
Jolla phones now available for sale in Europe - cromulent
http://shop.jolla.com
======
Zigurd
The Verge's reviewer didn't like it. I have yet to get my hands on one. It is
strongly a "global gestures" UI. Some people like that as a way of enforcing
consistency. That will have some possibly confusing effects on Android apps
running in Myriad's compatibility environment. Also, the last time I looked at
Myriad's technology, they were using their own Java VM, which means, at
least,some kind of Dalvik to Java bytecode converter for apps as they are
installed, or an SDK plugin to produce "Myriad-VM-ready" apps.

It looks pretty clean. It should appeal to the people who were buying Nokia's
Harmattan and Meego devices. If Jolla can pick up a majority of the Qt apps
that had been developed for those platforms and grow that developer community,
they may have a chance.

It will take at least a year, and probably some more hardware to tell where
Jolla is going and if it will be successful. There are several dimensions to
measure that success: Can Jolla pick up many of the distribution channels, and
their customers, in Europe that previously favored Nokia? Can they penetrate
the China market, as they appear to be aiming to do?

~~~
alecsmart1
For anyone finding the verge review-
[http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/11/29/5156446/jolla-
smartpho...](http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/11/29/5156446/jolla-smartphone-
hands-on-preview)

~~~
vanderZwan
> _Nonetheless, that group is small whereas the software evolution required is
> large._

It's also open source and I'm sure they have a lot of goodwill within the
community given their history, so that might alleviate the problem somewhat.

------
ClashTheBunny
I think that one of the revolutionary things on this is the I2C and power
connectors available under the cover. It's the start of things becoming
modularized. You want IRDA, get the back cover that adds it. You want what's
next after NFC? Add it. You want a hardware slide out keyboard? Add it. You
want an eInk back like the Yotta phone? Add it. You want a full USB port? Add
it. All of those things can be done over i2c.

Random List of i2c components:
[http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/99160-List-
of-I2C-...](http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/99160-List-
of-I2C-devices)

Spark Fun:
[https://www.sparkfun.com/search/results?term=i2c&what=produc...](https://www.sparkfun.com/search/results?term=i2c&what=products)

------
emiljbs
I'll probably buy a Jolla. I'm just so tired of the mainstream phone
manufacturers like Sony and Samsung, it just feels like they don't care about
me as a user. I've had way too many annoying problems with my Galaxy S2
because of the pre-installed apps, locked-in OS and design flaws.

~~~
anoncow
>Locked-in OS

I'll agree on that point. Have to root your phone using closed-source hacks
from questionable sources, just so you can use your phone the way you want to,
makes me a little sad. I believe that Samsung and others do this to decrease
support costs and perhaps for DRM/piracy reasons. It still is a shitty
business decision.

------
kintamanimatt
The marketing and sales copy is horrendous.

> Jolla is powered by Sailfish OS, a truly open and distinct mobile operating
> system. Navigate effortlessly with the gesture-based user interface and load
> the phone with top Android™ apps.

That's pretty much it. Bland, uncompelling, and unemotional. It's a poorly
positioned phone that isn't cool -- but it could be with decent marketing and
a great sales pitch. Way back when, if Apple had marketed the iPhone with this
pitch, there'd be no iPhone today.

There's a lesson here: prospects don't know or care about you unless you make
them. I have no idea who these people are, why I should care about them, or
why this product will make me feel good or alleviate some pain in some way.

~~~
shmerl
Marketing can be very expensive, but it's useful as well. Jolla probably
prioritized development and production vs investing millions in marketing.
They have limited resources and had to make choices and the first priority was
a functional product. It affected many areas besides marketing (for example
lacking community infrastructure, no public bug tracker and so on). Hopefully
they'll gradually catch up in these aspects, but so far they seem to have
enough of demand for their level of production. Don't compare them to Apple -
they aren't huge company which pours millions into marketing from the start
and expects some crazy numbers in sales in return right away. They aren't
Nokia either - they are a small startup.

~~~
kintamanimatt
That's the build-it-and-they-will-come mentality! (It almost never works too!)

Great marketing is as important (possibly moreso) than a great product. It's
probably easier to make a mediocre product a success with great marketing than
to make a great product a success with ho-hum marketing. There's no point in
having a great product that nobody knows about or worse, cares about.

Product development is like eating out: if you can't afford the marketing, you
can't afford the product development. Paying for one and not the other is a
great way to throw away the investment. It's just such a rookie mistake and
completely unavoidable.

~~~
shmerl
No, it's make things gradually and don't overstretch mentality. They know
their resources and limits and apply them appropriately.

 _> There's no point in having a great product that nobody knows about or
worse, cares about._

You didn't read carefully what I wrote above. They already have a lot of
people who know and care about the product to buy it. They aren't running to
increase that number up to the extreme. They match that number with their
current production level. When that will grow, they'll have to boost the
effort in marketing too. They do plan to grow, but gradually.

Personally I think they cut the marketing / community side a bit too much, but
I understand that they have limited resources, so the product is their
priority #1.

~~~
kintamanimatt
It's not overstretching to have great marketing from the outset; it's almost
mandatory. Tofu marketing from the get-go (especially on launch day) is a
great way to nudge the company into the deadpool. If their financial limits
proscribe marketing, their company will be gone and forgotten soon enough when
their sales are lackluster and insufficient.

Companies, new and established, just can't afford to be conservative when it
comes convincing people to give them money. Bad marketing = bad sales.

~~~
shmerl
_> It's not overstretching to have great marketing from the outset_

Your general logic seems to circle around expecting massive sales and huge
production mindset (where investment has to be compensated with millions of
sales). Jolla has modest expectations for the starting stage, so massive
marketing would be an overstretch. But it shouldn't be abysmal either, I
agree.

~~~
kintamanimatt
No, it doesn't. My mindset in this case revolves around one thing: convincing
people they should buy. Their sales and marketing, from what I've observed
today, is so poor it fails to do the only thing it should: sell.

I never said they should grow unsustainably and run out of cash, but my money
is on them running out of cash anyway because their marketing is so poor it'll
fail to drive the sales they need to keep the lights on. Frankly, supply
shortages would be the best thing that could happen to them because scarcity
drives demand and perceived value.

~~~
shmerl
_> Their sales and marketing, from what I've observed today, is so poor it
fails to do the only thing it should: sell._

How is it exactly, if they were serving all their preorders already? They
don't seem to have the lack of demand atm.

~~~
vanderZwan
Exactly, keeping the early adopters happy and getting them to advertise their
product for them is much more important. And regarding that: even the
otherwise sceptical review by The Verge praised their interaction with the
people who bought a Jolla.

------
shmerl
I'll have to wait until they'll release US networks compatible version.

For those who missed it, there is a community Q&A about Jolla and Sailfish
here:
[http://piratepad.net/ep/pad/view/JollaFAQ/latest](http://piratepad.net/ep/pad/view/JollaFAQ/latest)

------
AndrewDucker
I'm intrigued by Jolla, if not enthused by it.

I'm not sure what it gives me that Android doesn't - can anyone enlighten me?

~~~
shmerl
It depends on what you are interested in. Distinctive features:

1\. It has strong focus on real multitasking (performance and design wise).
Both Android and iOS are weak on that and prefer to avoid multitasking in
order to gain battery life advantage.

2\. It has innovative approach to UI, not being stuck in ideas developed a
while ago, which hold Android and iOS back from advancing.

3\. It's DRM free and aims to be privacy respecting unlike competition. It
gives control over the system to the user and doesn't attempt to lock things
up and make it hard to modify.

4\. For those who care (developers probably more than others) - it's real
glibc based Linux which gives synergy with the global Linux community. Android
while using the Linux kernel is a completley different beast from libc and
middleware up to the top of the stack. Mer/Sailfish on the other hand uses
glibc, Wayland and other conventional Linux middleware and tools.

5\. They plan to allow better participation of community in the development.
Right now things aren't so open though, except the open parts Sailfish is
based on (Mer Core and Nemo Mobile which are openly developed open source
projects).

6\. It's a startup and not some monstrous stonewalling corp with no face. So
you often can communicate with Jolla directly (they even have official
presence in Diaspora:
[https://joindiaspora.com/u/jolla](https://joindiaspora.com/u/jolla)) and they
are interested in the community.

For more details see:

* [https://sailfishos.org/about.html](https://sailfishos.org/about.html)

* [https://sailfishos.org/design.html](https://sailfishos.org/design.html)

* [https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Main_Page)

* [https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Nemo](https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Nemo)

~~~
AndrewDucker
Thank you, that's really useful.

------
claudius
I think I’ll wait for a true ‘high-end’ phone from them in the future. I
wouldn’t mind paying 800 € for a phone, but I do expect it to run for a few
years and really outperform my current N9.

Hopefully by the time they get that to any market, they will also have fixed
most of the bugs in Sailfish OS.

------
DorianMarie
It says €399.00, but then €414.00 for tax and shipping in Europe.

I changed from "Ah, same as a Nexus 5" to "Wow, that's two Nexus 4!".

~~~
stefantalpalaru
€399 including tax + €15 shipping = €414 final price

