Jolla’s first smartphone, running their new SailfishOS, will be released in Finland on 27 November. It will feature Nokia HERE maps, and the Yandex Android application store.
Currently featuring over 85,000 apps in 17 categories, Yandex.Store offers the best and most popular apps – from social networking and communication apps like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Skype, Viber and WeChat to games like Angry Birds. Yandex.Store will provide in-app purchase opportunities and is available on smartphones and tablets in 37 languages.
International, non-Finnish people who preordered (like myself) will be notified via email shortly. I can’t wait. I’m getting the ‘other half’ in red and white (I get two of them as part of my preorder package) – or perhaps, hot candy pink? Any suggestions from you guys and girls?
A good start, but they didn’t announce yet when it will be available for other countries, including US. Still waiting to replace a stalled Harmattan with Sailfish so it would be possible to run a newer browser with Mozilla sync and Adblock Plus.
Edited 2013-11-14 16:23 UTC
Don’t worry. Other countries get shafted _every time_ even though they could use the same phone that other countries use. If the phone is successful it will come to the US very very soon.
No, they already announced it will never be available in the US due the patent situation there.
Man, I’m so excited about this! I just got done reading everything I could find on jollausers.com, the Jolla subreddit, and talk.maemo.org (lots of discussion, including from some Jolla developers). It’s the only new phone I have any interest in using.
It’ll be quite some time before it’s possible for me to buy a Jolla mobile (availability and money), but I’m still super excited for all the reviews and YouTube videos that appear after 11/27.
Yes, it is actually very interesting, but this other one
http://neo900.org/
also gets my attention.
I have two reasons that I’m not particularly excited about the Neo900:
1) I use the N900 as my one and only phone. I love it. But I’ve never felt that it needed more powerful hardware. It runs just fine and does everything I need.
2) I feel that the goal of the Neo900 project is realistic but only just barely, even though the people working on it are making great efforts to make it reality.
I loved my N900 too, but it sadly died. So I actually not know if the Neo900 (if it will exist) or the Jolla will be a good N900 successor.
My N900 is chugging along fine, but I find I rarely use it even as a MID these days. My Nexus 4 (apart from lack of a physical keyboard) just does everything I need in a mobile device. I’m sure I’ll end up selling the N900 one day for a pittance, so someone with nostalgia or a dead one can enjoy it more than I do.
Just as with BeOS, while I love the OS to this day, I rarely turn on my old machine that runs it natively. I guess I just don’t have time anymore for that kind of fun.
Once the non compete contract is up, and assuming Jolla is still around, that would make so much sense it would be funny.
A plausible idea assuming Jolla takes off. I’m not sure exactly how much talent is at Jolla from Nokia, but it could happen if Jolla incubates it until 2016.
Nokia actually seeded funds to Jolla with the Nokia Bridge initiative (thanks Elop)
At the least it’d be a better fit than just offering Android devices. I just wonder whether or not Nokia wants to go back to mobile phones.
As for Jolla themselves, its Finland so I think there’s a possibility for them to do well there due to national pride. That’s great for a small startup. Of course looking beyond Finland things get a little more complicated.
Edited 2013-11-14 17:39 UTC
Mention of Yandex.Store ruined the remains of my hopes for Jolla…
What hopes did you have?
Why are they ruined?
Because developers will just target Android instead of Jolla specific APIs.
This has happen every time a vendor has offered such kind of compatibility layer.
Yup. Jolla just OS/2’d their platform. Just like BBRY did with BB10.
On the other hand Microsoft started by creating a compatible product as well…
So… you neve know.
That’s a good point. I have two reasons to be hopeful:
The native programming API is Qt with C++, which is already popular with developers. In a sense, they don’t have to learn something new.
There’s a lot of developer excitement over the successor to the N900 and N9 from people who work on open source software, more than exists for, say, Blackberry OS or Windows Phone.
…I have absolutely no citation for any information in this comment. It’s probably just hoping / wishful thinking.
Which is also true for Blackberry. Did not help them that much.
Developers who create apps that people want to buy are not from those communities.
No necessarily, since it will have a performance penalty. No point to use heavy Android runtime if there is Qt and C++ available.
Edited 2013-11-15 17:43 UTC
Its the path of least resistance. When you let developers cut corners, they most likely will.
Easier to repackage an existing app than to write a new one from scratch.
True, devs even cut corners on Android despite its marketshare dominance.
Not in this case, since Android will always remain second class citizen in the sense of integration. So some might use it as a fallback, but it won’t be as good as any native application. On the other hand, Qt on Android is now officially supported, so instead of using laggy Java, you can use C++ there too. And using Qt you can make applications more easily portable.
Edited 2013-11-17 00:50 UTC
That’s all pie in the sky and all, but its not how I think things will play out.
Examples being OS/2, webOS, and BB10.
Time will tell. All the examples above suffered from not being open enough.
Edited 2013-11-18 17:45 UTC
This decision is IMO wrong in variaty of ways: providing ready to use access to apps for Android (which heavily outnumber Jolla native apps) would slow down (and most likely kill) attempts at creating high quality native apps:
1. it’s hard to compete with something already much wider adopted and recognized.
2. New users would likely retreat to the apps they already know, those being Android apps.
3. As developer you have a choice to target either Jolla alone or Android and Jolla. What would you choose?
Now, even if they find Android compatibility vital, relying it on third party is a bad idea, even if they didn’t deal with a company most notable for shipping poor Google alternatives and yet worse homegrown crap. (Yandex browser, anyone?) If they indeed wanted Android compatibility, they should have done their own shop, because it allowed them to:
1. make a way to sort in the same list native apps before Android counterparts – to help native app developers;
2. enable QA – they would be blamed for comptibility problems in apps, so they should have control over contents of the store;
3. reserved for future needs – really, who knows, what problems are they to face in the future.
Anyway, they’ll already have to perform QA on compatibility level, so hiding its results in house and outsourcing the app store part to Yandex is very wrong.
I’m quite confident they are paid by Yandex though – Yandex is trying to expand outside Russia with no particular success, so they may see Jolla as their ticket to some European users. And they’ll get some more store sales. So it may be a good mean for Jolla to get their feet wet while they are planning their assault on the market, but I’m not sure it will pay them off nicely.
What’s a Yandex store? Jolla’s Android offerings are really secondary fallback, you don’t need to use any. Uninstalling Android related packages would be the first thing I’ll do after getting the device, since they are closed implementation anyway. For heavy users of Android who are migrating to Sailfish those can be useful of course.
Edited 2013-11-14 19:46 UTC
I’m sure somebody will get Play Store running on it… (like CyanogenMod)
So what advantage does it offer over existing phones?
For users:
It has a rather unique user interface, including no physical buttons and lots of swiping.
It has a unique “other half” expansion port, allowing for interesting possible future attachments.
It comes with root access (disabled by default for safety). It’s my phone and I can do what I want with it.
It’s real Linux. I can use all the tools that I also use on my Linux desktop.
For developers:
The native libraries are Qt, which is already very popular for Linux and Windows developers.
It’s real Linux.
…You can decide if these differences are good or bad to you.
Does it have any must have app that I cannot get anywhere else?
Yes, GNU / Linux. That’s a must have “application” for me.
Lmao.
Yes, I know my opinion is funny and NOT mainstream.
Anyway, don’t you have someplace else to be, telling people how great Nokia is doing?
If I only can run Android apps on it – because no one sane will write apps for Jolla – why don’t use a real Android phone?
For 400€ – the price of Jolla – I can get this:
Official specs for the Nexus 5:
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 with 2.26GHz Quad-Core Krait CPU
Operating System: Android 4.4, KitKat
Display: 5-inch (actual 4.95-inch) Full HD IPS (1920 x 1080 pixels)
Network: CDMA/1xRTT/EVDO, GSM/GPRS/EDGE, WCDMA/HSPA+, LTE
Memory: 32GB / 16GB
RAM: 2GB
Camera: Rear 8.0MP with OIS / Front 1.3MP HD
Battery: 2,300mAh Li-Polymer (embedded)
Size: 137.84 x 69.17 x 8.59mm
Weight: 130g
Others: Wireless charging, NFC
Edited 2013-11-15 21:27 UTC
That’s the point though, Android apps are run under a compatibility layer.
It has it’s own native application store, and you can get more at the hardware with Qt and C++.
It also uses Wayland, which is quite awesome as well.
Yeah, but very few people are going to buy a phone because it has geeky buzzwords or dev features. Since most people are neither geeks nor developers.
Furthermore, the FOSS environment tends to attract people who expect their apps to be Free as in beer as well. So there is very little economic incentive to develop for the platform.
Even though I really dig the design of the device, unfortunately I’m afraid Jolla is going to find themselves in an uphill battle. The market is already comoditized and controlled by 2 main players (Android & iOS), with a multitude of other 3rd party environments fighting for relevance.
Oh, come on! Most people buy stuff for buzzwords, and all tech-related buzzwords are equally geeky for most phone users.
Off-topic: remember that Intel’s campaign “Pentium 4 and Windows XP”? I was in a computer shop when somebody passing by the banner asked the staff person: “So which is better: Pentium or Windows?”
Edited 2013-11-16 00:31 UTC
To the average person C++ QT API mean absolutely nothing.
The buzzwords customers care about are regarding product features or the product itself, no developer wants.
Furthermore, any vendor trying to break into the Android-iOS duopoly faces the same chicken and egg problem regarding Apps: Not enough customers to attract app developers, and not enough apps to attract customers.
This is why Microsoft just announced this week a partnership with Xamarin.
By making Mono a first class VM in the .NET world, they will get more apps in WP as a side effect of people using Mono to target Android/iOS.
As a commercial developer I will only invest my time (wage per hour * dev hours required) in platforms that have a ROI, not because I want to be nice to someone.
WP is a perfect example. Microsoft has good dev tools for the platform, has poured boatloads of cash to keep it at float both technical and marketing aspects, and they’re still struggling in the marketplace after 3 years.
I really like Jolla’s design and tech base, but I’m afraid they will be ignored by the market place. I like the attachment idea, but it’s the same chicken and egg problem: HW developers require enough customer base to justify the investment in developing accessories for the platform. And as of right now Jolla has no customer base. So…
In any case, it’s easy to count the negatives. So I’m hoping to be wrong.
I do like both WP and Jolla but I wouldn’t watse my time trying to develop fo them, neither waste my cash buying them.
Anyone remembers personal computers in the ’80s? Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Atari, various Apple, Commodore, BBC Micro, Armstrad, Tandy, Acorn … and the PC.
How many mainstream PC types do we have today and how many operating systems? Exactly one type of PC and one operating system.
Let’s imagine one thing: Nokia didn’t fail and Google didn’t buy Android until a few months ago. Now the mainstream mobile os’s are iOS and Maemo, with Maemo having 65% marketshare. Imagine that Google wants to sell some Android phone today, having 0 marketshare. Google will fail no matter how much money they are going to throw away.
If I wrwe in the bussiness of launching something new, I’d rather try to launch a new gaming console rather than a new mobile platform. Not that launching a new gaming console is going to be an easy task. But the chances to succeed are better.
And no new OS will have any kind of success unless it will be for a complete new platform. Trying to sell an OS for mobile or PC platforms today, is kind of silly.
You can use Qt on Android, too. And you can even use .NET if you want.
Neither phone buyers nor any developpers do care if a particular phone has Wayland on it or not.
The only people who this will appeal to, are the FOSS junkies.
This phone will only have a future if it makes some sales in Finland now – because of national pride – permitting Jolla to further found the future phones and slowly gain marketshare.
Right now, any mobile platform beside Android and iOS and whatever Samsung will throw in our direction in the near future, seems doomed.
PalmOS died, Maemo died, Meego died, WebOs died, Blacberry is dieing, FF OS, Ubuntu touch, Tizen and the rest are next. Windows Phone will stay because Microsoft has enough cash to throw.
Wait… Microsoft has enough cash to throw at Windows Phone, but Samsung doesn’t for Tizen? Really?
Samsung doesn’t have the engineering chops, or more importantly, the vision to do it.
Look at how thrown together their value add services on TouchWiz are for an example.
Samsung is a hollow, soulless company which is great at taking existing ideas and running with them at scale.
Its a component supplier turned OEM, and software is a wildly different discipline than what they’re used to.
It has, and that’s why I referred to “whatever Samsung will throw in our direction in the near future”.
I’m not very sure it will be Tizen. Even if it will be Tizen it will probably heavily customized and with TouchWiz on top.
And I’m quite sure that the “next Smasung OS” will be more successful than WP. And that’s because the majority of Samsung phone buyers don’t buy Android phones, they buy “samsungs”. If the next Samsung OS will have TouchWiz and same Samsung apps as SGS4, it will look the same and people will buy it because “it’s a Samsung”.
Google won’t be very pleased.
So to some extent, Samsung has replaced the late great Nokia as a destination brand for smart phones. Yes, I can see that.
Google seems to care primarily about ad revenue. Unless Samsung tries to bing them, I doubt they will care. Well, much. 😉
Is virtual one that could provide effective WORA across existing devices.
If Jolla cooperates with Digia to push QT as an effective alternative to Android / IOS native apis while remaining wholly compatible they could see some adoption.
I wouldn’t count on high profile app developers to get interested, but they are not the ones that provide those ~1M app figures on each app store.
I don’t know about WP, its UI paradigms seem incompatible enough to make such an effort futile.
How many people are going to buy a phone with 2011 hardware and no native apps that costs as much as a Galaxy S4?