Post #JollaLoveDay Critique: Sailfish OS
Okay, i feel I’m on a roll now and slowly getting a few things off my chest post #JollaLoveDay for the benefit of Sailing Onwards.
So now I will do a kind of post analysis on the cherry on the icing or in fact the cake itself which is the Sailfish OS….
Well, in all honesty, I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the Sailfish OS and find it virtually flawless – it is the most intuitive, slick, smooth, innovative OS I have ever had the pleasure of using and is an absolute credit to the Jolla team and their achievements to date.
It is hard to describe in words how great Sailfish is and so I will put up a video at the end for you to see for yourselves.
I have used in great length many different phone OS’s now over the past years including Android, WP8, IOS, Meego Harmattan, Symbian Belle, Maemo 5 and briefly tried BB10, but I can tell you that of all of these, Sailfish impresses me the most (and no I’m not exaggerating). We did get a chance to have quite a long hands on demo with Sailfish at #JollaLoveDay and this is what I am basing my opinions on – 1st hand experience running on the new Jolla phone.
The Sailfish OS is exactly what someone who is coming from MeeGo/Maemo would hope for (or more) and certainly for anyone thinking of moving to the next level (from eg. IOS/Android) this is what you should aspire to own if you want to take it to the next level.
Sailfish takes the OS experience to the next level because not only is it extremely powerful (like it’s predecessors Maemo/MeeGo), but to top it off it is all packaged up in a supremely beautiful UI which is oh-so-fluid and user-friendly that people moving from Android/IOS wouldn’t help but be impressed by its gesture-based-intuitiveness and fantastic multitasking capabilities.
The live covers are really fantastic and also very functional – for example, Martin gave us a demo of how you could be watching a music video on youtube, you then move to another app but the music from the video will continue to play in the background while you check your notifications or carry out another task. This is just one example of the powerful multitasking Sailfish can offer.
Then there are the innovative live covers themselves which allow you to skip/pause music or view other useful information from the multitasking panes without ever leaving the home screen!
Sailfish: Beautiful New Icons
For those app-centric peoples coming from IOS/Android, Sailfish also has you covered with its added Myriad compatibility layer which means that you have a multitude of options when trying to source your app of choice – whether that be an android game that you used to enjoy from the ‘jurassic era of mobile’ (jk) or indeed a fully native app available from the Sailfish app store.
As shown in the video below, the app section is in fact available if you swipe right to the bottom of the screen and displays all the different app store information where you can download apps to your hearts content.
I could rattle on about how AMAZING Sailfish is for literally days, but I know you’re probably all really busy and sick of reading my rantings so here’s a nice visual aid courtesy of KickNetwork to spark the imagination:
Thanks for reading and if you would like to know more about Sailfish, please comment below and I will do my best to answer. ;-)
Sail On…
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I have some questions I haven’t seen answered elsewhere:
1.- Battery duration? With heavy usage please.
2.- Services/Accounts supports out of the box?
3.- Active sync?
4.- Android integration: what version of android does it emulate? How is jolla going to handle support for new versions of android?
5.- Updates from jolla? How regular?
6.- App store?
thanks,
1. Battery information is not currently available, but I’m sure Jolla are aiming for an industry standard here.
2. Definitely integrates with Facebook, Twitter and various other IM clients and I’m sure Jolla will release the full detailed information later.
3. Sorry I’m not 100% sure but would assume yes.
4. Again, I’m not sure.
5. Jolla would provide updates to keep everything optimised so as regularly as required.
6. Jolla will have their own app store and the details of this will be released later. There will also be ways to download Android apps simply but not directly from Google play AFAIK.
Does this version have some crap like n9 aegis?
It’s based on mer which doesn’t have that.
MeR doesn’t cover that area, but it’s also based (loosely) on Nemo, which doesn’t have that crap.
They’ve already explicitly said they won’t support any sort of DRM, security is another matter & there’s nothing wrong with it, so long as it’s done better than AEGIS.
hello,
– there is a place to share idea for the other half?
– the other half it is electrically powered ? If yes, how?
There is now here: /2013/05/23/share-your-ideas-your-dream-other-half/
This other information has not been released yet.
Facebook integration is awesome, judging by the video.
Is there the same type of integration for Tumblr and especially Flickr?
Sorry I’m not sure on that…
When can we try sailfishOS in other phones (novathor u8500 chipset phones like S3 mini, galaxy advance, xperia P, etc)
Javier
It’s likely that their SoC is no longer based on Novathor, ever since STM indicated they’re shutting down, it’s become clear that they’re looking at other options.
Hey, there’s a Map application installed on Martin’s phone! (at 1:08 in the video)
Is it Jolla’s or Android?
Also,
If you look there’s also a ‘Navigate’ and a ‘Transport’ app mirroring Nokia’s Maps, Drive & Transport apps. I would hope Jolla have licenced Nokia’s Here maps.
Good spotting – nice!!
I really hope they’ve licensed some mapping tech from Nokia or one of the other major players.
Yes that’s definitely a must-have.
dropbox service
fashion icons like Harmattan
a good service Map
a developer mode like N9 with terminal
a good application for Photos and Videos ( i can do 10minutes of video with N9 at full battery before it shut down)
custom themes, kind Blanco theme of N9
Mich it sounds like you need to change the battery out on your N9 – that’s not usual…
What about keyboard input?
Will there be something as powerful as Swype (I mean the app)
It’s so last century to see people tip-tapping on their screen, instead of just swiping the words in.
a method to unloack device like in android with a custom gesture, e.g. writing a letter
and i think calendar is only a black background with a numbers in grid order
conversations view have to opacity and poor of colors
then UI design could be better
for the rest, the system have a original style
good job
1. Will there be a developer program with pre-release devices?
2. When will Sailfish OS run on the N9?
3. Will the device support extensions (other half) and if yes will the interface be free?
1. I read in an interview here: http://smartgadgetscentral.com/exclusive-interview-with-head-of-software-development-marc-dillon/
Marc says ‘That’s a good question, I don’t have a answer at the moment, it’s something we had worked on in the past, I’m not certain we will have developer devices in time, that is something we can check.’
2. Jolla are really putting all their energy into making a success of their own handset running Sailfish. That’s not to say that a community member couldn’t make it happen still. ;-)
3. We believe so, but I don’t fully understand the question ‘will the interface be free’.
> 3. We believe so, but I don’t fully understand the question ‘will the interface be free’.
I mean this “other half” has some kind of connector and probably some software component for using it. Will this be freely usable for making custom hardware? e.g. If you want to connect something to an Apple device you need Apple chips for communication…
I would really be interested in creating a “other half” with IR and ISM functionality. I’m currently creating a similar device which connects with WLAN to a phone/computer.
For 2.: Nokia didn’t give the Jolla team the rights to do so.
* How are the apps on the home screen laid out when more than 9 apps are running?
* In the video, he is swiping back to the previous menu from the image viewer, but I guess this only works if the menu is visible? Otherwise, how is that gesture distinguished from swiping to the next/previous image?
As far as I know sailfish can’t run more than 9 apps at the same time, but I could he wrong.
Yup as far as I know, it’s really limited to 9 apps in multitasking view. Maybe a pin function or something like that would be great.
And you have to swipe over the edge (like N9) to go back to the home screen, if you are in “on the display” you can switch between the images. For some special cases where this kind of swipe is not very handy, you have the glowing spots in the left upper corner – they can also be pressed to switch between the “stages” of an app.
GB
Given it’s true MT nature, it’s likely they’ll add something to the UX to further augment this limitation. Unlike in BBX where once the count’s too high the app is simply killed, I suspect they’ll give the user to choice to have much more than 9 if they want.
@Jolla Tides
What happened to my last post can it be approved please, I think the spam filter blocked it, thanks.
plz ignore, it’s there now…
First of all I like the usage of sailfish OS but now I’ve got a little question, the basic idea of sailfish is to use the whole device via gestures, so far so good.
So if you want to get back to your home screen you simply swipe from the right edge to the left.
But this doesn’t work everytime or am I wrong?
For example in the video when he’s exlaining the messenger and is on the contact card he needs to get back to the messenger “app” and then swiping to the home screnn works.
Is there an otherway to do this, its not a big problem but seems to be a little breaking the design.
I’m very app centric, and I bet all apps I need will be available on Jolla.
Mainly: E-Mail, SMS, Calendar, Contacts, Browser, Music Player.
The App I will probably miss most will be WhatsApp.
Whatsapp and many others should be easily available on the android compatibility layer. ;-)
Jolla physical keyboard is not need if you implement a virtual keyboard like in S4
look at 0.50 minute
Nice idea mich but I still don’t think it’s a substitute for a small qwerty… I can’t see me hooking that projector up on the bus to work for example.
Hello, and thanks for a wonderful phone concept, i will most likely get one! =)
I wonder though, will there be a white version of the phone-part of the handset? I(and i am quite sure, many with me) have a love for white phones, and would be overjoyed to see one!
If you haven’t considered it yet, please do so until the release!! =)
Love!