Hands-on with Jolla's Sailfish OS
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 29th Dec 2012 22:24 UTC
PDAs, Cellphones, Wireless Engadget got to play with Salfish. "Overall, we came away reasonably impressed with Sailfish OS, despite experiencing only a fraction of its functionality. Performance was decent considering the N950's relatively modest single-core underpinnings - then again, MeeGo's no slouch either."
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I like it
by WereCatf on Sun 30th Dec 2012 00:49 UTC
WereCatf
Member since:
2006-02-15

I checked out the video a moment ago and I have to admit that I really like their approach. Accessing menus, going back to home screen, switching between apps and so on seem much more seamless than having to move your finger all the way out of the screen to press a button, then back to the screen, and I especially like getting audio/haptic feedback from the menus -- it's going to quickly become a second nature when you get used to it! The UI is also really slick and smooth, almost like when I get we..err, I mean, warm butter!

Too bad these guys didn't actually show any of the more advanced features, like e.g. how well it does handle running Android-apps, or if you can integrate IM-networks in the Messaging - app, or if there is a command-line accessible at all, and so on. Really, my biggest concern is about how locked-down the OS will really be and if it will be a spiritual successor to the N900 or not.

Reply Score: 5

RE: I like it
by No it isnt on Sun 30th Dec 2012 01:11 UTC in reply to "I like it"
No it isnt Member since:
2005-11-14

I would guess it integrates IM fairly well, since it's a fork of Meego and Meego uses telepathy, just like Gnome and other desktops. At least Google Talk/XMPP works just fine, and support for things like Windows Live Messenger can be added with a plug-in.

Reply Score: 5

RE[2]: I like it
by shmerl on Sun 30th Dec 2012 03:41 UTC in reply to "RE: I like it"
shmerl Member since:
2010-06-08

I'm not sure if there will be support for XMPP/Jingle out of the box. The last open source project that was working on XMPP/Jingle for Meego (Peregrine) seems to be dead:

http://peregrine-communicator.org

Telepathy and Farstream are good frameworks, but someone should still write the client UI.

Edited 2012-12-30 03:46 UTC

Reply Score: 3

RE[3]: I like it
by No it isnt on Sun 30th Dec 2012 11:46 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: I like it"
No it isnt Member since:
2005-11-14

Surely Sailfish OS will have a client UI for SMS. Integrating the other IM protocols into that is what the N9 does.

Reply Score: 3

RE[4]: I like it
by shmerl on Sun 30th Dec 2012 22:55 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: I like it"
shmerl Member since:
2010-06-08

Audio/video calling (as with XMPP/Jingle) will require additional UI. Even on N9, their default client didn't get video calling UI right away. Not that it's impossible - I hope Sailfish will take care of it soon enough.

Edited 2012-12-30 22:58 UTC

Reply Score: 2

Looks great
by Nelson on Sun 30th Dec 2012 06:58 UTC
Nelson
Member since:
2005-11-29

To me, Sailfish looks fantastic. I think it has potential and I really dig the startup-esque environment they seemed to be working under.

I'm not so sure about their prospects though, and I haven't seen in-house Jolla devices yet so their hardware engineering chops are unproven in my mind for now.

But if the planets align and they get the execution off without a hitch, I could probably see Sailfish going somewhere, if only by virtue of being the last "pure" Linux OS left.

Reply Score: 4

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