Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

I really really really really really really REALLY hate to say this.
And I truly mean it.
Its like trying to spit out rotten food.

But chen...
take a real good hard look.

where is maemo now?

where is harmattan?

look at what happened with the ubuntu mobile...

tizen...tizen is another example...sure it's relatively new ..but it is a good example of great design ..with its os with almost zero follow through thus far with its repertoire of available apps. Tizen is primed for turbulent failure.

Jolla and Sailfish? ..."..." ....well...Jolla as Dave has pointed out has its problems...
sailfish os ? ...

I believe that in this world now...
for devices and operating systems...
and the software that run on them...
that there is precious little time or breathing room for error, mistakes, lack of foresight, poor design, poor implementation, extended delays, lack of or poor support, and communication issues....

I think it is great that you ...Chen....are kind and thoughtful enough of those around you to ask what os should be the choice.

And I will say this...as much as I absolutely hate to.

You have a winning product that has taken a great deal of your time and doubtlessly your resources thus far....
Don't squander it.


My best suggestion is this...

Go with Android.

It'll be a seller.

Then ...once you have all those android users buying it up...
The monstrous pool of Android users is where you should aim at.
Its your best and smartest bet from a marketing and sales standpoint...
Its just plain smart business...

Later as you count the money in the vault...
Then...
you have the chance, funds and most likely fearless backing from lenders... to take risks ..
and have the luxury of being able to take expected losses ...and at best ...(but unlikely) ...break even..
like aiming at os's with at most...a few hundred or a few thousand users to hope for sales from...
out of a desire to be philanthropic...

It's smart business Chen....
It should be Android OS .

(god I hate Android)

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Thank you for correcting me.
I'm happy to hear I was wrong on this topic. :)

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

I would suggest to go with some Android and if possible ask Jolla what it would cost to add a Sailfish OS support as kickstarter/igg addon. Like you can buy a case, you could buy full , Jolla supported SFOS for it as well.
This would lower risk for the HW project profitability, but still keep options open.
Besides providing open HW solutions and using SoC already having some Linux support could warm many tmo users hearth.

I'm 99% I wouldn't buy it if only Android is available. My preference is currently SFOS (with alien) with an option to load Debian or similar, but I have a slight suspicion, that my needs don't completely match market trends. ;)

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Absolutely NOT.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

From business point of view I would go for Android.

Personally, I wouldn't care as long as I can install a full-fledged distro anyway. That means open bootloader & firmware & drivers ;)

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

You could gain some outstanding marketing feature by selling it with Dualboot.
Has it ever been done before, giving user the choice?

Android is kind of mandatory as many said before to get off the ground.

Sailfish could "come" by either sending prototypes or early models to voluntary and proven porters.
Maybe even ask/inform them in early stage about possible involvement and requirements from their side.

For Android support within sailfish, put actual (kickstarter perk?) money into AnBox project.

Only involve Jolla if they move first.
You are in no good position to get a good deal with them for a new device, like you have with the tablet, because they will have much work with adaption.
Unless they are genuinly interested by themselfes or you can show (grand) sales that is.

The other options are out of my humble scope to judge about.
But if you play and dokument as open as possible, what keeps hackers away from doing theyr thing?

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

That is bad. But atleast they are open source. I dare jolla to do the same so all code can be investigated. Im sure its not as solid as you might think.
Maybe we shall scrap tizen and sailfish and go for something androidish. The question is what...

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

So, about Nemo,

https://twitter.com/SamZaNemesis/sta...42950219071492

https://twitter.com/SamZaNemesis/sta...61367778942976

https://twitter.com/locusf/status/859023060145512449

We're currently in progress of overhauling the development away from being dependent on mer middleware development on qt side, which is done by jolla and using upstream instead.

This is taking time since it means we're going to have rely on something different to using mer tools, currently open embedded for building our images. OE/Yocto has much larger adaptation base and all of our software (meaning nemo community) has easy potential to be built on that.

We're not dead, far from it, things like these take time but there is potential far from what Sailfish could ever achieve, since all of our apps are open, not just the middleware.

Daily use has problems, certainly. We do lack developers to completely overhaul the software stack, no doubt. This doesn't mean we're dead. More good things are coming.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

I'm not quoting since I was explicitly asked not to, but it's still important to point out that Tizen may be a very risky choice because of the numerous security flaws that come with it, see here and here.

[Edit] Burnt.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Android? I forgive you for your moment of weakness....

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Obviously we can't find consensus or common ground here. The question is probably not what OS to choose but rather what is available, cheapest and easiest to ship. So far I haven't see a single post here, except possibly Endormeans that actually help this thread and helping Chen.. What's the goal with this thread guys :confused:

The question is what Chen are able to deliver and how many of us that are able to support him whatever OS. Would be good to know approximately how many supporters we need to be to bring this project to a start, and how the different OSes affect these numbers.

Would it be possible to take the parts form Xperia X and put it in a qwerty slider case or reuse the phone with new case straight up? That way we would have android and a sailfish port(maybe) out of the box simular to what Neo is trying to do.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

I would go for preinstalled dual boot android and sailfish if it's possible.
and it doesnt matter if the sailfish is community port or from jolla official.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Well, in reality there are quite a few useful android apps to take advantage of. But I really like the idea of having a legitimate linux distribution at the heart of things. Perhaps take advantage of what Android has to offer but kind of keeping it quarantined. Kind of something like this...

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/04/a...-desktop-anbox

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Well, given that Maemo and Harmattan are actually more closed source than AOSP, not sure what weakness we're talking about.

It's solid to go towards one of the more open Android options than a dead and closed OS or UI that doesn't allow people to innovate. It's arguable that Android is a dead end but Fuchsia and the rest are not ready yet either for consumer products. Yet.

Maemo is dead. MeeGo is dead. Tizen is full of holes. Nemo is changing up tools and important bits at the moment. Harmattan is closed. Ubuntu Mobile was stillborn. AOSP is a dead end. Fuchsia is not ready. Jolla and Sailfish require licensing and planning for drivers that may limit hardware choices.

Opinions are aplenty. But adopt what makes sense. AOSP is looking the best out of all mentioned so far. But let's see what else comes about.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

How’s the sale of your Fairphone 2 going?

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Have you tried it?

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

My question is - if Android or AOSP sw, then what is going to be the deal-maker of Chen's phone over Moto Z + Chen's keyboard? For the people from small communities like TMO it's perhaps clear... Me personally I am gonna try to support Chen in one way or another no matter what and I can imagine I am not the only TMOer with this opinion here (although my personal vote on OS goes to 100% to the official Sailfish port).

But still, I don't see now what would turn an average smartphoner who's crying for an Android hw-kb (note that this is already a relatively small pool) to Chen's phone compared to Moto Z with Chen's keyboard add-on. To be honest, if Moto Z ever gets Sailfish port, it would get quite some chance to become my daily device considering community-ported Sailfish phones only. Having an official Sailfish support with Jolla's help of polishing + functional AlienDalvik indeed targets to a smaller audience, but with no competitor at all. Also, how much smaller will the audience actually be? Cause it's easier to imagine a Sailfisher with no interest in hw-kb itself still supporting Chen than anyt Androider that has no interest in hw-kb.

Indeed, if Chen can keep the final choice open to the users and offer both AOSP and official Sailfish, it would be perfect. Would it make sense to add a separate $??? perk on kickstarter/igg for "official Sailfish OS license" or sthing like that (sounds better to me than having there two phone variants). Then he can see what's the actual interest in this and see if it's worth the extra money & effort.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

The deal maker is that it actually possibly might will be something built in the end since it might attract a slightly bigger audience. To get this even closely to a working device, he must catch the waves and follow. He don't have a huge yacht cruising the sea as he wants (As far as I know).

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Thinner, lighter, better balanced, keyboard is a first class citizen and not something hacked on afterwards?

Not trying to put down the keyboard mod, but I don't think it will be as nicely balanced as a phone with an integrated hardware keyboard.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

What makes you think that? Thinner, lighter Will cost.

What do you excpect in terms of price?

The reason I ask is to see your ezcpection in relation to price.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Yet I think Wolda got a point. I said the same it in an earlier post as well: if Android was acceptable (for me), I would already have bought a Moto keyboard and a Moto. The thing is I do want a hardware keyboard, badly, but not at the cost of being forced to use an OS I don't want to use. In the end I would just not use the phone and its holy keyboard.

The ergonomy of the Android UI (which is based on the same paradigms on all Android-based OSes, even open ones) and privacy issues with Google are not an acceptable trade-off for me. However, I do understand that what I am looking for does not exactly match the market, and same goes with several people on TMO I think, otherwise we would not be discussing a new device and its OS here. We would just go to the shop and buy what the market already designed for our needs. Chen's strategy of asking people what they think about the OS options clearly shows that he's aware that it will divide people and be critical to the success of the project, and to be honest it's good to see that he seeks feedback instead of deciding all alone, but I wouldn't want to be him when it will be time to finally decide (partly) based on this thread. :D

The question is simple: is this phone for the average Joe and can it compete with the big fish already ruling the lake, or is this phone going to be designed according to the weird and unusual preferences of the Joes that still populate TMO? The answer is not simple: both device would be very different, both come with huge risks, and none would be bad. But making a phone that would satisfy both groups and perform equally would be tricky (even with dual-boot, although I'd love to have dual-boot).

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

I try to actually listen to the conversation so I can contribute meaningfully instead of rambling about scams :p

Here you have it, straight from the horse's mouth:

So the expectation is that it will be thinner. It may also be lighter because the moto mod gubbins won't be present - or at least there should be less unnecessary weight (it might have more battery weight, as mentioned above).

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Thanks for sharing that info, it's looking great and I really hope more people will join the project, as Nemo really is what Sailfish is probably never going to be: free. By my comment I only meant that, although you're working as hard as you can, at this point the suggestion to have Nemo as the default interface on a new device would be a mistake, because people would hold it to the same standards as they would the latest super expensive device from Samsung, Apple, or whatever, and in the end they would only be disappointed. Looking at the backlash Sailfish/Jolla gets because they don't have all the cool things in Android or iOS (admittedly, some of it is deserved), I can only imagine the endless negativity around a Nemo device.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

To be commercially successfull it needs some flavour of android.
It might still be interesting to keep foucs on providing well documented hardware. Gta04 for example has documentation for all interfaces except UMTS modem, the WiFi module and the GPS module. If it's well documented standard linux (Debian) could easily later by the community be provided.
It for me looks like Linux can run on Qualcomm SOC (not sure exactly how well it does, e.g. with current kernels).
Is it possible to use a (second?) modem Gemalto PLS-8? It on the one hand would raise the price, but might be better supported by Linux.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

The keyboard might be thinner yes, but the phone?

What he wrote Sounds good but but to make a thin phone it Will be Extreamly expensive unless we find a LOTs of backers. I guess he have to design from scratch. Have you heard anything about that?

http://cellphonerepairpros.com/wp-co...on-581x300.jpg

Scams you say? You mean jolla? Well they be starting the refund in july they say :D good luck with that!

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

With official SFOS (incl. Android support & Exchange) and decent hardware it would be an insta-buy for my GF and me.

Plain and simple. :)

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

I would agree; however Android 4.4 support in the day and age of Android 7.1 leaves a lot to be desired.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Thanks all for the ideas and suggestions. Some quick feedback:

- What's the difference with Moto Z + Keyboard with this device?

At least 7mm thinner
Much better feelings. Top thinner + Bottom thicker instead of other way round.

The advantage of Moto Z is you can take off the keyboard and change to other mods. But I suppose there will be a group only care about the keyboard (like me). So the "new N950" is a better option.

- Regarding Lineage OS, this is in my opinion the best one for Android. Lineage OS is free and open source, but can I ship as an default OS? I couldn't even find anyone to ask and contact. Any ideas on that?

- Regarding Sailfish OS, the barrier is mainly front cost and time. This is not something I can achieve easily and instantly. It's much easier said than done.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

It will be a later build. 4.4 was shipped with Turing and Jolla C. On the newer chipset such as the Snapdragon 650 in Xperia X, I'm not sure technically they can ship with Android 4.4, it has to be something newer as old android version isn't supported by the new chipset.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

this is something that Jolla should help you with. I get that they want to make money from OS since that's all they have. But since your project is basically something private and it won't be dirty cheap HW like all other partners used, success of this can help them as much as you. And you are investing a lot more.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Also take into account the Android people already have the chance to buy the Moto Z mod or a Droid 4.
A new Android device will vanish within the masses, people do not trust a new brand as much as established ones.
I personally would not buy it.

I want to trust my daily OS, don't want to be forced to Googles services, want to use the command line and maybe even to use X11-Forwarding to administer our companys pcs and severs from abroad. I want to be able to compile Linux software, maybe even start an x86 virtual machine.

In case the phone ships only with Android,
I will wait till other options seem to be reliable.
If it ships with Sailfish or Maemo/Meego/Debian+Phone stuff...
I will probably buy it right away.


I agree with wicket on the importance of the SoC.
But I do not have enough knowledge of the area to give an informed opinion.

However i vote against Intel, even though they are well supported by Linux in general and I could effortlessly run a VM on them or use my favorite programming language (no ARM compiler), they just use to much power. And the main purpose of a phone should be mobility. Bad battery runtime means bad mobility.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Don't forget I'm not a millionaire. To get the physical device out is already very difficult and I put a lot of front investment.

I cannot afford developing another OS other than I can use quite easily. And I also need to consider how many I can sell to maintain future development.

You either get a device with some unique functions, or talk about a complete unique product on every aspect that never come out.

And I said a lot times no one has forced you to use Android - I'm more concerned how to make developers easy to port other OSes.

And I don't agree with your opinion for Moto Z and Droid 4. Moto Z + Mod is very thick and Droid 4 is stuck on Android 4.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

In my opinion, Moto Z seems to be more like a phablet and Motorola Droid 4 doesn't support LTE everywhere beside North America so the device might find its niche with for example 4,5"-5,3" display and better than Droid 4 LTE support.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Unlockable Bootloader and publicly available kernel source within days of release are the least you would need to do.

Could you get the body of the Xperia Pro, or the Desire Z, and build off that, or is that going to cause legal issues?

Also, have you finalised the specific SoC?, and screen specifications, and by screen specifications I mean not just AMOLED vs LCD and size, but IGZO, Panel Self Refresh, IPS, Quantum dot, that kind of detail.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

IMO, AOSP should be the OS of choice to ship the device with but are there really enough people wanting a HW keyboard for such a project to be feasible? Also what use does a HW keyboard have on Android?

Virtual keyboards coupled with slim devices mean HW keyboard devices have very little in upside vs the downside of no predictive text, thicker and heavier device etc.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Dual Sim will be there. Camera will be modern dual-rear camera system, some of the best ones on the market.

I love communicator very much. But a secondary screen isn't something that can achieve easily. But who knows ;)

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Chen, how far have you come with plans related to the hwside of things. I dont want to rain on your parade here but thin phone, duel CAMs, duel sim, to found an existing design or everything from scratch? I support you, I do. But have you done any estimation of cost? To me this Sounds like a really expensive undertaking.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

This. Jolla is definitely not in a position to take risks at the moment, but is there a way we can assess the risks after you selected the SoC and all hardware that could compromise porting Sailfish? If the way you select the final hardware takes into account the ease of porting Sailfish, then maybe there wouldn't be as much work as there is for Xperia X for instance, and maybe the OS could just be almost natively supported from the beginning?

I know nothing about that, just wondering if the amount of work can be dramatically reduced by the choice of hardware. If that's the case, then maybe Jolla wouldn't consider it a risk, but a major opportunity to have a unique device with absolutely no competition released with their OS. It does not mean that licensing cost would be reduced (could be estimated and included in the final cost anyway), but feasibility of the port would. The device would still be kind of niche, but this is the way Jolla has been working until now (except for the Xperia X project, but since Xperia X are now discontinued, the project will likely get lower interest from the crowd than initially planned).

If Jolla can have a brand (owned by a long-term TMO insider, they might be sensitive to that as well, who knows) shipping with their OS as default for a small amount of work on their side and still get money from the licensing, and if this device is unique in other ways than just the OS, this may be something big even for them. Heck they even were thrilled about the Turing partnership, and you already showed how to be more realistic than Turing when designing a device.

Re: The choice of OS of the new QWERTY device project
 

Thanks for all your efforts! I can appreciate the fact that to maintain future development you need to consider numbers of sold devices. As I do not know the business end of this can you provide rough numbers on the costs based on the number of devices manufactured. Say you got 500 buyers, what would the charge be to the buyer. How does this scale? For example if you had 2000 buyers or 10000 buyers. Of course price depends on quality, features and such so perhaps give a range from low to highend.

The other thing is, and maybe I'm wrong, but judging by several of the posts here it looks like this project may be heading towards something like a Oneplus with a HWKB.