Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Sorry, I was referring to relevant players (Apple / Android); as much as I hate to say this, Ubuntu vision is a minor player and IMO does not have the strength to shape the mobile industry yet.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

You can't be serious. That thing not only looks ugly and bulky, but fragile too. And I don't think it could be used on the tram conveniently either.

On the other hand, an N810-like device with modern hardware would do the job well enough. The Neo900 comes to mind, but that is quite small for truly productive use.

(Although I was more productive on the N900 than on the N9 or the Jolla combined.)

A 5" device with a slide-out keyboard and an N950-like slider mechanism would be perfect.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

But it exist. Contrary to some pie-in-the-sky projects.

And it works very well as a handheld gaming device for a tram.
I'm sure it is as good for "productivity" as a smaller N900, or even better. ;P

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Sure, but the Pyra is not something I could use when I'm on-the-go, eg. on public transport.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

There is one more thing Maemo did right, which MeeGo/Mer/SailfishOS didn't learn from - the apps ecosystem.

Maemo tapped the existing GTK+ apps ecosystem - it took a day or two of hacking to "Hildonize" a GTK+ app to work on Maemo device. And work pretty well.
Whereas in MeeGo line all apps needed to be created for scratch.

Compare the repos here for Maemo5 and the poor OpenRepos for MeeGo etc.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Why?

What would it take for your imaginary device for you to be able to use it on public transport?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

It needs to remain usable with only one hand, when I use my other hand to hold on. Also, it needs to fit into my pocket.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

NOW we have a good argument here.
The portability of apps makes a whole lot of difference; although it's not a disruptive-type-of-feature; BB for example supports QT, Native, Adobe Air and android and we know how well that went.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

The problem with BB10 was that it was too late. If it arrived earlier (even with a reduced feature set), its adoption rate would have been much better. Also, they never got around to supporting Qt5 properly...

By now, even Blackberry has succumbed to Android. :(

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I already have two of these, which is the reason I know how good the trackpoint idea is on that form factor. I even upgraded one of them with an SSD. i still keep an edge data line active just for it.

the only problem with these is the huge depth which makes it unpocketable. no doubt caused by the large laptop-sized fan which is also extremely noisy and almost always on.

also, i would like to try similar hw on a 3ds-like form factor, i.e. "landscape clamshell"

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

A modern Psion Series 7 would be nice as long as it majors on a long battery life and being able to be charged from fairly low output USB (0.5A) so you could charge it from solar/bicycle.

The main problem I had with the n900 was it wasn't big enough and the battery life was shocking for a portable computer. I also thought it was rubbish as a phone compared to the n9 but you pitch your compromises in different places.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Start where it hurts the most, what are key features missing in iOS and Android? Enterprise grade security with publicly audited code. For that you need to release all software with a 3-way-license. What software and services are key to such effort and what would be a gamechanger? Make the OS a client with offline capabilities. In an ideal setup, I just login to a new or random phone, it syncs with my own service-server or Jolla-server(for $user required) and after the sync I have everything I had on my lost phone, including but not limited to certificates, pgp-keys, networks, vpn and other settings. Additionally you may add content like video/audio/pictures. The most sane ways I see as a solution are either default full device encryption or have all security relevant data in a container that is read once after boot and as is synced to a server - it might even be on sdcard or synced publicly as it is encrypted. Plain settings and services are some xml and size is not a factor as long as regular files are either separated or already in the base system. For that all installed (security) software needs to follow strict rules.

Also services like secure texting and filetransfer are a must have, sure it will need another server infra + clients for android and iOS and the others, but as it is open-source anyone can port it to whatever platform (desktop clients are always asked for), or you could use something already existing.

From what we have now, this is getting thevault to become a service instead of a settings feature. Everything else can or should be implemented around said service.

A second layer of security can be added on top later, like NFC yubikeys or authentication service with Jolla for recovery purposes.

I can go on and on about what way it could go after that but for now, I see a fire and forget approach a good idea, people do not want to have themselves look after their devices, they never do - so that is what I would start with, attack the service flaws.

And drop android support, it is a security flaw and prevents developers from porting with notes like "my android version works fine"

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

@chemist Sounds an awefull much like any Android

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

The day Jolla drop Android support is the day I walk away and never come back. The Sailfish browser just isn't good enough and if you remove the ability for me to use the Opera apk, that makes the phone unusable.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Living proof that support for Android actually hurts the Sailfish ecosystem.

No incentive at all to fix the Sailfish browser.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Trackpoint! Trackpoint!

As I was saying this is one of the things the microPCs got right. It is surprisingly usable one-handed (for anything other than a right click), even for pointing into microscopic sized web links (where capacitive screens suck at or required two hands). I even made a small X program that would scroll the current active focused window if you tried to move the mouse past the edge of the screen.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

:) Yeah, I can just see me trying to write code on an iPhone. But in any case, the thing I value with my n900 is that, if I need to take my work with me, I can edit text in vim on my mobile device. Not a vim-like app, not a cut-down, finger-painting-optimized version of vim; no, the full-blown desktop version of the program. And, with a hardware keyboard and a high-resolution stylus, I have no trouble doing real work with it.

Apple really is making every effort to integrate their iPod / iPhone / iPad experience with their OS X experience, and I give them credit for that. But yeah, iOS is its own weird system, not the same as OS X, with different apps and a different UI.

Man, why does it have to be different? Why do I have to give up my desktop applications? (This is a question for Sailfish as well, I guess...)

I guess I don't have anything personal against using the cloud myself. However, I also don't see any need for the cloud to be sticking its nose into my business if it doesn't need to. ;) I've got plenty of local storage on my desktop machines, and can easily connect my mobile devices to my desktop machines, given that I'm sitting right next to them most of the time...

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I'd not second that, in fact, I'd almost go the opposite way and suggest instead to include an iOS compatibility layer (opensourced) .

I do not believe that not having Android support would have improved SFOS's status more than having it..

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I'm not sure what to do if Jolla drop Adroid support. on one side I would be sad, because there are some apps which I really don't want to miss: Offline wikipedia, Proper Offline Navigation and it gives you some flexibility. So yes, as long as the ecosystem isn't really big I would defintely miss the Android support. Walking away could be the solution. But where to go? Android itself? Nope! BB10? Is dying! IOS? Just kidding!

I for myself doesn't miss to much on sailfish (besides the thr things told above). I use Android apps. But just from f-droid. The sailfish-Browser isn't that bad. Just missing copy and paste. And there is also WebPirate...

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I think the Sailfish Browser is the best part of the system actually (excluding the UI, that is). Its very fast, yes it has its quirks, and yes it has it's problems, but compared to other browsers I had experience with (including webpirate, sorry guys) it still is better.
All in all, it's a great example of how OpenSource can work.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

As everyone are asking for different form factor devices and everyone wants something different. Why not take the TOH idea a little bit further. Check the C.H.I.P. (there is even thread on TMO) and the PocketC.H.I.P. Basically you can have some "soul" part (like chip) that can be connected into different HW (see it as PocketC.H.I.P.) and everyone gets what he wants with single board and various extensions(to netbook, tablet, phone and etc).

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I'd be okay with an N810 if it had modern hardware. I never quite understood trackpoints.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I'm sorry if this is offtopic/irrelevant, but if you need to be productive and do work while traveling on a public transport you should seriously take a look at your life and your priorities...

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Why? Maybe you'd prefer I'd just waste an hour or two per day doing nothing instead?

There's people out there who actually enjoy what they do for work.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Of course, but a public transport is far from ideal for any mental work. Maybe read a book or listen to some music while commuting?
I just can't imagine doing any serious work that is so noisy and moving etc.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I think the android support is more of a hindrance than a help tbh.

Some of the apps you mentioned (like offline wikipedia) don't seem like they would take a long time to create for sailfish, but the availability of android alternatives means there's less motivation to write one.

This leads to the "sailfish has no apps" complaint. Meanwhile, people are getting a worse experience running android apps within Sailfish (two completely different interfaces) and are constantly reminded that they could just cut out the hacky alien dalvik and use android directly. At the same time, Jolla picks up flak for all the imperfections in AD, and spends a lot of time fixing them (which also raises complaints).

I don't see the sense in relying on non-free Android support to be part of the Sailfish experience when it could stop working pretty quickly if Jolla stop developing it. Not saying I don't understand why individuals use it, but it's basically a tragedy of the commons - we'd all be better off in the end if nobody used it.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

what if that "serious work" is actually more entertaining than reading a book?

i am not saying everyone should love what they work on, nor that I do. but if they do, why the artificial barriers?


P.s. and I consider this fully on topic, since it is the main raison d'être for the entire "mobile computing" thing: to be able to do stuff on the go.

I wrote this while on public transport...

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

There are plenty of us that can problem solve at a high level under many different conditions, sometimes in the form of daydreaming. It's core to our person. You don't sound like one of those.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Speak for yourself. Perhaps it's a knack you develop but I've been known to switch off from others for hours on trains. Some of my best work has been coding on long train journeys, especially if there's no wifi to interrupt.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

There's a lot to happen while you're on a Train... :D

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

As it happens I did some pretty ground-breaking work for the first version of ubiboot while travelling by train from Helsinki to Oulu.
(January 2013 if I remember correctly...)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Trains just happen to be the type of place where you can actually focus on something :)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Has to do with the fact that desktop UI does not work well on smartphone form factors. But I agree, that it is a shame one has to give up desktop applications for something as big as a tablet. At least the option of using them would be nice, besides the optimized tablet apps.


Agree with that. You should not be forced to use the cloud if you don't want to. There should always be the option of using local sync.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Couldn't someone at Nokia just give the blueprint of N950 to Jolla to fit there Jolla2 Phone into that sliding case? Well, maybe just not actual concern at Jolla at the moment...

So maybe vice versa: Jolla licencing SFOS and Nokia updates the N950 hardware.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Microsoft would own all that - why don't you give them a call and ask them if they would be interested in abandoning their Windows 10 effort to focus on Linux phones with physical keyboards?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

ah, bummer! I thought it would fall back to Nokia next year or so?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

As serious as it sounds; it could be their better shot :P (joking)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Maybe you can't. For me it's great to focus on something.

Same here. But on a train it's easy, I can just pull out my 13" laptop and do whatever I want. What I miss is the ability to do the same in places which aren't so convenient (eg. tram, bus, metro...)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I wonder if the porting to Android devices would have been given more attention and official support in there was no Jolla device to sell. Are there any devices that have every component working in their ports yet? If there was a model where you could get a basic Sailfish OS working with a nice installer, basic apps, full control of your device and more performance without the Android bloat to rejuvenate old devices, then you could attract whoever isn't happy with what Android did for them without asking today.

Then you add a Sailfish store with paid apps, including the current licensed parts like Alien Dalvik and the text prediction, and you could actually make money. It'd be a stronger business model than Cyanogen even. You could open source much more of Sailfish too without worrying about your revenue stream.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

If meego had died there, we would have the same situation we have now: a duopoly. So no difference in there.


If jolla never existed; where would the difference be?

Assuming libhybris would have been created (that is, before the operating system) a hypotetical jolla-like company , would have had better chances by focussing excusively to skip hardware development and focus on existing hw. This would have allowed them to keep costs at a bare minimum, which would have given them more runway,as well as avoiding hyper-hyped underperforming devices.

Sure, perhaps the initial set of HW would have been extremely limited to start with; but most likely enough to attract attention from operators (and perhaps HW vendors), given the high differentiation from the top two.