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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, Insightful) by zeigerpuppy on Thursday August 31 2017, @10:44PM (2 children)

    by zeigerpuppy (1298) on Thursday August 31 2017, @10:44PM (#562326)

    SailfishOS is more ambitious than just another android ROM. It runs quite a different software stack that allows writing apps in python.
    It also has a nice interface which I prefer compared to Android.
    The OS is also closer to the meego roots and is privacy oriented.
    I have been testing the Jolla C platform and found it good as a daily device.
    The company certainly made a misstep when the tablet failed but it was a crowd funded campaign not a guaranteed device. They have also pledged to refund over time. There are certainly some very disgruntled crowd funders out there but I hope that the company can keep afloat. . We're desperately in need of a third mobile OS that isn't just a Trojan Horse to suck up data to Google or Apple.

    With regards to usability, the OS is fast and has a look of good tools built in, it has an android compatability layer which allows running Android apps on top of the OS (effectively a sandbox).
    At the moment the new version of the SailfishOS is for the Xperia X F5121 model only but hopefully more to come.

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @11:30PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @11:30PM (#562342)

    We're desperately in need of a third mobile OS that isn't just a Trojan Horse to suck up data to Google or Apple.

    This is why I will continue to use BlackBerry 10 until it rots out underneath me and my Passport crumbles. Good resource for anyone interested in joining in: https://github.com/mordak/playbook-dev-tools [github.com]
    GCC and related tools for onboard development. Did I mention that all BBOS10 devices ship with Python (albeit 3.2) accessible from any terminal emulator?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 01 2017, @12:42AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 01 2017, @12:42AM (#562361)

      That really is very interesting (I mean it, thanks!), but still, just like iOS, BB10 is only an option on their own hardware. Google faces no real competition; they can dictate terms to anyone who's not RIM or Apple, and they have no option to say "no" and go with another OS. We need another OS that's marketed to smartphone manufacturers -- then competition will force both it and Android to give manufacturers what they want, which is at least one level closer to giving us actual users what we want.