I don't understand the sentiment of your message. Of course it is one of the main selling points and especially in the situation you described. Of course it is subjective, but I can say that the Sailfish UI is the main thing I miss on other devices - it is easy and great to use. I have heard the same from other (non tech-oriented) people I have showed my Jolla to, so I am absolutely positive the great UI is a strong selling point.

First, of course you can have different UI on Sailfish - there is Glacier as an example what can be done and if there was any will, then it would be no big problem to port for example the LuneOS UI, as it is based on lipstick as well. So there is the possibility, but I suspect that the main reason why not more UIs for Sailfish have appeared is the overall satisfaction with the default UI (and I suppose that is not the case on Android and that's why there are so many skins).

Second, I am aware of the possibility to have different launchers on Android, and trust me I tried many, while trying to find a usable UI on the tablet, but none of them came even remotely close to webOS/iOS experience. The reason might be that the possibilities how to alter the UI on Android by changing the launcher are quite limited (see the struggles of Jolla Launcher on Android).

Maybe you know better and could recommend an Android launcher that can match the webOS/iOS/Sailfish tablet experience?

I wasn't talking about you - just reacting to your "only Android apps" scenario. For me, there are many different reasons why I chose Jolla/SailfishOS (GNU/Linux, Wayland, btrfs, RPM, multitasking, Qt/QML, the familiarity of the system, (mostly) open source, clear design language, TOH, wanting to support an alternative), but the UI is definitely among the major ones.

And again, please recommend me an Android UI that can match that experience.

Well, of course, their unique selling point is that you have more control over the OS than you would get from Google, potentially allowing you to insert your own branding items directly in front of your customer's eyes even more easily than Android would let you. You also have much better access to the source code of the OS, which is helpful for various purposes (such as security).

Because, of course, Jolla's business is selling Sailfish to equipment manufacturers! Jolla was never really interested in marketing their own hardware to end-users. (And it shows. )

I plan to finally start working on it again once I get the Jolla tablet in my hands. Kinda couldn't bring myself to work on it before that when there is some much to do on modRana.

But of course once it is running on the tablet it should also run on the Jolla phone (and other Sailfish-running devices), on Android and on Linux desktop. Basically all the modern platforms modRana supports that have Python 3 and Qt 5.

Honestly? I am still trying to figure that out. And, judging by Jolla's level of market penetration, so are their potential customers.

All I can say is what attracted me to Sailfish:
https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.ph...64#post1457464

I can totally appreciate this level of honesty. Thanks.

For me, it's just another platform that allows me to tinker like I did with my Nokia N810 (loved that device)...

You mean more access than even AOSP? Android is pretty darn open. Only Mer/Nemo perhaps is even more open. You don't have access to a few things - UI being one of them - in Jolla.

But openness rarely equates to sales. It ends up being a byproduct of other endeavors.

I can appreciate your answer though. Thanks!

Well, no, the user doesn't have access to the UI. But I would assume that Jolla's customers have access to the UI, at least to some degree.

That's the main complaint for Jolla folks and the UI. With that said, leave openness out of the discussion if you're picking and choosing... all or nothing.

But whether or not it is "more open", open or closed... that doesn't really begin to answer my original question surrounding if more tools for more varied use cases will ever appear.

Funny how "open" usually leads to rather closed-minded or closed-off situations for most anybody that is not well within how narrow a scope exists for a device or mobile OS.

Not exactly sure that's something that really matters any longer for anybody that's not in dev/IT. It just means it's open to be tinkered with, it seems.

Seems like they are maybe preparing to send the next wave of invites as I can now also now see the order completion items on the cart of my jolla shop account...


Edit: Ookay... and now the cart is empty again...

Edit2: Oops.. It's still visible through checkout/cart

It appears so... my items were back in the shopping cart in the special IGG shop and, erm, I paid. Why not? They may tell me off but I don't have to worry about VAT any more :P