile, you should be able to disable it.

Re: Jolla CEO: You will soon be able turn your Android device into a Sailfish device

#44

Post by Zigurd »

puller wrote: post #41
Zigurd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS compatibility is not impossible, but it is much harder, and would require a budget, shooting from the hip, 5X more and 2X the time to arrive at something end-users would find usable. You would have to do something like OpenStep, except with iOS APIs. With Android you can use the AOSP bits.

Not to mention that iOS compatibility would make a HUGE legal target for Apple

That risk is similar to what Xamarin faced, and evidently they were fund-able.

Re: Jolla CEO: You will soon be able turn your Android device into a Sailfish device

#45

Post by seabrookmx »

xolve wrote: post #4
rwmj wrote: post #2

He doesn't address the obvious question: Why? Why for the end user? Why for Jolla?

AKAIK Jolla is more open. Its more like a Linux distro than Android. I want something else than trying custom Android ROMs. I want to be fully in control of my device.

The entire UI (all the code in the stack from Mer up) is proprietary. Sailfish is less open than Android. Atleast AOSP is a fully functional OS you can run on your phone (though dramatically less functional than when you include the Google binaries).

Re: Jolla CEO: You will soon be able turn your Android device into a Sailfish device

#46

Post by seabrookmx »

Everyone keeps looking to Sailfish as a FOSS alternative to Android. I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but the "swipe UI" in Sailfish is proprietary. As for the rest of the OS, it's just Mer (ie. a fork of MeeGo). As AOSP is a fully functional OS even without Google's proprietary bits, I'd say Android is still the better bet. If you are that dedicated, you can use pure AOSP and load all your apps onto the SD card and simply install with the package manager. It's as easy as installing .debs on a Debian based distro or installing from .dmg on a Mac.

I think the big takeaway from this is that Mer will be compatible with a bunch more Android devices. This means you can then install Plasma Active on top of it, and have a pure FOSS mobile OS that actually performs well (Plasma Active seems to run quite slick on the first gen Nexus 7 anyways).

Re: Jolla CEO: You will soon be able turn your Android device into a Sailfish device

#47

Post by da_n »

eropple wrote: post #39
da_n wrote: post #33

I've already decided looking at 4.4 that I will do as much as possible to avoid Android for my next phone. I am interested in Jolla, but not as convinced about them being truly open as Mozilla is etc, they need to convince me better of their real motives and philosophy. Google have become very clear, now that they have decided to close almost everything on Android, no more SMS app, Google Now baked into the launcher,…

I'm curious how Android's choice of default applications implies less "freedom". Don't like SMS being folded into Hangouts? Use Handcent--it's better anyway. Will the Gallery app disappear? Use QuickPic--it's better anyway. Don't like the new launcher? There's Nova and Apex and Smart and a dozen other really good choices. (They're better anyway, too!) And if that's not enough for you, sure, go try something else, but…

I know there alternatives but my problem is with the direction Google are taking Android and the fact they are abandoning existing open apps and replacing them with closed-source ones. More and more apps will not function either because they rely on Google Play Services, so trying to go around the issue by using OSS apps (such as through F-Droid) will only be feasible for so long, eventually Google will have so much of the API tied into Google Play Services it just is pointless to make an app without it. Google made a decision that its openness on Android is a strategic weakness, damaging potential revenues and user data acquisition. That's fine, I'm not crying over it, I am just going to leave the platform as soon as I can and go to something which is more open, such as Firefox OS (or possibly Jolla OS).

Re: Jolla CEO: You will soon be able turn your Android device into a Sailfish device

#48

Post by nezza-_- »

fidotron wrote: post #22
hablahaha wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man the Samsung version is the epitome of a train wreck. At some point, without my knowledge, NFL Mobile got installed on my phone and now every time I try to open a link, it completely ignores my preferences and asks me what program to open it with, one of which is NFL Mobile. It's just so nonsensical it's laughable. Nonstock Android is worse than Windows vendor bloatware.

That's quite likely to be your carrier, not that Samsung are beyond reproach (TouchWiz as a selling point?), but a lot of the bundled apps you should blame your carrier for. Nokia's reputation of old in Europe was based on the fact for a long time they were the only manufacturer to tell operators to [guess] themselves and sell relatively clean devices to end users. In the US they never did this, with the result that…

Samsung: My unbranded German S3 came with shit like delivery-service apps etc.

Nokia: I don't think that the things you say about their reputation is true (for German), in Germany Nokia phones had carrier crapware like all the other phones too.

Re: Jolla CEO: You will soon be able turn your Android device into a Sailfish device

#49

Post by wmf »

berdario wrote: post #40
eropple wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how Android's choice of default applications implies less "freedom". Don't like SMS being folded into Hangouts? Use Handcent--it's better anyway. Will the Gallery app disappear? Use QuickPic--it's better anyway. Don't like the new launcher? There's Nova and Apex and Smart and a dozen other really good choices. (They're better anyway, too!) And if that's not enough for you, sure, go try something else, but…

You have a different idea of "freedom" than we do The problem is not bundling in closed-source applications... the problem is removing (and thus stopping development) of the previously-default open source applications Are Nova, Apex and Smart OSS? I looked at their web pages, but I don't see any link to the sources basically: you still have freedom 0 (and possibly freedom 2, if you're willing to go against the EULA).…

It sounds like you should move to CyanogenMod.

Re: Jolla CEO: You will soon be able turn your Android device into a Sailfish device

#50

Post by eropple »

berdario wrote: post #40
eropple wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how Android's choice of default applications implies less "freedom". Don't like SMS being folded into Hangouts? Use Handcent--it's better anyway. Will the Gallery app disappear? Use QuickPic--it's better anyway. Don't like the new launcher? There's Nova and Apex and Smart and a dozen other really good choices. (They're better anyway, too!) And if that's not enough for you, sure, go try something else, but…

You have a different idea of "freedom" than we do The problem is not bundling in closed-source applications... the problem is removing (and thus stopping development) of the previously-default open source applications Are Nova, Apex and Smart OSS? I looked at their web pages, but I don't see any link to the sources basically: you still have freedom 0 (and possibly freedom 2, if you're willing to go against the EULA).…

Yes, I do have a very different definition than you do, which is what makes your almost-begging-the-question rhetorical adoption of the implicit redefinition of freedom as Those Enumerated By Richard Stallman...well, kind of funny. On the other hand, I will enjoy my freedom to use software without concerns of ideological purity because I have alternatives if I don't like them.

Nothing stops you from writing your own to-your-specifications launcher or SMS client or email client atop the openly-licensed Android stack (and leverage having an actually useful, widely-supported phone). People might even use your GNU-gold-starred alternative if it's more than barely functional, though the track record of said gold-starred software with regards to UX doesn't fill me with optimism. But I do wish you luck.

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