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Jolla phones now available for sale in Europe

shop.jolla.com

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Re: Jolla phones now available for sale in Europe

#3

Post by Zigurd »

The Verge's reviewer didn't like it. I have yet to get my hands on one. It is strongly a "global gestures" UI. Some people like that as a way of enforcing consistency. That will have some possibly confusing effects on Android apps running in Myriad's compatibility environment. Also, the last time I looked at Myriad's technology, they were using their own Java VM, which means, at least,some kind of Dalvik to Java bytecode converter for apps as they are installed, or an SDK plugin to produce "Myriad-VM-ready" apps.

It looks pretty clean. It should appeal to the people who were buying Nokia's Harmattan and Meego devices. If Jolla can pick up a majority of the Qt apps that had been developed for those platforms and grow that developer community, they may have a chance.

It will take at least a year, and probably some more hardware to tell where Jolla is going and if it will be successful. There are several dimensions to measure that success: Can Jolla pick up many of the distribution channels, and their customers, in Europe that previously favored Nokia? Can they penetrate the China market, as they appear to be aiming to do?

Re: Jolla phones now available for sale in Europe

#4

Post by contextual »

Zigurd wrote: post #3

The Verge's reviewer didn't like it. I have yet to get my hands on one. It is strongly a "global gestures" UI. Some people like that as a way of enforcing consistency. That will have some possibly confusing effects on Android apps running in Myriad's compatibility environment. Also, the last time I looked at Myriad's technology, they were using their own Java VM, which means, at least,some kind of Dalvik to Java byte…

The Jolla UI looks and behaves similar to the Blackberry 10 OS, which is a good thing, and an improvement on Android and iOS.

I have a Blackberry Z30[1] and I don't think I could go back to the "old way" of using a smartphone. BB 10 feels like a true smartphone experience, as subjective as that is.

[1] http://ca.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-z30.html

Re: Jolla phones now available for sale in Europe

#7

Post by shmerl »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #6

I'm intrigued by Jolla, if not enthused by it. I'm not sure what it gives me that Android doesn't - can anyone enlighten me?

It depends on what you are interested in. Distinctive features:

1. It has strong focus on real multitasking (performance and design wise). Both Android and iOS are weak on that and prefer to avoid multitasking in order to gain battery life advantage.

2. It has innovative approach to UI, not being stuck in ideas developed a while ago, which hold Android and iOS back from advancing.

3. It's DRM free and aims to be privacy respecting unlike competition. It gives control over the system to the user and doesn't attempt to lock things up and make it hard to modify.

4. For those who care (developers probably more than others) - it's real glibc based Linux which gives synergy with the global Linux community. Android while using the Linux kernel is a completley different beast from libc and middleware up to the top of the stack. Mer/Sailfish on the other hand uses glibc, Wayland and other conventional Linux middleware and tools.

5. They plan to allow better participation of community in the development. Right now things aren't so open though, except the open parts Sailfish is based on (Mer Core and Nemo Mobile which are openly developed open source projects).

6. It's a startup and not some monstrous stonewalling corp with no face. So you often can communicate with Jolla directly (they even have official presence in Diaspora: https://joindiaspora.com/u/jolla) and they are interested in the community.

For more details see:

* https://sailfishos.org/about.html

* https://sailfishos.org/design.html

* https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Main_Page

* https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Nemo

Re: Jolla phones now available for sale in Europe

#10

Post by AndrewDucker »

shmerl wrote: post #7
AndrewDucker wrote: post #6

I'm intrigued by Jolla, if not enthused by it. I'm not sure what it gives me that Android doesn't - can anyone enlighten me?

It depends on what you are interested in. Distinctive features: 1. It has strong focus on real multitasking (performance and design wise). Both Android and iOS are weak on that and prefer to avoid multitasking in order to gain battery life advantage. 2. It has innovative approach to UI, not being stuck in ideas developed a while ago, which hold Android and iOS back from advancing. 3. It's DRM free and aims to be priv…

Thank you, that's really useful.
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