
The Jolla phone – first impressions - emilsedgh
http://seravo.fi/2013/jolla-phone-first-impressions
======
nl
This sounds like one of those "the sky is not falling" reviews of a Maemo
phone in 2009, that ignores the (pretty huge) flaws of the platform because
the author is a fan.

You can see hints in this review:

 _It should be is easy to search the web, enter URLs, open new tabs, save
bookmarks etc. All of this can be done with the current browser in SailfishOS.
The browser seems to work pretty fast and flawlessly. We heard at the launch
event that the rendering engine is Gecko (same as in Firefox) so it is likely
to have good support for HTML5 features. However in terms of usability, Chrome
for Android is still the best mobile browser we’ve used so far. In particular
the SailfishOS browser does not seem to have support for landscape mode.
Hopefully while SailfishOS matures, the browser will grow to be more polished
as well._

So.. the whole point of this phone is HTML5 apps. Yet Chrome is a more usable
browser, and the author is hopeful the native browser "will grow to be more
polished as well".

 _Android apps can be run using Alien Dalvik (probably some sort of virtual
machine layer). You can either get both free and paid apps from the bundled
Yandex store_

No mention at all of the huge problems with this approach: this means no
Google Play Services, and it removes all motivation for developers to build
native apps: they can just point users at the Android version. (Also, Yandex
has an Android store?!)

~~~
smartaleckkill
No-one said the whole point of the phone is HTML5 apps. The reviewer thinks
HTML5 apps are the future, that's all. Native Sailfish apps are Qt based; with
android apps as a secondary thing, presumably to kick-start the platform while
they try to build an ecosystem. (Which makes sense, developers won't come
unless people are using it but people won't use it if there are no apps.)

~~~
nl
Yeah, that's probably a fair point. It wasn't clear until I looked at the
architecture diagram, though.

 _Native Sailfish apps are Qt based; with android apps as a secondary thing,
presumably to kick-start the platform while they try to build an ecosystem.
(Which makes sense, developers won 't come unless people are using it but
people won't use it if there are no apps.)_

I'm guessing that was Blackberry's strategy too. Didn't work for them - be
interesting to see how well it works here.

~~~
daliusd
I have different question.

Technically no vendor can offer something exceptionally different from
hardware point of view. Bazillion megapixels, bazillion megaherz, bazillion
cores and etc. - nobody cares about that. It takes decent pictures - good
enough. It is not camera with lens replacement anyway. It works reasonably
fast - good enough, I take it. Replaceable parts(1) - meh I don't care unless
I can attach lens but then it is mirrorless camera not smartphone. It doesn't
have my favorite app (twitter, vine, endomondo, hangouts, skype... name
whatever else is important for you) - I don't need it.

Basically software ate hardware. Now let's talk about software. Development
tools for Android are good enough but far from perfect. iOS tools are better,
Qt tools are better (at least for me), Windows tools are better, HTML tools
are better. The only important advantage Android has its openness. iOS lose
because of that (2), Blackberry lose because of that and Windows will lose
because of that (IMHO). Jolla are much more open here but are they open
enough? Does it matter anymore? Firefox OS is in much better position as a lot
of people have explored using HTML for apps and writing app for Firefox OS is
basically packaging it and you have app. Most probably you don't need to write
app at all if you already have responsive design website.

Android problem - it is dependent on Google very much and it is both good and
bad. It is good for users as they get good experience, it is bad as they are
getting closed into Google's world and I doubt that it is good thing.

My question is: what next smartphone OS should offer to be considered winning?

1) Replaceable parts are still good thing if it will create market where you
can buy cheaper parts to replace broken ones or outdated ones.

2) iOS market share in the world is low but pretty good in USA. So I'm using
"lose" very loosely.

~~~
alextingle
Totally disagree with you on hardware:

> Technically no vendor can offer something exceptionally different from
> hardware point of view.

Just because vendors are falling over themselves to makes Iphone clones,
doesn't mean there's no other way.

Personally, the whole current smartphone scene leaves me cold, because no-one
is making hardware for me. I want a small, robust phone I can put in my pocket
and forget about. Something with a big fragile screen is completely useless to
me. I don't really care what software it's running - if I have to leave it at
home because I'm afraid of breaking the screen, then the software is
irrelevant.

~~~
daliusd
Nokia 515 is waiting for you. Really. Check out it.

Still there is nothing exceptional about this hardware IMHO.

~~~
Kluny
Wow, that looks amazing. I find myself wishing there was a banana for scale,
though. Is it as small as the old candybar phones?

~~~
daliusd
You can always use online tools to compare size:

[http://www.phonearena.com/phones/Nokia-515_id8116/size#/phon...](http://www.phonearena.com/phones/Nokia-515_id8116/size#/phones/Nokia-515_id8116/size/Nokia-1100b,Apple-
iPhone-5s/phones/632,7710)

------
veeti
> At Seravo we hold the belief that in the long term, browser based HTML5 apps
> will be more important than native apps.

What is the "long term"? Has somebody actually managed to build a native
HTML5-based UI that isn't a laggy and clumsy piece of shit yet? For example,
webOS looked great but even the simplest lists scrolled with less than 30
frames per second. The videos I've seen of FxOS don't show much promise either
(although those are running on really low-end hardware).

I'm really skeptical that trying to shoehorn something called "hypertext
markup language" and a generic web rendering engine like WebKit into a UI
toolkit is ever going to work smoothly. Even on my desktop computer complex
sites can work slowly at times. But I'd love to be proven wrong.

~~~
marquis
Think long-term. What could you conceivably do on the desktop that you can't
do on the browser? Media recording and management? HTML5 is well on the way
and someone compiled a functional version of FFMpeg in Javascript just
recently. Storage? Security? Dropbox and more of the kind. We already have
document management. The only thing I can think of right now is a render farm
but we'll do that in the cloud anyway (even if the cloud is a desktop computer
right next to you). I scoffed at the idea not too many months ago but I'm
starting to see how mobile and desktop are converging, and I think it's going
to happen faster than any of us expect due to consumer demand.

Edit: thinking of program like Final Cut: someone will figure out how to do
the hardcore processing over-the-wire using Thunderbolt or something. Dumb
terminals, welcome back!

~~~
ye
> _What could you conceivably do on the desktop that you can 't do on the
> browser?_

Off the top of my head,

1) Anything low level hardware (reading data via USB, or pushing data into
HDMI, for instance)

2) Interacting with ANY hardware that's not explicitly supported by
Javascript. Try creating an HTML5/JS scanner app.

3) Writing super-fast CPU-specific code, think Assembly language. That's the
reason there are no HTML5 apps of the Photoshop caliber.

4) Disk access. Try creating a Javascript-based antivirus. Or an app that
watches for changes in a certain directory.

5) Internal network access. Try writing a JS app interacting with your
localhost or TCP/IP or UDP.

~~~
marquis
All of your points are completely valid today. I would come back in 5 years
and see that probably all of those are achievable by the browser and
Javascript.

Eg: >1) Anything low level hardware (reading data via USB, or pushing data
into HDMI, for instance)

I would expect that a Nexus device can do Chromecast from browser screen, if
not today then soon.

>2) Interacting with ANY hardware that's not explicitly supported by
Javascript. Try creating an HTML5/JS scanner app.

You mean like, taking a photo and processing it? You can do that right now.

>3) Writing super-fast CPU-specific code, think Assembly language. That's the
reason there are no HTML5 apps of the Photoshop caliber

Yet, agreed. But soon - only CPU is slowing it down, not the technology.

>4) Disk access. Try creating a Javascript-based antivirus. Or an app that
watches for changes in a certain directory.

There won't be a filesystem as we know it. The 'cloud' and browser-accessible
storage will be all we need.

>5) Internal network access. Try writing a JS app interacting with your
localhost or TCP/IP or UDP.

Sockets, it's possible now.

~~~
ye
> _I would expect that a Nexus device can do Chromecast from browser screen,
> if not today then soon._

No, that's not what I meant. Pushing any data into HDMI, controlled by the
app, not the screencasting.

> _You mean like, taking a photo and processing it? You can do that right
> now._

No, I mean connecting to a scanner, scanning a document. You can't do it now.
And don't tell me taking a snapshot with a built-in camera is the same thing

> _There won 't be a filesystem as we know it. The 'cloud' and browser-
> accessible storage will be all we need._

Sorry, I wasn't aware you could predict the future, and I thought we were
talking about now.

> _Sockets, it 's possible now._

No, your JS app can't access the internal network, unless you expose it to the
internet with TCP/IP. Sockets only let you connect to public servers. And no
UDP (at least not explicitly).

~~~
marquis
>I thought we were talking about now.

Ah well, I was talking about the future. You're correct about the above you
mention, and regarding sockets I was of course referring to TCP/IP. I'm
keeping an eye on the Jolla/ChromeOS/FireFox OS types, more than iOS as I
think there will be significant changes to allow the above and more.

------
45g
What puzzles me about Jolla and it's Sailfish OS is the constant emphasis on
being "truly open" when in fact the sources of the OS are nowhere to be found.
They point you to projects such as Mer and say Sailfish OS is based on it but
by the same logic Apple is "truly open" because OS X is based on Darwin.

~~~
shmerl
It's not fully open. See
[http://piratepad.net/JollaSoftwareState](http://piratepad.net/JollaSoftwareState)

However Jolla said that long term plans about opening things up aren't
finalized.

------
bostik
As someone who spent quite a lot of time getting QtWebKit built and kept up-
to-date on Mer, both for Qt 4.8 and 5.x, I'm somewhat torn to see this:

> _We heard at the launch event that the rendering engine is Gecko_

On one hand, I feel a little sad. On the other hand, I can appreciate the idea
of going with a browser engine that isn't as big a political playing field as
WebKit. (Or its Google-fork: Blink.) The reasons that led to this decision
might be interesting.

~~~
azakai
Interesting. I remember that Meego went back and forth between WebKit and
Gecko, but that was a long time ago, I would also be interested to hear how
things ended up that way.

~~~
bostik
> _I remember that Meego went back and forth between WebKit and Gecko_

I know at least one very good reason, from personal pain.

Meego preceded Qt 5.0. QtWebKit was not part of official Qt releases until
5.1, and in 4.x the situation was even worse. Back then QtWebKit was always a
second-class citizen. The browser engine was a separate "Qt component". This
meant that all releases were done individually, outside and out of pace with
the Qt proper. Any release lagged behind the Qt releases, taking anywhere from
weeks to months to catch up and work with the most recent Qt release. I got
the idea that the webkit team was severely undermanned and overworked.

This meant that for any product that wanted to use QtWebKit, the product
manager had to make an early decision to lock the version of used Qt just to
ensure that QtWebKit was available. (Customers demanded a working browser
engine with bells and whistles.) So from a purely practical point of view it
made sense to decouple the browser engine and Qt release at architectural
level.

No wonder Meego hovered between the two options. They had the choice of not
using the latest Qt releases but having a more finely integrated browser
engine - or they could go with the latest Qt, a decoupled browser engine and
doing a horrible amount of additional integration work to keep Qt and Gecko in
sync.

As one can imagine, neither of those options is particularly appealing.

------
smcl
Minor nitpick: I don't know how to say "Jolla". I mean I know that "Jolla" is
pronounced "Hoya" in European Spanish ("Hosha" in Argentinian), but in most
European languages it'd be "Yolla" with a soft "j" and the naive English
pronunciation would be "Djolla". I don't know which was the intended one.

Not that it really matters I suppose, but why go to all that trouble building
an apparently lovely device and giving it a slightly cumbersome name?

~~~
enra
Jolla means "light boat" in Finnish. I guess it's a tongue in cheek for the
Elop's burning platform speech, where Jolla is the light boat getting a away
from it.

(Agree that for global products, people should prefer names that are easier to
pronounce)

~~~
smartaleckkill
It also occurred to me that with Nokia's history as a rubber manufacturer
they're bound to have made rubber rafts at some point (which would indeed be
called `jolla').

Or I could be completely overreading this...

~~~
pimeys
They made, and are still making excellent rubber boots.

[http://www.prisma.fi/tuotekuvat//large/71/1bz60y0a4pi3kq31.j...](http://www.prisma.fi/tuotekuvat//large/71/1bz60y0a4pi3kq31.jpg)

But jolla is a small boat.

------
manmal
I can't believe that no pixels can be seen on a 4,5" screen with a resolution
of 960x540. That would be a worse density than my > 3 year old HTC desire. A
mistake in the article?

~~~
veeti
This entire piece sounds overly positive about the thing. We get it, it's a
real Linux phone, but the hardware is lackluster for 2013. That shitty screen
resolution sounds like the final nail in the coffin for me.

~~~
kayoone
to be fair its only 399, so they dont seem to target top of the line.

~~~
icelancer
And the Google Nexus 5 is $350, unlocked with no restrictions.

~~~
blntechie
Nokia Lumia 520 which has similar resolution (480 x 800) is 79$ and in fact
you can get one for 49$ today. Off contract. I know that HN is not fond of WP
but just comparing hardware here.

~~~
kayoone
Despite the resolution being lower, the Lumia also has a much slower CPU, GPU,
5MP vs 8MP camera etc...

------
dirtyaura
This is the first post that really sparked my imagination about The Other
Half. Lots of possibilities to build dedicated devices to different
environments and tasks.

Jolla really should make their marketing material more concrete to target
their true early adopter audience.

~~~
jhm_
I have an idea for The Other Half: an Xbee 802.15.4 module that could
facilitate a distributed telecommunications network between mobile handsets. I
have my eye on David Rowe's open source codec2 to support voice calls because
it can achieve telephone quality at 1400 bits-per-second, and I think that at
this bandwidth multiple calls can be relayed efficiently, (and _securely_),
though a mesh network. If a handset has WiFi access then calls can then route
through the internet and path around the world. If we want to continue to use
the antiquated practice of telephone numbers as identifiers, then we can use
cryptographic primatives and a blockchain, (like bitcoin), to prove telephone
number-handset authenticity on the new peer-to-peer network.

Combine this with a Jolla phone for a connection to a conventional cellular
network and perhaps a handset could move seamlessly through peer-to-peer
calling, handset-to-VoIP calling, and the PTSN.

Then the day may come where we can finally do away with these
telecommunications companies, and have a decentralized and secure-by-design
phone system once and for all.

------
brunnsbe
Here is a more honest article (in Finnish) from someone who have used the
device for a day: [http://mobiili.fi/2013/11/28/jolla-vuorokauden-kaytossa-
tass...](http://mobiili.fi/2013/11/28/jolla-vuorokauden-kaytossa-
tassa-10-ajatusta/)

English translation:
[http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fi&tl=en&js=n&prev=...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fi&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fmobiili.fi%2F2013%2F11%2F28%2Fjolla-
vuorokauden-kaytossa-tassa-10-ajatusta%2F)

According to the article the biggest problem seems to be Internet-
connectivity, the reception is sometimes bad and it has problems connecting to
WLAN. The browser is also quite slow and needs improvements.

~~~
Kluny
Jolla is hilariously translated to Dinghy throughout the article.

------
nicholassmith
I do Qt development for a living, as well as iOS work, so the Jolla has my
interest piqued. This review is overly effusive but I can't shake the feeling
that I really, really want one to see where this platform could go. It
certainly doesn't look boring.

------
sleepyK
Hope they release their sources soon, so I can compile and try it out on my
Nexus...

Hopefully being the most open mobile OS means easy compiling...

------
adamwong246
Well I'm sold. That sounds awesome.

------
contingencies
Interesting timing: I received my first FirefoxOS device yesterday. It works.
It cost $80.

Looking at this phone, which targets a far higher price point, I am forced to
consider their differences: Contribute development effort towards getting the
rest of the planet online and empowered? ... or help nords preserve their
heritage of mobile device architecture?

Mozilla and Wikimedia are working hard to provide equal access to all under an
open platform. Considering the growth trajectory for the developing world
(widely recognized by macro-economists), we can each commercially justify time
investment in the FirefoxOS platform. As the web's new primary class of access
devices, mobile devices for the developing world are a big part of our shared
future. Let's keep it open.

------
valvoja
Meh. I'd wait for the first few objective reviews.

I lost interest when they said things like "there is one hardware feature that
is unique to Jolla: The Other Half [...] a concept of user-changeable smart
back cover."

Surely replaceable plastic covers have been around for decades and they are
mostly associated with low-end feature phones... or really old Nokias.

~~~
leoedin
So you lost interest... and stopped reading completely? Had you read any
further you would have realised that the unique feature is that there's both a
power connector and an I2C interface available to those back covers. It's a
pretty brilliant concept - you could interface with the whole host of cool
chips which use I2C, or even build yourself a little robot chassis.

~~~
valvoja
Power connector like the wireless chargers by Nokia etc? Not sure what a I2C
interface is...

My point is that I would prefer objective reviews, not glowing praise from
fans etc. The key question for is not what tech did they pack in a small
screen device, but does it actually feel better to use than the incumbents.

~~~
leoedin
If you don't know what an I2C interface is, then you're not in a position to
make the criticism that you made. If you were at all interested in expanding
your knowledge, a simple google search would reveal that it's a ubiquitous
serial interface for communicating with peripheral chips. All that requires
more work than just blindly making critical comments on an online message
board though, so why bother?

------
Untit1ed
Reading this I had to repeatedly scroll up to make absolutely sure I wasn't
just reading a Jolla press release... I'd love for this to be as great as it's
described here, but I'll be waiting for an actual impartial review.

------
xutopia
It's interesting but looking at the video at the bottom of the article it
looks like swipe gestures on the photo album lag considerably. Has anyone had
the chance to play with it?

------
chemmail
The pull down menu looks TERRIBLE. You need to look at it and have precision.
It's much easier to have a button u can easily tap just from a glance.

------
Aardwolf
An observation I have been wondering:

Whenever a Windows phone is presented, there are pictures of phones that have
more square corners than other phones, and flashy colors like yellow and
orange.

It seems to be almost a requirement of a phone with the Windows software, to
have colorful and squary hardware.

Is that a coincidence, or a sort of design convention or requirement?

EDIT: Oops, apparently it does not run Windows. I saw the tiles in the
screenshot and flashy colors, so thought it was Windows phone... Sorry...

~~~
emilsedgh
This is not a windows phone. It uses SailfishOS[0] which is basically a
continuation of Maemo/Meego.

[0] [https://sailfishos.org/](https://sailfishos.org/)

