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posted by mrpg on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the ok dept.

What, it's not Android?

Jolla Announces Sailfish 3 With Feature Phone Support – MWC 2018

Finnish mobile OS developer Jolla is attending Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona, Spain, where the company has officially announced Sailfish 3, the next-generation independent mobile OS built on a five-year software legacy. The company also announced a handful of new devices that have joined the Sailfish ecosystem and it revealed its plans for a new branch of its mobile operating system which was designed specifically for 4G-enabled feature phones as it sets out to allow select Android app access on low-spec hardware for consumers who don't need or want a full-fledged smartphone.

One of the biggest changes introduced with the latest Sailfish 3 OS lies in the way the software can be distributed through regional licensing, providing full support for regional infrastructure which should lead to steady upgrade releases and more. As for the mobile operating system itself, Sailfish 3 should provide 30-percent faster performance, improved multitasking with the ability to quickly switch between applications, as well as a redesigned top menu containing actions and settings. The mobile operating system employs a new visual style comprising new ambiances, light themes, and animations, while also offering new security solutions including revised architecture, fingerprint support, encryption, remote locking and wiping capabilities, as well as enablers for blockchain-based services.

Sailfish OS.

Press release. Also at TechCrunch, Engadget, and NDTV.

Related: Jolla Tablet Ship Date Slips
Sailfish OS Maker Jolla: Funding Delay Results in "Temporary Layoffs"
Android is a Dead End
Jolla to Sell OS Image for Sony Phone


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:40AM (11 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:40AM (#644471) Journal

    Those bastards still owe me a tablet from their kickstater. They took all the money, spent it on developing the OS (into their own pocket), ordered some horrible tablets, and stiffed the manufacture of those as well. The users got nothing. They promised refunds, which never happened.

    Wouldn't trust these guys with a stick of chewing gum.

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  • (Score: 2) by tekk on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:56AM (3 children)

    by tekk (5704) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:56AM (#644482)

    Did the refunds never happen? My understanding was that they got sent out slowly but they were *eventually* sent out. Maybe you just got lost somewhere? At least complaints about refunds have quieted down on the Sailfish subreddits for a while, maybe they just gave up hope.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by MadTinfoilHatter on Tuesday February 27 2018, @10:00AM (1 child)

      by MadTinfoilHatter (4635) on Tuesday February 27 2018, @10:00AM (#644550)

      The refunds are still ongoing. [jolla.com] They didn't have enough money to return all the money to everyone at once, so they repaid half of it. Last year they refunded the latter half to 83 randomly chosen individuals. (I, myself have gotten the first repayment but wasn't one of the 83 lucky ones.)

      I don't think the situation is as bad as the GP is making it out to be, even though I'm disappointed to not be the owner of a Jolla tablet. What happened was effectively that

      1) software development got costlier than expected

      2) some other deals they were counting on fell through

      This was enough to mess everything up for them, because a small company doesn't have huge margins. I agree that they did a very poor PR job at communicating the situation, though, which is why some people were left with the impression that they just blew the money on software development instead of actually delivering the tablets. (In reality the SW and HW development went hand-in-hand. The old SW wouldn't have worked as-is on the new hardware.)

      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:10PM

        by Bot (3902) on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:10PM (#644612) Journal

        > 1) software development got costlier than expected

        that's strange, they had chosen to rely on systemd, what can possibly go wrong...

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    • (Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Tuesday February 27 2018, @12:54PM

      by opinionated_science (4031) on Tuesday February 27 2018, @12:54PM (#644594)

      I got my refund - 03/16/2016. Jumped through some hoops if I recall...

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by melikamp on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:59AM (6 children)

    by melikamp (1886) on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:59AM (#644488) Journal

    Fascinating, if true.

    On a related note, let's talk about writing summaries. This summary above enumerates some very minor features, but fails to mention really major ones. This OS forces every user to run proprietary code from multiple parties in ring zero: that it, with highest privileges afforded by the mobile device. Its major feature is to spy on its users on behalf of the OS manufacturer, as well as providing interfaces for Google (via a proprietary Android emulator), telecoms (via SIM support), and some chipset manufacturers (via network and power drivers) to do the same. These are not unfortunate side-effects, these are features, and the OS was designed from the ground up, licensing and all, to make sure these features are implemented, supported, and concealed from the user as much as possible.

    May be consumers would start giving a damn if we started mentioning these simple facts in every technical review of OS software. And conversely, every summary of features which omits these simple facts is not merely offending the sensibilities of the free software movement. It is actually lying by omission and betraying the technical incompetence of the reviewer at best, and a malicious intent at worst.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:59PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:59PM (#644651)

      Is the spying any worse than Android? When my Gemini PDA comes, I was planning on replacing Android with sailfish, while having away on Linux to get proper telephony set up. Lineage may be the way to go.

      • (Score: 2) by melikamp on Tuesday February 27 2018, @07:12PM

        by melikamp (1886) on Tuesday February 27 2018, @07:12PM (#644735) Journal
        It may be better today, but it is guaranteed to become worse if this thing gets traction. All the Android-style spying, starting with Google, is possible via the Android runtime blob, plus Joomla takes its own slice of that cake. But chances are, it's already worse. This Sailfish OS is newer than Android, so not only we can assume it was designed with spying in mind (that is true for every modern blob), we can also be sure that they looked very carefully at how Android and IOS handle spying, and improved on that.
    • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday February 27 2018, @05:36PM (3 children)

      by acid andy (1683) on Tuesday February 27 2018, @05:36PM (#644695) Homepage Journal

      Its major feature is to spy on its users on behalf of the OS manufacturer

      Ah crap! Not Sailfish too :( This is the first I'd heard of this. I've just done some searching and can't find anything definitive to back it up. Have you got any links about this please?

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      • (Score: 2) by melikamp on Tuesday February 27 2018, @07:07PM (2 children)

        by melikamp (1886) on Tuesday February 27 2018, @07:07PM (#644730) Journal

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS

        Source model Open source with added closed-source components and/or extensions of third parties which can be of other licences as well.

        https://sailfishos.org/wiki/SailfishOS_Source

        The base layer source code is usually[sic] proprietary, and thus is generally not available for public access.

        That's Joomla's spyware/backdoor stack. Android Runtime they supply is a blob, so Google gets an in. Other parties I mentioned get access in a well-documented manner. If you just look at the Replicant project, the open issues they have, you realize that it's not practical to talk to wireless towers without a telecom blob, and it's not possible to make certain drivers work in that form factor. These are not technical issues, to be sure, these are all the ongoing abuses by the telecom cartel, which is closely aligned with the hardware cartel and the copyright mafia.

        • (Score: 2) by melikamp on Tuesday February 27 2018, @07:14PM

          by melikamp (1886) on Tuesday February 27 2018, @07:14PM (#644737) Journal
          s/Joomla/Jolla/
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 28 2018, @01:21AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 28 2018, @01:21AM (#644907)

          yeah, they wanted to talk about FOSS,meego, etc but they're just slaveware peddling douchbags. i'd like to use their macbook's to knock their horn rimmed glasses off of their whore faces.