This update, 2.1.0 alias Iijoki brings major architectural changes to Sailfish OS by introducing Qt 5.6 UI framework, Bluez5 Bluetooth protocol (ready to be deployed for development purposes), basics for the 64-bit architecture and text selection in browser. Included is also a beta level implementation for Virtual Private Networks (VPN) (please read release notes) and the first version of QML live coding support. In addition, 2.1.0 adds bigger fonts to the UI, improves the use of camera and fixes a number of errors, many of which were reported by our developer community.
Maybe I’ll get around to updating my Jolla phone and tablet at some point, but I really don’t see a reason why. Since I reviewed Sailfish OS and the Jolla phone more than three years ago, nothing has been done to address the elephant in the room. The operating system itself was quite stable, good-looking and full-featured from the beginning, and that has only improved with the constant stream of updates and refinements. However, the application situation is still incredibly dire, and we’re all still using the same few applications – updated only very infrequently – that we were using three years ago. Several have even died out.
Instead of investing in attracting developers to write Sailfish applications (the three year old promises of support for paid applications still hasn’t been fulfilled, for instance), the company got distracted with crazy projects like the tablet, and investing heavily in making Android applications ‘run’ on Sailfish. While Android applications do ‘run’, it’s still a slow, frustrating, and utterly jarring experience that’s a complete and utter waste of resources. Had they spent even half the effort spent on Android application compatibility on attracting native developers, the platform would be in a far better state.
Jolla proclaimed they wanted to take over the world, but in doing so, lost touch with the very people they should’ve continued to focus on: open source/Linux-oriented enthusiasts, former Maemo/N900 users. Not a large group of people, of course, but definitely a big enough – and, more importantly, loyal enough! – group of people to sustain a small, community-focused company.
Jolla’s CEO Sami Pienimäki penned a letter to the community about upcoming developments for the company. There’s some stuff in there about Russia and tablet refunds.
“Jolla proclaimed they wanted to take over the world, but in doing so, lost touch with the very people they should’ve continued to focus on: open source/Linux-oriented enthusiasts, former Maemo/N900 users.”
This is not entirely correct, please stop spreading FUD about Jolla.
I am not sure if you are aware of this but the monthly community meetings have been going on since forever, hosted and attended by a good number of Jolla employees. The meeting minutes can be found here:
https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Sailfish/CommunityMeetings
The last one was even live streamed from FOSDEM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpABm5T7wMM
The community is definitely not dead, as evidenced by the number of unofficial ports listed here:
https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Adaptations/libhybris
I also think that the store (harbour) would be available on unofficial ports too (or maybe already it is?).
While a paid app support would be awesome, the community program (devices and tutorials, webinars) has been a great success. They have also hinted that a new community device is in the works.
So while 2016 has been a difficult year for Jolla I think they have managed to survive and provide a nice alternative to the iOS/Android. The only thing we could wish for 2017 is more devices
I wrote a small blog article a few months back also seeing the app ecosystem dying.
https://leszekllelectronics.blogspot.de/2016/10/jolla-slowly-dying-d…
Though since then they did improve.
New apps arrived in the Jolla Store (even when not a lot of new apps its at least getting new apps) and openrepos has a lot of new interesting projects popping up.
The community started a “Maemo Developer Regatta” which is basically a coding contest which includes not only SailfishOS Apps but mainly new apps popped up from this coding contest which is a good sign.
In general there is room for improvement but it is much better than it was in Halloween 2016.
Thom Holwerda,
It’s easy to say this because all users want 3rd party native apps, we all get that, but that’s just not very realistic any more. Alternative phones invest in android compatibility for the same exact same reason alternative operating systems invest in linux/unix compatibility, not because it’s any better, but because it’s the only way to realistically get large numbers of 3rd party apps in the first place.
Try to understand this from the point of view of an unaffiliated software developer, many of us like alternative platforms and would love to support them more, but every new platform adds costs that the clients have to sign off on. The economic case for alternative platforms breaks down quickly, for the most part they don’t have any interest in subsidizing alternative platforms that incur all the expenses but offer no ROI given the small user base.
Regrettably, it’s not the 1990s anymore when being small was not as big an impediment for investors as it is today. Most opportunities for new growth have dried up, leaving incumbents to get all the money and attention. For better or worse, those are the economics of the world we’re living in today, if you have a solution to this then I’d love to hear it since I think this is affecting a lot of us.
Edited 2017-02-09 12:29 UTC
MSFT literally threw buckets full of money and couldn’t get third parties on their phone, you HONESTLY think this company has a chance?
I’m sorry but just like MSFT and Apple own the desktop (something like 98% between them) so too does Google and Apple own mobile. This ain’t the early 00s anymore and third party mobile OSes? Unless they come out with an OS that is so fucking amazing and innovative its as different from what we have now as DOS is to Windows 10? It just doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.
Maemo had far better and more complete application support than Sailfish ever had – even today.
I’m not talking about exotic applications – just the basic things.
A thousand times this. What the hell was anyone thinking when they threw that away for Meego?
Nokia thought they would make it big together with Intel.
The problem with the alliance with Intel is that instead of basing Meego on Maemo which was fully functional they decided to use Moblin which nobody used and start from zero. So the project progress was too slow and failed to deliver a complete working system. They should have used Maemo and replace component by component.
Yeah, intel. What. the. heck.
I have no idea why intel continues to fund stupid mobile focused unix distros.
EVERY time I read about a company making something else run on it, I think of OS/2- a better Windows than Windows. If I write it for Android, and it runs on Sailfish, why would I need to waste the time and resources making it native?
And I was a big OS/2 user.
But I will be installing this on my Nexus 4. Too bad I don’t get Android compatibility. I usually swap between Ubuntu, LuneOS, Sailfish, and Android on my Nexus 4. Can’t ever settle on what that thing is running this week. Didn’t enjoy FirefoxOS on it. I think my favorite has been Sailfish (even though I own a pile of webOS devices).
I want to like all of these alternative OSes on my Nexus 4 (I love OSes) but I have yet to find anything that would work for a daily driver. Most notably missing for me is something I’ve gotten really used to on the top 2 platforms- voice dictation and control.
The only way it would happen is if sailfish was better enough that you wanted to write for it to make use of its better feature set. Kind of like the media apps that were written for BeOS, and the ATM’s that used OS/2. It has to be much much better in some way. And well, its just not.
I still would have preferred to ge the tablet than the refund. I really dislike Androind and iOS, and don’t want a Windows anything. Would love either Jolla, Maemo or even gnome-shell on a tablet.
That´s what they should have done. You can´t expect adoption to a plataform with no hardware.
An updated N900, not a wannabe Android phone.
Too bad it’s so damn expensive…
http://neo900.org/