PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there’s an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: “We’re leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we’ll provide when we’re close to delivery.” Something you rarely hear anything about.
They’ve done pretty much all they can to succeed. I have doubts as to weather or not they’ll make it, but they have some great ideas that I would love on my phone. I’m afraid they may not sell them in enough quantity to get the multitude of hardware options for the other half that they would like. Its going to end up like the Motorola lapdock. Great idea that undersells due to high prices due to low sales of the phone itself.
Someone needs to succeed. This looks like the best Linux option as of now.
No, I think Android is Linux’s, best option.
Jolla looks like a better option for GNU/Linux, if that’s what you meant. I’m normally not a stickler for the distinction as it usually doesn’t matter, but it does here.
I naturally didn’t mean Android since while it uses Linux kernel, it’s not glibc based. So read my statement above as talking about glibc Linux. And as a mobile option Android is for sure not the best. Its only advantage over normal Linux is in the fact that it came early, but not in its technical superiority. Android bionic is worse than glibc and incompatibility with glibc makes it a completely separate beast, where effort can’t shared.
Edited 2013-05-21 18:37 UTC
I’m not so sure that any company can succeed, no matter how good the product is. The majority of people these days only seem to be interested in Apple or Samsung devices – not because they are the best or because they look better, but just because they know the brands. Pretty sad.
Edited 2013-05-21 08:12 UTC
It was always about that.
Normal users don’t care about the OS itself, but what their friends have and if they can have the same applications or accessories. Everything else is irrelevant.
While Nokia never released actual sales figures for the N770 through N900 to my knowledge, I believe they pronounced themselves “pleased” with a few hundred thousand.
Jolla doesn’t have to dominate the market with their first device; they need to make a modest profit to continue to their next device.
The G1 didn’t conquer RIM, Symbian, and Apple, but rather a series of increasingly successful releases – the Hero, the Cliq, the Droid, the Nexus One – each built momentum that ended with Android’s current 75% worldwide dominance in smartphones.
Jolla just needs a solid start with the Jolla phone. Thus far, I’m encouraged. They seem to be executing well thus far.
Yes, that’s exactly the point. Some people for some reason think that in order to operate, one needs to become the biggest player. That’s false.
There is a difference between best and good. Apple and Samsung produce good devices. All of the other Android handset makers have been hit & miss with their phones and their naming/branding has been crazy off the charts bad. I couldn’t recommend a single Motorola, HTC, Sony, LG that anyone on any carrier could get. I can with Samsung & Apple.
People care about getting good enough devices and don’t necessarily do the research that some of us do on all the devices as they won’t use them to the same extent that we will. There is nothing wrong with that per se, but it would be nice to see other manufacturers figure it out.
LG Optimus G. One of its variations (E970 through E977) is available in just about every country, on just about every carrier.
More than a billion people now have a smartphone, there are still something like 5 billion people left on this planet which have a feature phone.
So there is still a lot of room for a new player.
The price range is around US $50 or even lower.
There are Android devices at that price range, but they aren’t very good as far I know.
I’ve heared FirefoxOS is targetting that price range as well and works better on that kind of hardware than Android.