Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Well you could say same about Canonical not being able to make a deal with Chinas largest smartphone supplier and focusing on world largest smartphone market.

Jolla might say "we will target on US market later on", but what they really are saying is that they might someday enter to the market. It just seems so obvious on how they talk about their market focus. China->Asia-->Europe-----> North America.

US is pretty much lost market with the current juggernauts and operators having full control on the puppet show. If Jolla somehow makes it big someday they might go for it, but i don't see it happening otherwise.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

It's not about carriers. It's about delivery logistics and warranty coverage, as well as about compliance with local regulations (FCC and etc.). They can do all that without dealing with carriers. One doesn't need to care about juggernauts. Just offer an option to buy unlocked handsets in each market either through Jolla's official store, or through retailers but with normal warranty. That's it. Forget about carriers - there are more and more contract free / prepaid options emerging, which can be used with any decent unlocked GSM/LTE handset (just take care to cover all common frequencies - and you are set).

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Jolla probably wants to avoid US's insane patent landmines in the beginning.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

That's a possible concern, right. Does it mean Canonical is less scared of it?

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Less scared, or more comfortable in their financial situation to fight possible lawsuits.

Jolla is a startup after all. I find it very plausible they want to gain some fniancial strength before risking the ligatious landscape of US.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

I had a chat with Jolla and some others on twitter a few wks back, then one of Jolla's lead engineers joined in.
The exchange that transpired left me with the distinct impression that a mediocre SoC (for a premium device) is quite possible.
Novathor U8500 or L8540 "class" at best....
Maybe I'll try to dig it all up later if I CBF'd, I hope I'm wrong but I'm calling it now; mediocre* SoC will be used.
That's possibly excusable so long as the sw experience is; highly efficient/performant, open/hackable/flexible, quite feature-packed for a 1.x OS, & rock-solid stable for a 1.x OS.
Plus they'll have to make amends in at least one other hw area, e.g. the display etc...

*compared to other top-end smartphones that are available before or at the same time.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

U8500 sounds bad (no LTE). L8540 looks better already, though it's not the latest one (L8580).

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Yup, best it'll be IMO is "L8540 class", & by the time it's in consumers hands that'll be a weak proposition compared to what's on the market.
BUT (as mentioned) hopefully they'll make amends in other ways, + they probably should no longer price it at the very top-end (which is what they've hinted they'll do).

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

well, you cant build a premium device on an not premium SoC. hope you are wrong. If they use stuff like that they can't charge premium price like 500-700 Euro. It's more like 300 Euro.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

N9 was sold with a lowend outdated single core SOC and Nokia charged a premium price for it. Did you buy it or didn't you? :)

I'm fine with a dualcore SOC clocked at "medium" ranges (1,2 - 1,5Ghz), even LTE is useless for most europeans for the next 2 years. Pair it with 1 - 2GB RAM and it will be running super great if sailfish uses ressources like harmattan. Battery life could be good too with such a "medium" SOC.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

I waited 6 month and bought it for half of the release price. Still, the device is not premium and pretty slow. To me n9 has never been a premium phone and I think the initial price was insane.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

I never said the device was premium, just the price was.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

I don't even want a "high end" SoC, if that means it overheats very fast when doing some intensive stuff so it has to slow down again. The multi-core craze is also something I don't understand. There are still very few application which benefit from it. Dual core is nice tho, that would certainly help with fluidity of the GUI.

An ~1.5GHz dual core A15 or even A9 class CPU would do just fine for SailfishOS. Qt5 is here, with QML now based on the V8 Javascript engine and Webkit 2, which are much faster than what our N9 is equipped with. For the heavy lifting ther's still Qt, which is native compiled code which should be faster than Java on Android.

So yes, the SoC might be slower, but the platform might be able to compensate that.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Sailfish is using QT 4.8.x

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

That's not what the "high-end" SoCs are about, current market leaders perform extremely well, & needn't compromise on efficiency in the process.
Still, as I said, they can make amends in other areas, but if they don't, well...

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

I'm not expecting miracles from Jolla, but i will demand for similar SoC than the current competition.
People should not just accept whatever they throw out there and say the software will handle the rest. If not from the start, it will later on be a limiting bottleneck.

There's just simply no drawbacks on the current ~28nm SoCs and the next wave that includes Qualcomm 800 Series and 600 SoCs seem to only improve, a lot. Also, yes i will demand LTE from my ~600 euros smartphone as i use LTE already on my phone.

We might like the Jolla guys for various of reasons but we if anybody should demand the best from them.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

About the 1st Jolla smartphone :
- the SoC/processor is such that the drivers should be available to Jolla, and, if possible with the source code, so Mer/Sailfish OS can be optimized;
- the majority of smartphones nowadays have SoC's with dual core Cortex A9, which are a lot faster (2x-3x) than the TI OMAP 3630 (1 Cortex A8) of Nokia N9. So even the "worst case" would be a huge improvement with respect to Nokia N9 from 2011;
- also very important is the RAM, at least 1GB like Nokia N9, so Linux (Mer/Sailfish OS) can run the full multitasking at ease;
- Android smartphones needs powerful hardware to compensate for Java/Dalvik bloatware. While iPhone (e.g., 4S has only 512MB of RAM) has less powerful hardware but it is faster than Android smartphones. So what counts is the hardware & mobile OS combination;
- I bet on a Jolla smartphone with fast dual core Cortex A9, GPU Mail-400, 1-2GB of RAM and 4.3" screen. I hope they release a 2nd Jolla smartphone with a full qwerty keyboard (like Nokia N950/E7).

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

^They might aswell just re-sell the SGS2 with a Jolla sticker on top of the SAMSUNG Logo's and just boot their OS into the NAND.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Maybe Jolla isn't aiming for success yet? They probably intend this as a first generation 'HEY! Kum Looks @ us! Weer 4 reelz! LOLOL!' before they move on to their more serious attempt, 'Ahem.. yes, sorry about that. We've cleaned up. No, really.. this time we're serious! You can trust us!" second gen attempt.

There used to be a company named Leading Edge back in the 90's that made surprisingly good computers at the time.

Maybe Jolla could change their name to Trailing Edge and make surprisingly low-end hardware for their time?

Why so negative? It's the time for joy, we now have a decent alternative to Harmattan, maybe soon Maemo! :)

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Ubuntu released the 21st for devs. Can jolla beat them with the SDK?

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Probably not, but they'll likely beat them by a long mile with their OS on "final target" hardware, not just dev hardware/env.
And that final target hw is (supposedly) premium/top-end, whereas Ubuntu has said theirs will be targeting low-end (initially).

So umm, is this thread going to get back on-topic soon-ish, & be (somewhat) productive again?
I'm the first to admit that my own posts lately haven't helped in that regard...
Perhaps what's been discussed lately can be turned into something that's within the charter/intended_spirit of this thread?

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Ubuntu will be available for the Nexus 4. Is that already low end?

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

And it will be available for Nexus 4 less than one week from today.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Really, & totally end-user complete... I think not, it'll be very much "tinkerer territory"...
As I said, Ubuntu themselves have said they're targeting low-end (initially) for their smartphone(s).
Ubuntu on Nexus (or other top-ends) is not for Joe Bloggs the avg phone user, it's about attracting/leveraging the Android dev community.
Which I'm the 1st to admit is a very good way to go, why on earth Jolla aren't going for a similar approach, is beyond me.
Perhaps it has something to do with the different models they're planning for Sailfish_Alliance, maybe it wouldn't work going that route.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Have to admit, I don't come by too much any more, even though i still use my N9 as a daily driver.
Having just grabbed a quick look at the last 3-4 pages of this thread, I'm reminded why i don't.
I'm surprised to see (especially amongst some who i assumed would know better) so much of the "me too" crap about hardware specs, as though keeping up with the current generation of hardware shipped on android devices is, by any measure, a determination of the performance of an OS like Meego/Mer/Sailfish.
that the OS appears (to all extents, as seen on the previews thus far shown) to run as smooth as it does on 2+ yr old hardware like the n950, is itself indicative of what high quality optimised code matched to the right hardware can do.
I'd be more concerned about application development for the OS and the integration of key services.
A great SDK, with a range of options to automate and assist with porting of existing apps, will do more for Jolla in the long run than the hardware on their initial device(s).
The Chinese market is far less interested in the hardware pissing competition that is being bandied about in the Western World...

True, and may I remind you of the N900. The hardware wasn't the best but runs Maemo 5 smoothly. Even runs Quake :P

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

N900 was mostly competitive when it 1st came out, same can't be said for the N9, but yeah, that's never been an issue for me personally.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

PocketNow Interview with Jolla :
pocketnow.com/2013/02/14/jolla-sailfish-interview

Interesting part : "So we’ll start with one device, which we’ll announce soon, and afterward other devices will follow."

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

I just noticed that one of the questions I asked in the document has already been answered.

This was my question:

This is the response:

I realise that the primary customers of Mer are device vendors but as a developer/end-user I can't help but feel hugely disappointed by this stance.

It's sad that coreutils and other packages will be left outdated and will require extra porting effort to work around the differences between versions but my main concerns lie with compatibility.

I hate to think about what sort of tivoized coreutils a device vendor might conjure up and the incompatibilities that could be introduced as result.

Having an old version of coreutils in Mer make also makes it difficult to target Plasma Desktop and Plasma Active with a single package given that most Plasma Desktop installations will be using a more recent version of coreutils.

The Yocto Project doesn't seem to have a problem with GPLv3 in coreutils.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

@wicket: You are free to discuss this problem with Mer developers on the mailing list or the IRC channel. I think there are good solutions for that - to make some metapackages with bundles - default with some packages restricted to GPLv2, and optional ones where those packages will be replaced with updated versions even if they are GPLv3. So if vendors care - they'll use GPLv2 bundles. And if not - they'll use unrestricted ones. And users will be able to simply replace default ones with optional if they need to.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

I read that article few days ago, I didn't find that part very interesting TBH, it's nothing more than a statement of intent at this point in time, unfortunately.

As an additional, @wicket;

If you get further feedback from the mail-lists, IRC channels, or elsewhere that offers a workaround/sol'n to your concerns, please do refine the answer in the doc, or share it here.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Some very revealing stuff about Ubuntu for Mobile...
https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/...59604455600128
In that thread there's a link to a Phoronix article, it's worthwhile reading that & it's corresponding thread.
Personally I'm quite disappointed they've gone this route, Ubuntu's moved further down my interest list.
I still wish them well, but Sailfish's success is now even more crucial/important.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Unfortunately when you introduce such meta-packages you introduce fragmentation in OS compatibility. If a vendor chooses to Tivoize their Sailfish product it's likely that they won't let you replace packages in the core OS. You'll have devices that allow meta-packges where your app will run but it won't run in those Tivoized devices.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

Sailfish won't prevent you from installing other packages (they don't support DRM and any such junk). The only potential concern can be incompatibilities between these bundles. But nobody will stop you from choosing.

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

The point of Tivoization is to prevent the user from replacing system software (usually firmware). If Sailfish is going to allow us to override core operating system packages then it doesn't support Tivoization. I guess the intention of the GPLv2 packages would be for other potential (non-Sailfish) Mer derivatives. Could we get some sort confirmation from Jolla that it is only Mer, not Sailfish that allows Tivoization?

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

@wicket
I think we need to be careful about how we define sailfish in the context of jolla handsets and vendor handsets.
Certainly it has been implied, if not stated categorically that Jolla intend to license Sailfish OS to device vendors, in which case, you could expect tivoisation for the whole stack with these builds.
That does not imply or suggest that Jolla devices (non vendor specific devices) will not be open to support installation of other core components.
I would assume that if this is the case, then it is up to the individual who is hacking on the device to fix anything that such mods might break in the rest of the stack, by installing new builds of Mer core components.
just my .02c (relevent state or federal taxes may apply)

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

We really need one of the mer/sailfish folk to pop in & clear some things up, sadly they're almost completely averse to having anything to do with TMO :-/
stskeeps was going to, but has now said he's too busy & trying to avoid paces like TMO, which can be a distraction (he's been sick, so lots of time was lost).

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

They are simply unlike, What can I say. They should put Stskeeps in charge of everything!

Re: Sailfish(Jolla): Ideas/Qns & Concerns/Criticisms
 

I can understand their reticence to post on a public forum. Given how much has already been misquoted or taken out of context, it's just not good drills to do it.
I would think (and hope) that Jolla would have something in store for when the SDK is released, be it a forum or some other channel for communication to ensure tight comms with the developer community who will work on application development.
I would also think that we will get all the info we need, as we need it and on their terms. That's common sense and good business practice. As a small enterprise with everything to lose, they are playing their cards very close to their chest.
On a brighter note, I'm very happy to see that they're working with Creoir as these guys have some of Nokia's greatest hardware, design and mechanical talent on board. Think, some of Nokia's most iconic design concepts and the team at Creoir were probably behind it....... in another life :)