Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Sailfish UI 2.0 is so good that it made me truly feel delighted and trying out multitasking like it was 2009 and small things could handle big tasks.

Then ... my 3 tab Firefox for Android got closed (greyed out minimized version restarts)

So I stubbornly decided to log in to my webmail saying: don't you dare close this https authenticated session on me or I will get pissed.

And that single action actually closed my music that was playing through Quasar MX.


It closes audio. Why would one need audio playing in the back ground anyway? Do you think we are stupid and will not notice this fake multitasking?

Enough said! Fix this, Jolla.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

By not having Android support for a start, which chews up insane amounts of RAM ;)

On top of that, significant amounts of hard work, and some interesting smoke and mirrors tricks. I don't remember everything clearly so much later but here's some (from the application side, which is where I was focused):

• Dropping OpenGL contexts and using software rendering of applications when they moved to the background (something which SFOS adopted sometime during 2014 to some extent, windows drop contexts when they move to the background)
• Dropping caches in applications when they move to the background on a similar basis
• Low memory notification (this is something that the upstream Linux kernel itself *still* lacks, Android has this capability to some extent) to drop caches/etc

Ironically enough, RAM was (in my opinion) a very big problem there, even if you don't think so. Some parts of the software were rather huge in complexity/requirements, and slimming it down was never really a possibility due to the need to push the thing out the door (and then, well, keep it going out the door as much as possible).

This showed as particularly painful in application startup time, and this is why most of the software on the N9 (that is built in) is pre-started, and just shown when the icon is clicked. Mercifully, this was avoided for most of the UI on SFOS with the exception of Phone (which, for responsiveness reasons, it does make some sense to keep running) and Messages (which was kept running due to architectural reasons; maybe some day that'll be fixed if it hasn't been already).

I would have to say that the biggest problem SFOS faces in this regard is resourcing. Nokia had significant engineering resources to throw at this (and many other problems), Jolla not so much. For instance, significant performance improvements have been made to QML's JavaScript engine since its introduction in Qt 5.2, but taking that into use is a very large work project, so I don't see it happening anytime soon.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

I still remember Harmattan with the lag when RAM gets filled up. Sailfish is better in this regard, but killing applications is not how this should be fixed. :)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Despite the resources, Nokia had this "you will make it run with 256MB RAM" mentality opposing the Maemo efforts. Maybe that was for once a good thing and it has demanded certain creativity ?

The N9 seemed to me the first Nokia device that had Android style RAM dimensions.. (4 times the amount of its predecessor the N900 which could not do exactly what the N9 could do?)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Just got my Sailfish seriously lagging -> granted I was opening a ridiculous amount of applications just to see when it would decide to interrupt my music.

I came to the conclusion that it would quit QuasarMX much more eagerly than it would quit the stock media player. (same music files)

It even let the stock media player lag the sound.

But finally even the stock media player needed to make space for new applications being started and got interrupted as in halted.

If only we could choose which applications should never by killed even if SFOS was crawling on hands and knees.. :rolleyes:

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Yeah, yeah, still working on it!! :P

(currently rewriting modRanas map data handling backend so that it can handle vector data in the future)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Now that 1.1.9.28 is available through the normal GUI route, I have given it a spin too. I must say, my initial impressions are very positive. The UI feels much more intuitive. It also looks like someone has finally sat down and actually designed it, rather than just randomly bashed something together just to be different, which was mostly the impression of the previous version.

Yet there are a few things I would consider a regression. Two steps forward, one step back, as is often the case. Still, better than moving from Gnome 2 to Gnome 3 or from Windows 7 to Windows 8 - both cases were definitely one step forward and a few thousand back ;)

Here are a few observations in detail.
First, things that I see as an improvement:

• The status bar thingy on the home screen. A HUGE plus! Yey! Finally! Three cheers! Hip hip hurray! I would love to have an option to see it always, including in apps, but this is much better that what we had before. I take back everything I said here. Now we get all the crucial info neatly in one place, only a single half-swipe away at any time. No more swiping to home screen, then to lock screen, then back... a HUGE usability improvement! Thank you, Jolla!
• Swiping left/right to the notifications is more intuitive and less error prone than the previous swipe from the bottom. It has one drawback though: it now takes two actions to get to the notifications if you are inside a running application. You need to edge-swipe back to home screen and then swipe left or right to the notifications. Still, I need the notifications much less often than I need to check the time or the signal strength, so a tradeof of two swipes here for a sigle half-swipe to see the home screen status bar feels like a huge win.
• Accessing the apps launcher is also more intuitive than before. It is also made clearer that home screen and apps launcher are two different things. Previously there was no clear distinction, one seemelessly morphed into another. This way is much better.
• I fully appreciate that this is an eye candy only but the transitions and animations are generally also smoother and more pleasing to the eye ;) The only one I am not 100% sure about is the pulley menu animations. I think I preferred the old ones but I am happy with the new ones as well.
• I know some people here raise a lot of uproar about the buttons for cover actions instead of swipes. I will put a flame jacket on and bravely proclaim that I prefer it this way. It is more intuitive, without having to think, "wait, do I swipe left or right to do this action?" It is because of that lack of intuitiveness that I avoided using the cover actions before. I am much less reluctant now.

Now for the things I believe could have been done better or left untouched:

• OMG, the lock screen! It was always useless but now it stands in the way more than ever. Unlocking the phone is now a major operation. It takes so long that I can almost make myself a coffee. I would do away with it completely if I could, it serves no purpose whatsoever other than slowing you down.
• The only thing for which the lock screen may be useful is the customisable pulley menu. I used to have the most common operations there, of which the absolutely most common was "Connet to internet". It was absolutely crucial because my Jolla keeps losing connection all the time and reconnecting was something I had to do very often. The lock screen pulley menu was therefore the obvious place.
  But now it is nearly impossible to get to it. The only way that I have found is to lock the phone, wait a bit, then unlock it again. That is a long way to get to something I need almost constantly.
  The best way forward IMO would be to get rid of the lock screen completely and move the pulley menu to the home screen.
• Another lock screen issue - the mobile operator's name is not shown anywhere else. Granted, it is not something I need frequently so perhaps not such a big deal.
• As others have already mentioned, locking the device has now an additional step. I do not see it as a big deal either except it is too easy to change the ambience by mistake. Luckily there is a patch for that (that I have yet to try out ;)).
• I preferred the old style remorse timer. Again, there is a patch for that.
• I am ambivalent about the new button style. Sure, the old one was not ideal but this new style is even worse. I would prefer something that actually looks like a button and has some consistency to it, not something that looks like highlighted text. I only figured those were buttons because they were in the places I remember having seen buttons before. The fact that several buttons stacked one above another do not line up if the labels have different lengths does not help either. It looks messy and confusing. Either make them the same length and make them look like real buttons or bring the old style back (again, there is a patch for that too, thanks Ancelad!).
• I have 5 email accounts set up. Previously, when I received notifications for multiple email accounts, it just said, "5 emails". Tapping on that opened Email. I did not have to read the emails, just opening Email was enough to clear the notifications.
  Now, if I get new emails for two different accounts, I get two notifications. And I have to actually read the emails or at least open each account in turn to clear them. This is a major hassle.
• Last but not least, all the changes are only in the main UI. This is all nice and groovy but there were a LOT of missing features and bugs crying for attention in various applications and none of those have been fixed. Where is text select in the browser? Where is global copy and paste? Where is easy navigation in a long list? And lots more... These are all absolutely basic features that I would expect a version 2.0 of an OS to finally provide.

Conclusion: better but still not good enough.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Settings -> System -> Gestures -> Quick Events access

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Just finished a phone conversation of +/- 1hr.. during which I did some surfing and some flappy bird.

It could be a possible placebo effect at work but I'm under the impression that the sound quality over the bottom loudspeaker had improved and that it cost me less effort to understand my correspondent than I was used to.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Android support isn't the reason. People without it active or running still have the issues, and Tizen on a 768MB RAM device doesn't suffer these issues and it has Android support baked in. BBOS10 never had such severe issues either.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Lock screen:

You can actually unlock it immediately after screen opens, you don't have to wait for the animations. It's actually pretty fast. For me, it has improved significantly with built in media controls and overall responsiveness. Removing lock screen would make no sense what so ever from normal usage perspective.

I also concider pulley menu completely useless in lock screen because you can access the whole screen once per use, which is my biggest issue with it.

Notifications:

You need to long-press to dismiss notifications by cross buttons or pulley menu. It works generally much better than before because it's better organized and you can dismiss single notification without actually reading it.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

"Long-press power key also opens Top menu, but replaces lock action with power off"

This doesn't work for me. How about you guys?

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

I didn't got notification for update. I checked for early access just today. Should I do anything else ?

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Do you have / have you had Powermenu by Coderus installed? I had, and after uninstalling it, the new power button / top menu thing still didn't work. It required two terminal commands given by Coderus in this post. Now it works.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

In fact, I get the "faded out" cover whenever the process receives any signal at all. Even if it crashes, or I kill it from a shell, or the "non responding" prompt kills it, or ....

To me it seems a bit nonsensical. But it doesn't happen often enough to even complain about it.

I like the new details and "flatness". Never been a fan of shiny, and now the buttons look much more clickable. Pulley menus are more noticeable too. Also, I like the animation there.

However, the blink animation after selecting an option is at least twice as long as it should be. Same for the power on fade in and unlock.

The ambience system continues to seem unintuitively designed. The idea is nice. But why does it assume I want to change the background image? In my planet, people don't change the background as often as they change between silent and normal mode. The UI is newbie-unfriendly enough to allow individually setting whether an ambience actually changes the ringer volume or not.... and yet I can't make an ambience NOT change my background!

Also, I guess like everyone else I miss the swipe to lock gesture; because of the above issue, my ambience menu is empty either way.

But generally, I like it. I find no significant performance difference, and it seems more finished. Now waiting for redesigns of some of the main programs and after that for general bugfixing to resume :)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Aha, that's what it is there for! Thanks, that eliminates one drawback.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

I know, but it's still a multi-step process. That's what makes it slow, not the animation.

Actually, the entire lock screen concept reminds me of my daughter's Android tablet. Unlike my N900 and my wife's XpressMusic, where you unlock with a slider and find yourself back where you were before the lock. If that was in an app screen, then that's where you return. Simple, efficient, fast, intuitive. On the Jolla I have to make four steps to get back to where I was.

Yes, the long press to dismiss hasn't changed, thank Mustafa. And yes, I also agree that the finer granularity makes for better organization. But I would still like opening an app X to clear all notification for an app X. It just feels right.


BTW, a curious thing just happened. I was typing this on my Jolla and swiped down the keyboard to expose the Submit Reply button and everything that was under the keyboard appeared blurred. I had to scroll the page a little to make it sharp again. I never witnessed that before 1.1.9.x. I just tried it again and it is 100% reproducible, although the more you type the more obvious it is.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

I've now installed it, and used it enough to have some initial impressions.

- Animations generally look a lot better.

- Buttons, though obviously now buttons look like they were rendered in MS paint.

-Status bar. Finally. Praise spaghetti monster.

-Notifications screen looks massively better.

-Not being able to pin 4 folders to the bottom of the main screen with all frequently used apps contained therein slows workflow significantly, forcing you to swipe to the app grid. An option to do this would be good.

-Speaking of the (ugly) app grid ... I still don't understand why it is unthemed. It's always looked like an afterthought and remains so now.

-The only thing the lock screen (and pulley menu) were previously good for was quickly silencing / muting the phone. There's no way to do this at all now. Which is a total joke.

-Ambivalent about change to buttons rather than swipes for app covers, but that they haven't been expanded upon is pretty bad - we've desperately needed a wifi / mobile data toggle forever on the settings app cover as Conman is so poor and connectivity so unreliable.

- Still very little configurability of gestures. Jaakko said he'd be looking to make it more configurable in response to some feedback. Hope this hasn't been abandoned.

-Split screen mode isn't in and hasn't even been mentioned since the end (initial end) of the kickstarter. Schedule was for October .... I wonder if they've even started work on implementing the code for it and how long it will take.

-Pulley menus seem less stuttery, but the one on the lockscreen is totally pointless and the option to lock the screen with downwards swipe seems like a bizarre thing to take out (again, option please).

-For those already familiar with the OS and its resource issues, the dead app covers just serve as an unpleasant reminder of how bad this is. But given that you can't quickly access your most used apps anymore, I guess this attempt to sweep it under the rug is better given the new UI.

-Lack of improvement of core apps is shameful. Little to nothing has been done in 2 years. Either functionality or design. That they don't have folders implemented yet in Gallery is particularly extraordinary, given that tablets are first and foremost intended for media and browsing. It's been done to death already, but still no text highlighting in browser (or notes) and no global copy paste. what is so hard about this? we don't even have an ETA for these most basic functions of a modern OS.

- Apps do close much more smoothly, but this is about it as far as I can see for performance improvements. Oh, and keyboard hasn't hung on me yet, but that was more of a bug.

- Performance wise, nothing has changed. Apps still hang when loading the CPU to a significant extent, OOM is still awful, browser is still dog **** slow, and there is still a huge gulf in performance between native apps and android apps in Alien Dalvik (I still suspect a bad or very rudimentary task scheduler in SF). I know some were hoping for change here, but there are no signs of hope that are obvious.

-Speaking of the browser, there seems to be a new rendering bug. When a reasonably complex site is being loaded and it's semi-hanging (as happens constantly), when you scroll, text and images that were off screen but already loaded in are blurred out, and then only unblur when it unhangs after 2-3 seconds. It looks awful, and it's yet another reason not to use the frankly appalling browser. Also, why can we still not swipe to close tabs? Opera and FF on Android let you, so why does the native browser of a "gesture based" OS force you to press a button?

I could go on, but so far I feel like it's a case of the emperor's new clothes.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

I think you don't seem to notice what's the difference there. There is no slider on Jolla. If I click the power button on my Jolla and on my N900, they behave exactly the same - a lockscreen is shown and I can unlock it with one additional gesture.

The difference with slider is that it cannot be easily unintentionally pressed, unlike buttons. Lockscreen is definitely needed on devices, where you can press the power button/doubleclick in pocket (it happened to me quite a few times) by accident.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Go to "System -> Gestures -> Quick app closing" and toggle it on. IMHO, it should be on by default.

PS : my fault, I missread it as "swipe to close".

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Exactly!

So on the Jolla we have the powe button, just like on the N900. And, surprise surprise, they behave the same.

So what would be the Jolla's equivalent of the N900's slider? Something that is not too easy to unlock by accident? Is there such a thing at all? Hey, wait, how about the double tap on the screen?

The N900 has two ways of unlocking and they operate differently. Jolla also has two ways of unlocking, so why do they operate the same?

Oh, and BTW, Jolla's and N900's unlock through the lock screen are NOT the same. On the N900, unlocking gets you to where you were before. On the Jolla, it gets you to the home screen.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

He said swipe down to lock, not swipe down to close ;)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Thanks, my fault, I commented the last post.

About Sailfish 1.1.9.28, I liked it a lot. It is more Harmattan-like (the events screen is now really useful), shows more than 9 app covers, the new buttons are better than the old ones (with underline), etc.

I hope to see more landscape everywhere in Jolla smarphone with Sailfish 2.0, mainly for use with TOHKBDv2.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Seems they know about it, as the "next OS upgrade" section in the release notes mentions it:

• Enhance the speed of pulley menu selection animation

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

This comes from "Browser graphics architecture updated" in the release notes. :) It can also show up briefly during scrolling of long pages, which is now more fluid and at least doesn't show black screens.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Installed yesterday and so far... I like it. Looks good, though I do need more time to get used to it until changed things come by naturally. I guess my wife will have smaller learning curve when she changes to Jolla some day, now using my old N9...

What I miss the most is full landscape mode, as I use the phone almost daily in my car. For the same reason ambiences should have more functions than to just change ring tones and appearance. Like changing to car mode ambience would automatically enable bluetooth etc...

The browser feels smoothier, however at times it still takes time for it to actually start loading web pages. Memory consumption may also be not that optimized as OOM kicks in very fast after some time of browsing. Leaving app covers open eases the pain as it's not necessary to restart those apps from grid anymore.

Events view is fine and will improve as more feeds are enabled in next update.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Did you know that a double press of the power button wakes straight to home screen? Works only when lock code is not required, though.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

No, I did not. Wonderful, thanks! One more negative point down.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Sorry, I used the wrong word in my previous post - I meant to say double tap instead of doubleclick. What I was trying to say was that double tap can be accidentally triggered, just like the power button. It happened to me quite a few times (even in my pocket).

But yeah, I forgot about the power button double click option :)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

One thing I really like is the "tap home screen to bring up 4 favorite applications".
This action immediately feels intuitive and this is an ideal spot for putting the camera / phone / message application!

Disappointing to notice that from the moment you launch 1 application and keep it running, this functionality is GONE. Pressing the blurred out area (even if it is 80% of display area) next to the minimized applications gets you nowhere.

From there if you like to launch the camera you need to pull up the whole application icon grid and it all turns into a nostalgic iPhone 3 experience.

And yes, in the quick menu the camera is on the bottom and in the full grid the camera is on the top. Inconsistency all over the place.

I get this must have been discussed before.

But I am just amazed about how they ,128 persons minus one, can get it almost right yet not succeed in bringing full consistency throughout the interface.

Or are they deliberately trying not to copy functionality from Maemo, which OS flow they should know inside out? Especially the N900 had "press empty desktop space next to minimized app icons" to return to desktop / favorites icons. And I did not need a manual to figure out its use!

Is there already a together.jolla.com request to fix this?

Edit: ok I found it: https://together.jolla.com/question/...creen-sfos-20/

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Did I just experienced first Google calendar notification from event ever in my Jolla days??!!? :D

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

I feel like the lack of swipe customization is a huge f*** you to all left handed. I cant live without swipe notifications menu but while im not technically either right ot left handed, i hold the phone with left hand because i can grip the phone better using headphones in jack (in landscape). Its practically impossible to reach right edge with my left hand so i feel crippled.

Finnish keyboard has somehow improved as my typing errors have gone down massively.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

You can access notifications from left side as well.
Or what did you mean? Maybe I did not quite get it...

But it seems that Google notifications are now working. I get alarms from my calendar before meetings.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

I haven't updated yet, but I am wondering if all apps are still slow to load initially (even tiny native ones)?

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

For me, this is less of a problem caused by SF OS but rather a problem caused by too big a screen. If I could reach the respective other edge of the screen when using the phone with either one of my small hands, those gestures would not be a problem but rather increase the number of options.

Therefore I really wish we had a smaller Jolla phone. The present device's size just compromises the idea of easy one hand operation - and thus one possible USP of SF OS.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

is it just me or does the unlocking the phone take forever because the crappy side arrows take forever to load.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

No change at all. Only detectable change re: performance as far as i can tell is that apps close more swiftly and without hanging now.

Furthermore, I don't think I can use this as a daily driver and will be staying on 1.1.7.28. Some of the UI changes have just made workflow too inefficient, awkward and frustrating. I really hope they actually listen to feedback this time, and at least allow us the option to customise the experience, if they don't change the default one.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

you don't need to wait for them, but ridiculously a small swipe won't work, you need a more or less full cross screen swipe (which is never necessary elsewhere in the OS) and feels really inconsistent and annoying if you want to grab your phone and use it quickly.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Agreed that a small swipe should be sufficient but you could try and practice releasing your finger in the middle of the screen.

A half the screen swipe is all it takes. ;)

You can start the movement from the side to the middle or from the middle to the side of the screen. Choice, flexibility!


Waiting for Jolla to fix / include "press background of home screen" to bring up 4 favorites even when one ore more applications are open.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

+1

(+10 chars)