
Sailfish – a real alternative to iPhone and Android? - SethMurphy
http://qz.com/32922/here-comes-the-first-real-alternative-to-iphone-and-android/
======
whalesalad
No way. The UI is a gimmick. Watch the video.

Seeing him use it does not lead me to believe this will make my life better at
all. There are far too many intricate gestures and complex interactions.

This UI does not solve any problems. The interactive tiles that are
essentially miniature versions of the full app are just noisy. Part of the
beauty of this new mobile experience that recent smartphones have cultivated
is modal interaction. One app for one thing. I launch my music app and it's
full screen with large touch buttons that are easy to use. I switch to another
app to immerse myself in reading or responding to emails.

I never need to do this from my homescreen, let alone see or interact with all
of it at once.

The ambient photo stuff is neat but also entirely useless.

Nothing about this is radical. It's just a layer of more playful paint on yet
another mobile platform.

Why is everyone so fucking concerned with multitasking?

My android-fanboy buddy showed me something the other day that made me
chuckle. He says, "dude, look at this." He proceeded to load a video from the
media library, and started to play it in some kind of picture-in-picture mode
where it was floating above everything else on the phone. Then he tells me,
"how cool is this?! you can use your phone while the video plays." my simple
response, to which he had no answer: "when is that useful?" It's not! And he
proceeded to admit that, albeit with his tail between his legs. I didn't say
that to be an asshole, I just think that these days people are far too excited
about gimmicks and useless customizations. He then went on to say something
like "well what about if you want to watch a youtube video and also reply to
some text messages?" ... society is doomed.

~~~
whatshisface
>"when is that useful?"

I would like to be able to listen to youtube music videos while doing other
tasks.

~~~
pkulak
It doesn't work for Youtube. Only videos on the device. It's a joke.

------
elteto
"...a real alternative to iPhone and Android"

There is something about this title that just incites a negative reaction from
me. To me, it implies that the current available options are broken beyond
repair and that a "savior" is coming to liberate us from them, and boy... do I
hate self-proclaimed saviors, especially in the tech area.

Android/iPhone/WP7/Mozilla OS/$xyz are the options we have, and we don't need
a _real_ alternative to them anymore than we need anything else. New mobile OS
coming up? Great, competition benefits me, the end user, since my devices just
keep getting better. But please don't pretend to be something that you are
not.

~~~
daliusd
I guess headlines was written by journalist anyway. Actually you try to read
more from headline than it actually states.

------
mtgx
The UI doesn't seem like any radical departure. Even the BB10 UI is probably
more radical than that. I do like the fact that it's another open source Linux
OS, but for now I'm rooting more for Firefox OS, even though it's yet to be
seen if it will perform as well as Mozilla claims on low-end devices.

But I've noticed Firefox OS has given Mozilla a lot of incentives to create
new advanced HTML5 API's, and I like that. So the more they can keep up the
Firefox OS project alive, the better.

------
jasonkolb
In contrast to others here I actually kind of liked it. I really dug the idea
of making app icons interactive and useful, it's an intelligent use of limited
real estate.

Also, I'm not sure if it's just novelty or actually more intuitive, but I
really liked how the icon grid scrolls vertically rather than horizontally.
Maybe it's because of the aspect ratio of mobile screens but it just looked
more intuitive to my eye.

------
Spherical
They aim to crack China and their reasoning is that the big players haven't
got a foothold yet due to being a young-ish market.

At the same time they are looking to developers to create native apps for it
and hardly anyone is going to develop for a phone if their primary market is
China where 99.9% people steal.

~~~
goldfeld
"China where 99.9% people steal."

That's a pretty sweeping statement not to be backed by a source with a figure
even remotely resembling 99.9%.

~~~
Spherical
Source: A friend IOS App collecting analytics data. Sure, I could make it up
but that is the data he got back.

~~~
Volpe
Right and 99.9% of chinese run iOS... A more likely answer is you are just
Racist.

~~~
Spherical
I should have been more clear, so let me correct that for you, of 99.9% of
those that owned IOS and that downloaded his app - they did not pay for it.
For the record it got 4.5 stars with over 800 reviews so it not by all means
crap. That is the figure I was given. Given we were talking about mobile, I
was using that as my guide for a platform not yet on the market.

China has some of the highest piracy rates in the world—with a piracy rate of
96% in PC software, 93% in motion pictures, and 85% in records and music.
[“China Fever” F. Fang 2007, International Intellectual Property Alliance
(IIPA) report, Feb. 18. 2010 ]

[http://www.china-mike.com/facts-about-china/economy-
investme...](http://www.china-mike.com/facts-about-china/economy-investment-
business-statistics/)

------
pratfall
This is off topic, but if your website requires Javascript for me to read a
text article, fuck you.

------
herval
No.

There's a lot of options on the mobile space already (iOS, Android and WM8) -
which, IMHO is enough (not to mention BB, FirefoxOS, WebOS,
Maemo/Symbian/Whatever-Nokia)...

~~~
bergie
I don't think the prize for the 3rd place has been given out yet. Possible
contenders are BlackBerry, Bada, and WP. Symbian still sells ok-ish, but is
clearly a dead end. And then there are some new players including Tizen,
Sailfish, and Firefox OS.

Personally, I'd like to see a properly open alternative do well. Firefox OS
would be the best for the web, and Sailfish for Linux in general.

~~~
gbraad
> Firefox OS would be the best for the web, and Sailfish for Linux in general.

Agree to this... users do not care about Linux and often has a negative feel
among the masses in China; the try to be Windows when you can get the real
stuff for 'free'. They care more about access to service and being able to do
the same as their friends/colleagues, play games, access to 微信 (weixin,
wechat), 微博 (weibo), etc. For this the compatibility layer might come in
handy, since without it is hard to find the users.

Note: Blackberry and Bada are not really contenders in China. WP maybe, but
purely due to the looks of the phone (eg Lumia), but was faced with no store
access in China for a long time.

------
film42
Even if someone considers this a 'better' UI than iOS or Android (I personally
don't), there's no point in switching because as soon as you do, that $200+
you've spent over the last 4 years on apps is gone forever and you'll only get
less quality software as their replacement (if they exist). Apple and Android
don't just shoot for a 'sexy' look, they create thousands of docs and demos
from their SDK for the developers who then create hundreds of thousands of
tutorials to help other developers learn quicker. They then spend millions of
dollars and millions of hours creating the next big thing. The successes of
iOS and Android are not awarded to a design firm, they are given to us.. the
developer ecosystem and for that reason, this will never be a real
alternative... at least not for a long time.

------
general_failure
The UI is pathetic. Why are people so bent on such complex gestures? Scroll up
for this, scroll down for that, two finger slide up for another thing.
Seriously?

xemacs has a cult following and so will sailfish. But you know how xemacs will
do in the "market".

------
nimdahk
So... the big innovation here is "widgets." Something that android has had for
years.

------
halostatue
Application of Betteridge’s law of headlines says no.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridges_law_of_headlines>

It's also _not_ the title of the article (“Here comes the first real
alternative to iPhone and Android”), but the premise of the article invites a
negative response nonetheless.

1\. They have no production as of yet. 2\. They have no carrier partners as of
yet. 3\. They have a retail partner who will sell the phones—if the carriers
approve them.

The claim is that the retail partners control the mobile relationship with the
carriers in China, but that would greatly surprise me. It's not impossible,
but colour me skeptical.

It's also my understanding that Europeans don't necessarily get subsidized
phones, either—but they still (nominally) control which phones are allowed on
their networks.

It gets worse later in the article where it suggests that the carriers and
handset manufacturers are going to have even _more_ freedom to modify the base
OS than Android manufacturers do. This alone guarantees that Sailfish will not
be a viable platform—you will become as locked into a single manufacturer for
any app you buy just like you did with "feature" phones that had BREW or JME
games & apps.

The suggestion that Sailfish avoids patent infringement is also laughable:
there's so many patents out there that I suspect that absolutely no one can
write software that _doesn't_ infringe on _something_ these days. They _think_
that they've avoided patent infringement (just as Google does with WebM), but
until someone decides to sue over an alleged patent infringement, no one knows
whether Jolla would win.

There's an interesting bit buried in the story, too: they have changed CEOs at
least once. The current CEO is Marc Dillon; he attained that post in October
when Jussi Hurmola stepped down and became a consultant to the company.
Hurmola is supposedly looking after the Sailfish ecosystem. According to what
I saw on LinkedIn, Hurmola may have only had the CEO position for as little as
eight months, but possibly as much as eighteen (Jolla was founded in March
2011). For a startup with big ambitions, I would want as much stability at the
top as possible, personally.

~~~
daliusd
Where do you collect your facts? I'm not even sure if you don't have bad
intentions with your comment. It would be nice from your side to state your
relation to Jolla (e.g. competitor)

1\. Headline was written by journalist not by Jolla. OK I got it wrong. You
are negative to journalist, right?

2\. You are most probably right about production but you simply don't know.
You are wrong about carrier partners: they have one in Finland
([http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/11/21/jolla-signs-first-
ca...](http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/11/21/jolla-signs-first-carrier-deal-
with-finlands-dna-to-carry-upcoming-sailfish-powered-phones/)) and one in
China.

2\. Europeans can get subsidized phones but don't have to. You can use any
phone if you manage to get one. I even used one phone that is not for
production just fine (N950).

3\. I doubt that lock is an issue here. You basically can reflash your phone
with pure OS if you want to - like you can reflash your N9 with Mer now.

4\. I almost agree with you regarding patents but idea is that Jolla has its
own patent portfolio gifted to them by Nokia.

5\. Hurmola according to LinkedIn still works for Jolla. As well they are not
hiding why CEO was changed - they are quite transparent regarding that. Sorry,
but don't find that now.

I'm not related to Jolla in any way. I'm (mobile) developer who believes that
Jolla will succeed.

~~~
halostatue
I have no relation to Jolla at all—neither competitor or likely customer. At
the moment, I'm not doing any direct mobile development (we will be offering
something _for_ mobile in the future, but this is not affected by the
existence or absence of Jolla). My entire relationship with Jolla is reading
this nonsensical article and writing my comment with a bit of simple (short)
research.

1\. Yes, the journalist (or his editor) is lazy here. However, they probably
wouldn't cast the article in such a stark light without prompting from Jolla.

2a. Happy to admit that I was wrong here; the article contained no information
about these relationships, and Jolla’s website is essentially content free.

2b. I addressed this (mostly) in a reply to a sibling comment. My point here
was that (again) the journalist was lazy-to-irresponsible for pretending that
China is different because of the lack of subsidy.

3\. Unless Jolla exerts some control over the handset manufacturer and/or the
carriers that offer Sailfish phones, which Jolla has explicitly said that they
aren't going to do, users will _not_ (necessarily) have the freedom to reflash
their phone. This is the problem with Android: there have been both
manufacturer locks and carrier locks that prevent timely receipt of updates
(including security updates) or OS management of your own phone. You have to
root and/or jailbreak your phone to make this happen, and some phones actively
fight that (e.g., one of the Motorola phones that I remember a big stink
about).

4\. Having a nice set of defensive patents gifted by Nokia (hopefully it's
done properly so they can _use_ them for defence, rather than merely having a
licence to them) is useful, but is not the same as the claim in the article
that the are immune to any existing patents. Some of the claims made by
Samsung regarding radios clearly indicate that this is not the case.

5\. I looked for the CEO change info on Jolla's remarkably content-free
website. I couldn't find it. Hurmola's relationship to Jolla (as noted on
LinkedIn) is limited to being on the board, as the transition notes that I
_did_ find was related to looking after the Sailfish ecosystem. What I found
interesting is that it's not clear to me how long Hurmola was CEO—and again,
there's remarkably little information. Regardless of _why_ the change was
done, I'd be a little skeptical as a partner about the changes at the top with
as little transparency as they exhibit.

I'm neither positive nor negative toward Jolla itself: I think it will fail,
but I don't want them to fail. I'm deeply negative to this horrendously awful
uncritical article. It's roughly the equivalent of a news report from Fox
News, CNBC, or cnet, or an analysis by Rob Enderle.

~~~
daliusd
I agree that article is poor. Jolla's official presentations, interviews with
them or their twitter feed is much better source of information.

2b. I guess that's poor interpretation what Jolla says about China. In general
Jolla puts a lot of hope/weight in China.

3\. Let's wait and see. While betting on China from their side might mean that
users will have less freedom not more.

5\. My impression is that Hurmola simply not enjoyed being CEO (he found
himself more valuable in other position).
<http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/15/jolla-ceo-switch/>

I personally believe that at least one company should manage to take special
place in current market (BB10, Jolla, Mozilla, someone else) - I don't want to
name it 3rd ecosystem because it is not. My bet is on BB10 and Jolla (BB10 has
bigger chances than Jolla, but Jolla might succeed in Europe as well if
marketed properly). I personally find Android quite boring/unattractive/wrong
and iOS too closed - both as developer and as user.

------
jarcoal
I really think these tile widgets are not useful or easy to understand for an
average user.

Apple has it right: iOS is just an app launcher, and there is just one tier of
apps, none of this widget-y stuff.

I will note that small read-only changes can be beneficial to the user
(calendar shows current day in icon), but I wouldn't dare make someone try and
interact with that.

~~~
daliusd
Well, why everyone should please "average user"?

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2012/07/21/finlands-j...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2012/07/21/finlands-
jolla-will-be-the-ferrari-of-the-smartphone-world/)

------
ChrisClark
Did they happen to take a look at the phone market in China? They think it's
the only way to go, but unfortunately Android got there first. Open source and
free. Everything is going Android there, their own app stores too.

Unless they are releasing it for free too then I doubt they will overtake
Android in China.

~~~
gbraad
Yes, Android is the first mover in the market and also iOS is quite dominant
in the rich areas (BeiShangGuangShen). It is the toughest market to deal with,
even with the help of D.Phone... why? They would have to compete with local
brands like Meizu and Xiaomi (Android) which release good quality for an
affordable price. I expect Jolla wants to aim for the richer group of people,
like Vertu does(/did)... but these does not shop at D.Phone...

------
ricardobeat
That demo video is terrible. If it really has anything new in it's UI, that
guy failed miserably at demonstrating it. Changing the background/ambience is
one of the pillars of a "more personal user experience", really?

I'd like to understand why this Quartz guy is jizzing all over this company,
but the article doesn't help either.

~~~
trolloss
> I'd like to understand why this Quartz guy is jizzing all over this company

Probably been promised a free phone: wait until he gets an old N9 as demo
phone without DIY flash instructions.

------
Tichy
Is it not possible to implement swipes on Android widgets?

~~~
ok_craig
I know I can scroll the Calendar widget vertically. Don't know about
horizontal for other widgets.

------
readme
It's meego.

~~~
bergie
Well, actually Mer, the MeeGo spin-off <http://merproject.org/>

Some background on this whole Maemo/MeeGo/Sailfish story
<http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/meego-diaspora/>

------
cmccabe
Some day, we'll look back on the days of a mobile OS being announced every few
months and chuckle.

<http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-01-13/>

