The Finnish company Jolla is back with the Linux-powered Jolla Phone. It’s being positioned as an antidote to the US-dominated smartphone status quo of Android and iOS.
The Finnish company Jolla is back with the Linux-powered Jolla Phone. It’s being positioned as an antidote to the US-dominated smartphone status quo of Android and iOS.
Fediverse is like “oh, I wish there would be some other option to phones apart from android and iOS!” When you show them there’s another option, all are going like “it’s fucking obsolete, it can’t even run android apps and it’s not cheap enough, I will use android and iOS because they are better! And reasonable priced.”
They are mostly different people. One group of people comments on their desire for something open when something closed is mentioned, and another group comments on the downsides of something open when it’s being discussed.
That’s not just the fediverse, sadly. That’s most of humanity. Everyone is complaining “Oh big tech is sooo bad I want to get away from those companies” but the second you suggest options they will say: “Oh no it’s too inconvenient”. Hell, you can get away from big tech today if you wanted to, but you want it to stay as convenient as it is. You can get a privacy respecting browser, install addons that block any tracking, get an old pixel, install graphene (via the extremely comfortable web installer that every dummy can use), install linux, use an alternative search engine like DDG or searxng and you’re like 80% done.
People like to complain about big tech. But they don’t want to do anything that inconveniences them. Online activism at it’s finest.
and even when they go to alternative platforms they usually get duped to using something that isn’t really any better…
Yeah, you said it better than I.
There is a reason it’s a duopoly, making a competing phone eco system to rival two of the wealthiest companies in the world is not easy. Microsoft tried but even they didn’t have enough money. People need apps, because companies want us to use their apps and there are only two app stores, one is walled off so you basically have to run Android apps or convince every company to make an app for your OS. I’m not wealthy so I only buy a phone every 8-10 years… if I can’t ensure I can do my banking shopping and entertainment on my phone I can’t buy it, and every banking/shopping/entertainment site is designed to be terrible on a phone so they can get you to install their app.
Money was not the issue. Timing and smarts were.
Timing is a given… the whole point is now there is a duopoly it’s impossible to compete.
Windows Phone OS was excellent, smooth, efficient and relatively intuitive with flagship models competing with Google and Apple.
The problem was getting apps created for the App Store with the lowest market share. The phone sector was losing money, it did that for years with no great improvement in market share. The call was made entirely because Microsoft can’t have a red mark on their balance sheet for that long without investors getting annoyed.
It was the money.
And why was there such a poor app ecosystem and low market share? Because Android and iOS had already cornered the market before Microsoft decided in late 2010 (!) to make a half-assed attempt at entering the market. And if you’re so late to the game, you must at least do it smartly and offer features the others don’t. Microsoft did not, and thus had to back off eventually.
So if you look closely, it was timing and smarts.
I wouldn’t call $7.6 billion half-assed, but maybe that’s just me.
I can throw $100 billion at a problem and still have a half-assed strategy, causing the money to burn up in the process. (I’d really love try this out, btw. I’m just $100 billion short.)
My problem with Sailfish is the UI is proprietary, which is a step back from Android. I also don’t think this phone uses a mainline kernel, which limits long-term support to whenever their chosen LTS kernel goes EOL.
What I want is a phone that has a fully functional mainline Linux kernel, which currently does not exist. It’d be even better if the primary bootloader was replacable, similar to how coreboot can be installed on some laptops.
It is very nice to see a phone with a removable battery and a microSD card slot, though.
Just going by your listed requirements: N900 with Maemo Leste.
Of couse its Hardware is to limited for todays tasks (Web)
Yeah, I don’t use my phone for gaming or any other intensive applications. I use it mostly for communication, authenticators, and music. As long as it has a 3.5mm jack I dont care.
There is no 3.5mm jack. I was like this for years but 10€ dongle can help although it is not ideal for some people.
But Sailfish does run Android apps.
I wonder how well nowadays. I’ve seen some talk about using Waydroid with Sailfish too.
Most people care about convenience more than about Freedom.
I get what you mean, but I’m of the same sentiment: I don’t need 1TB of internal space nor to play Cyberpunk on the go, I just need a simple phone for calls, texts, GPS, bank and other lght tasks, and I can’t spend €650 for maybe half of those to work; it’s frankly too much.
Absolutely same, with one caveat… I want my phone to have the best possible camera I can get. …two caveats, I want to also keep my phone for as long as possible. If I use a phone for five years and it’s still fast and has a relatively nice camera after five years, 1200-1500USD is totally reasonable.
I didn’t even need to upgrade to THIS phone when my last one was five years old, but I wanted more space for pictures (I keep about 20k on there at a time)… and switching to 120hz for scrolling web sites also was a huge bonus
I have supported this project and intend to buy the phone.