Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

Sure - but ports to other platforms do not include Alien Dalvik - and without Alien Dalvik a device running Sailfish is pretty much a paper weight (unless you are happy with the provided applications), since Jolla have singularly failed to attract too many developers in to providing native apps

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

So a device.maker like HTC for example doesn't want to include alien dalvik and.maps? Strange...

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

I beg to differ. I do not have AD installed and there is not a single app that I am missing.

(OK, Skype would be nice as no one I know uses anything else but I can happily live without it.)

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

totally agree..im actually using phone without using android app but i have still alien dalvik installed in case of need..i miss onedrive , telegram, and some bank app.

Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, it's health -or lack thereof
 

Untrue. I have had the device as my main smartphone (whatever that means) for 1.5 years now and have not ever installed a single android application on my device... You could well say it is pristine and virginal in that sense :eek:


Hmm, last time I looked through all the provided apps in the Jolla store it starts to be quite a respectable amount of software! Did not even count it all but I would not be surpriset if there are more than hundred applications in the store.

Add all the stuff in OpenRepos to that... plus all the stuff I have ported for myself... it is enough for my needs indeed!

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

A lot of apps in store are actually android ones and you can argue as much as you can, there are not much apps for Jolla, I think even N9 that was released as dead device by same age as jolla had more apps.
It's true there are a lot of utilities, but though it's cool to have console and terminal but in 2015 smartphone should have smartphone apps too and not console ones :)

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

The apps problem is very real, and it's very disappointing that the store is still so restricted. Openrepos shows a little of what the app store should look like, but even those apps are still missing the investment and polish that paid apps would attract. I really hope now the core OS is stable, they can devote some time to approve mechanisms for developers to do things like run daemons, interact with user data such as calendars and charge for their work. Otherwise, the app store problem could kill the platform altogether.

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

https://together.jolla.com/question/...-applications/
You can check answers and comments from some people and potential developers.

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

I counted only the native applications of course. Android apps in the Jolla store are waste of space IMHO anyway.
And talking about N9, it had a huge range of applications available in the store, can you honestly say there was something you missed?
All in all, there are just about 2-digit number or so of possible applications that anyone could need, of course the personal mix of what you find useful might differ between people

I see no real need to have 10^6 applications in a store... Many people think that WP is bad because the windoze application store is limited; That is untrure. WP is bad because it is rigid; you cannot extend it, you cannot make the darn box do want you want to. It has nothing to do with the number of applications in store. iPhone has gazillion apps and it also sucks for the same reason.


Care to elaborate? Why would it be important to have "smartphone apps" whatever you mean by that?
Isn't it more important that you can accomplish all your tasks with the device easily and optimally without any extra hazzles, wouldn't you agree that the smarter the device is the less time you need to keep squinting at the UI and tapping at silly small buttons on it?

Having a console and real OS tools means you can automate a lot of tasks to the point that you need not touch any kind of UI. Try doing that on WP or iDevice. On Androidid is possible but more painful than on an OS built for that kind of workflow.

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

Totally agree with @juiceme, with less than 20 apps, you cover 95% of the user needs.

And regarding the support of paid app, juste have a look around the web. You'll read many articles about the fact that making a leaving with paid apps is a kind of mirage.

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

Indeed. However, do you really think that the sort of user for whom what you describe is a straightforward task is the sort of user that Jolla is now aiming for? I'd suggest that they need to appeal to a broader, more typical smartphone (and tablet) user if they want to stay in business (the console and command line tools would then be an added benefit for those that want and need them) - particularly if they are hoping to attract (and more crucially, retain) 3rd party OEM interest.

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

As for donations, just this morning I made a donation to the creator of Working Hour Tracker. Extremely nice tool that I have started using to keep tabs on how much time I really use working.

And mind you, the app in question is BSD licensed Fully Open Source SW and available in GitHub. (And frankly if it was not so I probably would not have made any donations, I do have my standards you see...)

So regardless of whether there are paid apps or not in the store, the people creating useful SW will be paid by someone.

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

Maybe, but how much? Enough to pay their rent/mortgage/car loan/kids' school?

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

lets ask to some developer, there are many on this site.

Coderus, cepiperez, nieldk and others, would you mind to tell us how much you earn with this work? or for respect your privacy if it is enought to live with that as primary fund?

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

Donations are probably never enough to pay for a living. But to keep the developer motivated to keep on working on it. And I personally use the donations I received to reinforce the ecosystem (buying tablet, supporting other developers).

I think you would need a very accepted app (many buyers) if you want to be able to live from paid apps as we still have very little sailfish users.

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

Absolutely, and guys do not forget this equation:

make a living = get money on a regular basis

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

So if you do not know what are modern apps and you do need UI with buttons, why did you buy jolla and not n900 that has most apps jolla has and cheaper and more hackable?
As well as it's kind of funny to hear guy who talks about open source and on other hand says that there is no need for several same apps. Maybe the freedom of choice and as well as competition is good.
You may as well tell that there is no need for Facebook or Twitter, but currently there is no proper apps even for that. But again I feel that any app that most people are using (even if it's not important time-waste apps) and is not on jolla I mention you'll tell there is no need for that. But guess what, I want to decide not to use Facebook app/chat and not to be forced because there is no option.
Those apps maybe are not most useful, and maybe you use ssh to connect to home server to switch song from toilet more often than using apps with UI, but those apps are standards for any smartphone.
And about UI vs console. Yes on computer console may be more useful than gui apps in a lot of cases, but not on the phone. You can't admire swipe, gestures and pulley menu (features of jolla being unlike) and at the same time to say you use console. You see the logic here? If you like swipes so much, but use only console apps?
And yes android and iPhone have hundreds of thousands shitty apps and programs, but still even if they have 10% of cool apps it's way more than jolla has in total - not to compare, just telling that you shouldn't judge android by bad apps, but by good apps, as most services, gadgets, iots support android out of box, android has system administration, console and terminal, and you can even compile kernel. So if you compare you should not compare good side of you fav product with bad side of other one. Btw there are roms which are more open source and hack friendly than jolla

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

HTC wouldn't be allowed by mother Google to make a Sailfish OS device with Alien Dalvik. Neither would any other Open Handset Alliance member.

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

Exactly how is HTC's mother Google?

And if so, then how did this happen?

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

As mentioned above, it is a member of the (ironically named) Open Handset Alliance and has to follow its rules.

As part of its efforts to promote a unified Android platform, OHA members are contractually forbidden from producing devices that are based on incompatible forks of Android

Since when Windows Phone (or specifically that version on the HTC phone) can run Android apps or is an 'incompatible fork of Android'?

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

More when it comes to Android. They're locked into a set of agreements that means while HTC produce Google-Android phones (the only type that'll sell in the western world), they're unable to produce or sell any phones with Android compatibility that don't run Google's exact version of Android. It goes by the innocuous name of the 'Open Handset Alliance'.

It's why there won't be an HTC Kindle, a Sony BlackBerry, an Acer Aliyun - or an Alien Dalvik-toting Sailfish OS device from any one of these manufacturers.

It means that for for HTC's bread and butter (smartphones), Google can leverage an unfair amount of control over what they do.

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

One can argue that those terms of the OHA are there to protect Android from fragmentation.

Still HTC could release a Sailfish phone without Alien Dalvik.

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

Just as Microsoft valiantly sought to prevent the fragmentation of web standards by bundling Internet Explorer with their incredibly popular OS, and not allowing OEMs to install alternatives?

And they could, but they're not stupid - it'd be DOA. No Dalvik = no official WhatsApp. That means next to no sales in Europe, which is the primary market for any Sailfish device. Google know that they're stopping competition by preventing the release of Android-compatible competitors.

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

FWIW, Jolla has released a Sailfish phone without Alien Dalvik ;)

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

That's not the same thing. For one, IE was never open source. Anybody can take Android's source and fork it, they just can't release devices with it and label it as official android (they won't get play services for it, for example).

The more reason for Jolla to focus on supporting developers of native apps (hint hint: payed apps).

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

It is the same. It's Google trying to force their services onto device manufacturers by preventing the release of devices that come without those services. Those services are being bundled into Android in the same way that IE was bundled into Windoze. The fact that Android is open source is irrelevant to this. It would be like Linus Torvalds saying 'you can't release a Linux device without my personal approval'.

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

I disagree. You can create an Android handset without Play Services and release it, without anyone suing you, see for example Amazon.

OTOH you could never release a device with Windows and leave out IE. Even removing it was impossible, which you can do on Android if you root your device.

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

Actually, no, they can't. Aliyun is an AOSP fork without Google Play services (much like Amazon's Fire OS). Google stopped Acer from releasing a phone with the OS, as it violates the Open Handset Alliance terms.

Alibaba: "Our partner was notified by Google that if the product runs Aliyun OS, Google will terminate its Android-related cooperation and other technology licensing with our partner"

They're leveraging their extremely popular (market share %) OS + app suite (which OEMs can't unbundle) to effectively force OEMs into contractual agreements which forbid them from selling devices with competing Operating Systems. This is anti-competition.

Google aren't allowed leverage the popularity of their OS + app suite to stifle competition - it's textbook abuse of monopoly. Google knows that if these OEMs try to 'go it alone' without Google's Android (and all that's bundled with it), they'll crash and burn. Much like how Microsoft knew OEMs would accept IE being bundled, because going it alone (with Linux or their own OS) would not be viable.

As a footnote, do you know who manufactures the Fire OS (Kindle Fire) tablets? Quanta Computing. Members of the Open Handset Alliance (which include the majority of Android OEMs) are contractually forbidden to produce Android devices based on forks of the OS.

This is a fairly good read regarding what's being discussed in this thread.

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

With all these said, there are ROMs of android without Google services and you can release phone with it, you lose Google support, but if you can replace it(provide alternative) it's not a problem. So it's not the same as IE, which was hard corded and forced as part of the code, while Google services are are just more like pass to google's eco system. In other words, IE is there in code, you can't uninstall it, but you are not forced to use it, while Google services are there and you can choose to not provide them, but you loose apps, maps and etc and in some ways you loose users.
CM are going to release ROM with alternative to Google services this year AFAIK

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

Take a read how did that work for Amazon and Samsung: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/...ans-necessary/

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

Please stop spreading the misinformation that 'Android' is 'open source'. It isn't. There's something called AOSP, which is a part of Android, but isn't a fully functioning operating system by itself. What's more, lots of stuff in AOSP has not been updated for years, but has instead been moved into proprietary Google apps (compare the AOSP music player versus Google's latest music player, the AOSP browser versus Google's Chrome, the AOSP Calendar versus Google's Calendar), under the pretense that this makes the applications better integrated. Sure, there's better integration - if you sell your soul to Google. Google has absolute and total control over Android, because they can just stop updating the free parts of the OS (which they have done, still do, and will keep doing), and place any aspiring phone makers into a situation where the only way out is to lose (one way is to lose users, the other is to lose 'Android'). Cyanogen(Mod) is a joke. AOSP/Android/whatever can and will devolve into a situation where the only (partly) free part of the system will be the kernel.

That's entirely the problem: it is impossible to provide alternatives to all of Google's prisons. They have taken their monopoly and used it so no one will ever be able to kick them off the throne again. Google must be completely destroyed for freedom to be saved.

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

Lol, I think that's the end of the discussion.

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

I do have N900 but the HW is fairly dated. Nice device but lacking memory/cpu/connections. And yes, I am waiting for Neo900 which adresses these problems.
Jolla is just as hackable as N900 is. And it is a natural evolution on the same principles.

BTW you still did not define the "modern apps" I asked about.


You delibrately misquote/misunderstand me.


Okay, I'll bite the bullet you throw to me; "There is no need for Facebook or Twitter" <--- You can quote me on that.
I use neither and see no value in them.


:D


You really really have not thought this through. I am not saying UI does not matter, I am saying that in addition to UI the important thing is to have the device be extendible/customizable to the point that you can easily automate tasks, that you do not need to rely on functionality decided by manufacturers and application vendors.
Look, it is not just about swipes; WP has swipes of it's kind but it is not extendible!

When you talk about "console" you seem to think that means using the console to launch functionality... When I talk about "console" I mean the whole works; functionality that does not need any UI to be useful;
Just some examples;

• automatically immediately uploading any pictures I take to my gallery online
• recording all my calls
• backing the device up each night
• setting device mode based on the location I am currently
• tracking my location and updating that to my private online route map

Of course android has shell console; however what makes it difficult to use is the fact that even as the kernel domain is linux the userspace is not libc-compatible and thus you have really hard time using the standard toolchain. It is just not meant to be used like that.
You talk about there being more open and hackable roms, but the fact remains that they still have the same bionic-induced problems as any android derivatives. The only one real alternative is SFOS I am afraid. :p

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

And is jolla's opensource part is fully working operation system and how is jolla different from google in the way they lead their company?

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

Yes. It is called "Mer"

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

So basically you are telling me that most people would need and prefer smartphone to compile kernel on it rather than having device using various services that ease your everyday life?

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

you can install mer on any device and it has UI and working system or just core with system apps/libs? And is it even less smarphone ready than opensource part of android?

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

You don't seem to understand. Google is evil and it must be destroyed. /s

Re: Sw ecosystem of Sailfish, its health -or lack thereof
 

How much we can worships companies, but most them would like to replace Google, most of them are same evil, just without power yet. Marketing ways changed a lot and the ways to make hype is made different, the funny thing is when it's done to people who actually believe that it is bad. They just playing that card against big corporates(same as Microsoft, google or apple did)

Re: Jolla 2 expectations
 

I said:


You said:


So how come I get the feeling you do not understand what I am saying??

Are you telling me that the functionality I describe is something that "does not ease my everyday life" ??