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Sailfish Mobile OS

sailfishos.org

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Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#51
post #38

'world domination' not possible with "Sorry not available in your country". I have worked Sailfish before, so I know what to expect. while a great OS, it is hard to compete with the established market. even the inclusion of libhybris won't change that... as in that case, why not just buy an Android device. unfortunately privacy is a niche to tailor to

I have two Jolla phones left over from when they launched in India, years ago. I vaguely remember there was an India specific phone running Sailfish as well, but by that time my company was no longer working with mobile applications. We ported several proprietary telco Linux tools to Jolla but it turned out using a laptop with a 3G dongle was more convenient than a tiny low res screen (big surprise). I’m not sure why…

Yep, economics. They used to even have their own phone, but soon moved to repurposing Xperia devices. Not sure if there was a relation between Ericsson and Jolla employees, but this would not amaze me.

Note: I have worked a lot on MeeGo and Maemo before this. I only had Sailfish running on my N950s, so can't judge the final devices. Wish I could ...

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#52

See also from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41754074

Thinking of the same thing. It would be interesting to see a graph of all the submissions that came from various discussions, and people are discovering or rediscovering new things. Dont know if anyone has every done something similar.

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#53
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where in Europe? Everywhere on the continent? Certainly not in Sweden where I live. The major banks here use 2FA but not mandated to a mobile app.

Not in Poland either. Pretty much every bank has also SMS 2FA available.

I remember Poland has a very late cycle of sunsetting 2G / 3G. Which makes SMS 2FA not very secure ( other than Social Engineering ).

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#55

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…

Sailfish is the successor to Nokia's Linux efforts, before they scrapped it all for Windows.

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#56

So if I want to run it, what would the best supported device? I do see the list of supported devices, but they vary. Which one would provide the best experience?

Usually the first party supported Sony xperia devices should all work well with all the bells and whistles of sailfish (their Android app support, some proprietary sync functionality)

If you have an old Motorola, OnePlus, older Xiaomi Devices - you can get the community ported Sailfish OS. That won't have their Android app support, but there are other options to get that working.

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#57
Did something happen that made Sailfish relevant again? Surprised to see it on the front page today.

It's unfortunate that they're taking a closed source model when others like System76 and Librem are using their hardware sales to fund open source development.

There's also webOS, which was originally funded by Palm and doesn't seem to have any open source development any longer, and the Maui project which is basically one guy trying to make his own Linux UI.

I'd love to see a team with decent UX sensibilities tackle a touch-first Linux UI. Nothing I've seen so far has impressed me. Seems like there are a lot of onesie-and-twosie sized projects that take forever to ship anything and never hit critical mass; meanwhile, nothing really holds a candle to the design of Android/iOS.

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#58
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have two Jolla phones left over from when they launched in India, years ago. I vaguely remember there was an India specific phone running Sailfish as well, but by that time my company was no longer working with mobile applications. We ported several proprietary telco Linux tools to Jolla but it turned out using a laptop with a 3G dongle was more convenient than a tiny low res screen (big surprise). I’m not sure why…

Yep, economics. They used to even have their own phone, but soon moved to repurposing Xperia devices. Not sure if there was a relation between Ericsson and Jolla employees, but this would not amaze me. Note: I have worked a lot on MeeGo and Maemo before this. I only had Sailfish running on my N950s, so can't judge the final devices. Wish I could ...

Honestly the N9/N950 feels a lot more polished - UI wise - than sailfish.

It is kind of expected, given the budget of Nokia ... But even some of the design and aesthetic choices of Sailfish don't really age well once the novelty wears off

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#59

So if I want to run it, what would the best supported device? I do see the list of supported devices, but they vary. Which one would provide the best experience?

Usually the first party supported Sony xperia devices should all work well with all the bells and whistles of sailfish (their Android app support, some proprietary sync functionality) If you have an old Motorola, OnePlus, older Xiaomi Devices - you can get the community ported Sailfish OS. That won't have their Android app support, but there are other options to get that working.

What are the other options to get Android app support?

Re: Sailfish Mobile OS

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sailfish is the successor to Nokia's Linux efforts, before they scrapped it all for Windows.

The community got fractured when the N9/950 did MeeGo Harmattan. This was a continuation of Nokia's Maemo OS that was based on Debian, but they just called it differently when they announced a collaboration. Nokia and Intel started a 'merge' called MeeGo (based on moblin and fedora). Nokia never actually used this in a device as they signed the famous partnership under Stephen Elop's guidance standing on a burning platform.

Sailfish is a successor of this actual MeeGo work that was done and therefore had an uphill battle. They never got the same traction as Maemo (or even Mer), so I never called this a successor of Nokia's work. Nokia created a community with developer conferences and handing out devices. Jolla couldn't do this ... and therefore remained niche.

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