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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday August 31 2017, @01:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the who-buys-an-os-in-2017? dept.

Jolla, of "where's my tablet" fame, has announced a plan the sell their SailfishOS for Sony Xperia X phones as an aftermartket upgrade. From the announcement:

Here are the hard facts you need to know:

Sales start date: September 27, 2017. Product – what you will get:

  • Sailfish OS image to flash to your Xperia device – our target is to have the downloadable image ready by October 11
  • Android support, predictive text input, and MS exchange support as downloads from Jolla Store to your device
  • SW updates for one year, after which a continuation program will follow
  • Clear instructions and support for downloads & installation
  • Jolla Customer Care service

Availability: EU, Norway, Switzerland; US & CA to be confirmed. Price: 49,90€ (including VAT)

Seems like quite the bizarre move for a company that has lost so much consumer faith.

Seen on Phoronix


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  • (Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:35PM (4 children)

    by Aiwendil (531) on Thursday August 31 2017, @04:35PM (#562173) Journal

    I find that idea to quite interesting actually. Having a third party provide updated software for a handset after the manufacturer has ceased support/upgrades.

    Actually kind wish something like that was available for my android phone - a third party that provides tested OS upgrades (in my case I need to stay within the android route). That - in combination with the third party batteries - would _really_ lengthen the lifespan of the devices (would in particular be useful for those of us that want our smartphones to be small and portable and not require its own separate messanger bag)

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  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday August 31 2017, @06:17PM (3 children)

    by RamiK (1813) on Thursday August 31 2017, @06:17PM (#562234)

    Pick one: https://quickfever.com/best-android-roms-433840 [quickfever.com]

    Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distributions [wikipedia.org]

    Or build it yourself: https://forum.xda-developers.com/chef-central/android/guide-android-rom-development-t2814763 [xda-developers.com]

    Personally I'm satisfied with LineageOS to the point I make my new device purchases based on what they support.

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    • (Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday August 31 2017, @07:37PM (2 children)

      by Aiwendil (531) on Thursday August 31 2017, @07:37PM (#562270) Journal

      I am well aware of the download-your-own-ROM, I was more interested in having it properly tested by a company that also offers support when it goes wrong. (Since that is kinda the minimum for my work-phone, for my personal phone I wouldn't even blink before I switched ROMs)

      • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday August 31 2017, @08:52PM (1 child)

        by RamiK (1813) on Thursday August 31 2017, @08:52PM (#562298)

        properly tested...offers support...minimum for my work-phone

        Writing to NAND flash (or really, any storage) is notoriously failure prone. The only way to address this is through parity and redundancies. Other than that, there are no software or service solutions to hardware problems. At best, you'll get an Indian guy calling himself "Marty from Microsoft Tech Support" going through service scripts over the phone or an Apple store genius resetting your phone to factory settings or replacing it altogether for a fine fee.

        Overall, buy an extra phone and setup a cloud backup in a way that lets you switch SIMs at a moment's notice. Anyone telling you differently is trying to sell you a bridge.

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        • (Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Friday September 01 2017, @11:25AM

          by Aiwendil (531) on Friday September 01 2017, @11:25AM (#562466) Journal

          Last person that tried to sell me a bridge actually delivered ;) (yes, that expression is hillarious if you work in infrastructure and at time actually order bridges)

          It seems I fail to be clear.
          What is needed is essentielly that it is vetted about as well as normal android upgrades from manufacturer per model, but for quite a bit longer (excepting the battery smartphone hardware tends to be useful for close to a decade, if you are lucky the mfg keeps updating the software for three years). Backed with some "oops, let us assign a tech for the bug and ship a new update"-support.