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Operating Systems Cellphones Handhelds Linux

Jolla Announces Sailfish OS 1.0 75

Posted by Soulskill from the competition-is-a-good-thing dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Sailfish, the Linux-based mobile operating system developed by Finnish devicemaker Jolla, has reached version 1.0. Sailfish arose from the ashes of several failed and interrupted projects to bring a new, major Linux-based platform to mobile devices. It's already running on phones sold in India and Russia, but more importantly, Sailfish was designed to be easily ported to existing Android devices. It's also built to support many Android apps. Jolla will begin providing complete firmware downloads during the first half of the year."
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Jolla Announces Sailfish OS 1.0 More

Jolla Announces Sailfish OS 1.0

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  • India and Russia (Score:5, Informative)

    by Microlith ( 54737 ) on Friday February 21, 2014 @12:09PM (#46304259)

    It's already running on phones sold in India and Russia

    No, they will begin selling into those regions. They're already shipping to much of Europe.

    You know, regions that don't have problems with patent trolls tearing at companies with worthless software patents.

    • Re:India and Russia (Score:5, Informative)

      by Radak ( 126696 ) on Friday February 21, 2014 @02:18PM (#46305057) Journal

      They're already shipping to much of Europe.

      This. I've got a Jolla in my hand right now (in Europe), and I'm loving it. It's not the world's most powerful hardware by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a great attempt at a new approach to UI and it's really nice to see a phone that caters to the geek market at the same time as being very usable to those who aren't so interested in what's going on under the hood. The ability to run Android apps (which it does very well) is the icing on the cake. I'm a very pleased customer so far, and looking forward to what's to come.

  • The obvious question (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Friday February 21, 2014 @12:11PM (#46304277)
    The obvious question that everyone will be asking is "why should I install this rather than cyanogenmod [cyanogenmod.org], firefox OS [mozilla.org] or replicant [replicant.us] if I really mistrust big business?

    • Re:The obvious question (Score:4, Insightful)

      by qw(name) ( 718245 ) on Friday February 21, 2014 @12:17PM (#46304307) Journal

      Sorry but people aren't asking this "obvious" question. It's just about more choice and that's a good thing.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chrisq ( 894406 )

        Sorry but people aren't asking this "obvious" question. It's just about more choice and that's a good thing.

        Agreed - it wasn't a criticism its a genuine question. I have a spare Nexus and I'm thinking of putting something on it, but I haven't decided what!

      • Choice is only good to a point. After that it works backwards and puts people off or paralyses their decision making. Supermarkets found they sell more jam if there's 4 types than 40...

        • Re:The obvious question (Score:5, Insightful)

          by oodaloop ( 1229816 ) on Friday February 21, 2014 @12:39PM (#46304459)
          Well, when we have 40 different OSs from which to choose, then we might have that problem. Right now, we don't even have 4 viable candidates, so adding Sailfish to the mix can only help.

  • Honestly, from a technical perspective it's cool that people do this.

    But realistically what are the chances that another mobile OS is going to displace IOS or Android? Very VERY low.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Chrisq ( 894406 )

      Honestly, from a technical perspective it's cool that people do this.

      But realistically what are the chances that another mobile OS is going to displace IOS or Android? Very VERY low.

      But even as a niche system, if it has some innovation that is taken up by Android or iOS then that's good too.

      • Re:Another mobile operating system (Score:5, Insightful)

        by colin_faber ( 1083673 ) on Friday February 21, 2014 @12:38PM (#46304445)
        Agreed, such as being in the "It's not google" and "It's not apple" niche, which is very attractive to someone like me.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by nurb432 ( 527695 )

          And the statement was that it wouldn't displace either. You, and the rest of your irrelevant microscopic group may switch, but that doesn't qualify as "displacing" anything, other than a bit of hot air.

          Displacement requires the majority to do so, which you wont see happen.

    • So if it doesn't surpass iOS or Android, it's completely worthless? Any competition in the marketplace is positive for users. I would love to have more choices for installing OSs on my phone.

    • But realistically what are the chances that another mobile OS is going to displace IOS or Android? Very VERY low.

      All we had before Android came out was iOS, Windows CE, and Blackberry...

      I don't see a reason not to try, sometimes it works out.

      • Also Symbian, WebOS, and Maemo, the last being a pretty direct ancestor of Sailfish.

        Today there's Windows Phone (NT in the case of WP8), still Blackberry, Firefox OS (Boot To Gecko), Ubuntu Touch (or whatever they call their mobile offering, I forget), and of course Sailfish.

        The odds that any particular one is going to overtake either (much less both) of the big two isn't great, but it's not zero either. Technology marches on. What we think of as "modern" smartphones are less than ten years old, and the old

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      That's what they said about Linux displacing Windows on the desktop.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jovius ( 974690 )

      They are nil, but displacement is not needed. Almost exactly one billion smartphones were shipped last year. 1% of that is already a huge business and dream come true for niche players. Jolla has stated that they would have a viable business with sales in hundreds of thousands. Their goal as stated by the CEO is million devices (at the moment), while they are also licensing the OS.

    • It's company of about 100 people. They said already last year that they only need to sell hundreds of thousands of phones to make it a feasible business. They don't need to replace anyone.

      And besides, I've been using the Jolla phone for three months now and I love it! So clearly, for me and the other customers, they make a difference.

  • Waiting for Nexus 4 image (Score:4, Interesting)

    by c.r.o.c.o ( 123083 ) on Friday February 21, 2014 @12:57PM (#46304583)

    I almost don't care how buggy it will be, as soon as Jolla or someone else will release a fully functional image for my Nexus 4, I will flash it.

    I am already running CM10.2 without a Google Account or any Google Apps for that mattet, and source all my apps from f-droid. So in my case the tether has been cut about 4 months ago, and I do not miss Google one bit.

    Switching back to Sailfish, having used Maemo and Meego in the past, will be awesome. Looking forward to it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xophos ( 517934 ) *

      just to make that clear (it'snot very clear on the homepage) only parts of sailfishos are open source.

  • I was excited at reading about this a while back. Too bad that you can't have Android apps on N9 ports due to liscensing. =( Still excited for when they relase hardware in the US.

  • I am mostly interested on when the phone will be released for USA markets and what bands it will support.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hiryuu ( 125210 )

      Seconded. I thought very hard about buying a launch phone, despite being averse to bleeding-edge purchases or otherwise being an early adopter. All the phones in my household are unlocked quad-band Nokia models that are getting a little long in the tooth, and I was disappointed with the direction Elop took the company. My hope was definitely rekindled with Jolla, and I'll be anxious to see what rolls out for the US market.

    • With the issues with patent trolls that dominate the US, it's a very dangerous territory for them to leap into, so I don't think it's one of their priorities.

  • I think the people commenting that this will not replace iOS or Android are missing the point. Phone users care less about OS choice then desktop users. They see a phone as one unit. A iPhone is not a phone running iOS and a Android phone is not a phone running Android OS. Just talk to many consumers about who own a Samsung or Motorola phone and they often times have no idea what Android even means. Installing Linux on a desktop is difficult enough. No standard consumer is going to install it on a phone. I

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by xvan ( 2935999 )
      No, the objective is to gain a critical mass of developers, and to provide a sort of beta tests for chinese manufacturers.
      That makes keeps you relevant (to the industry, not the users), and gives you a business chance with the chinese folks.
      The only reason it's so hard to port OS's , is because the binary drivers. Manufacturers shouldn't have that issue.

  • Jolla is Finnish, the first device sold was in Finland, it's being sold in Finland...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xvan ( 2935999 )
      Their phones, like every other, are chinese / (insert Asian semiconductor manufacturer of preference)

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