I had a Jolla smart phone, it was pretty great but it also quickly became apparent that the company had no real intention to make Sailfish the Android-compatible, open and privacy-friendly OS I was hoping it’d be. Selling licenses to customers to put the OS on third party hardware really killed it for me.
Kinda surprised they are still around, but I guess knowing the right magical words to whisper to investors is a good enough business strategy. They’ve done it with blockchain, now it’s AI.
Jolla says the phone will sell for €299 (including a 1-year subscription license for Sailfish OS)
Emphasis mine. Mate, just what are you doing? A subscription license of a mobile OS? Wat? They could be working together with Purism, Pine64, PostMarketOS and other software+hardware groups trying to make linux phones popular, but instead they are making some proprietary stuff in their corner. Is it really that difficult to work with other people or what’s going on?
They are trying to make money to stay afloat. Postmarketos is a community project so it’s not comparable. And neither Purism nor Pine64 seem to be huge commercial successes just like Jolla, though they seem to be doing a bit better.
If they need a subscription model for the OS, then maybe it shouldn’t stay afloat. Clearly there’s no money in this.
I have no problem with them making money, far from it. My problem is with how. If their OS didn’t require a friggin subscription service, I’d buy their phone. What happens when I don’t pay for the next payment cycle? My phone gets shut off? The OS stops working? I’m only limited to making phone calls? Fuck that.
Yeah nope, Jolla still has some closed source parts, then I’d rather monthly fund a project truly open source, like Mobian or Droidian, and maybe with wider target devices horizons than Sony Experia devices only.
Jolla is still going?
They have been owned by a Russian state-owned telecom corporation for a few years until recent events (Russia currently tries to push Sailfish OS fork as its “russian-made” mobile OS). Original Finnish management has split off to a new independent company with the same name last year, and this looks like their last ditch attempt to continue existing. I don’t expect they will last much longer (the reason why they were bought by Russia in the first place was that Jolla failed as a business).
Original Finnish management has split off to a new independent company with the same name last year
Best business move EVER! Now people have to wonder with whom they’re doing business. Sorta keeps people on their toes. Way better than coming up with a new brand, making it easier for their five customers. /s
Seems a hard sell to go subscription on such a niche platform. I wish anyone luck that could challenge the Apple/Android duopoly though.
I haven’t looked into it. But I suspect that if Linux phones can get Kotlin to run natively, we’ll start seeing some of the apps from F-Droid ported over and that will be the turning point.
Kotlin isn’t the problem, missing the various Android API’s is.
But a Linux distro can go like for like, like what Google did with Java right? So people wouldn’t have to recreate apps, just tweak them
It’s still a lot of work, for what value compared to an OS based on AOSP?
I feel like, if AOSP was going to be adopted by the Linux community, it would’ve happened already.
I’m not sure what “the Linux community” really means but I would bet that pure open source Android based on AOSP are more popular than the non-Android Linux mobile OS combined.
Think PinePhone and Librem Phone,
Kotlin targets the JVM right? I think you’d need either a port of the runtime (dalvik?) Or an api translation later a la WINE.
But I don’t actually know anything, so don’t listen to me. Having a fully Foss phone with support for the android app ecosystem would be wonderful though
Apparently, not necessarily https://kotlinlang.org/docs/native-overview.html#:~:text=Kotlin%2FNative supports the following,Linux
Listen, if the phone itself can still run a custom Linux, then I’m all for it. Why? Because Microsoft needs some competition in this space, and my hatred for Microsoft dwarves any subscription fee. But, if they now lock it down like any Android handset, then fudge 'em.
Wow, what will they think of next!? A subscription for air? For using my own toilet? I hope this company dies quickly…
I welcome competition in the space even if it is imperfect.
Watching Microsoft begging people to subscribe to the hardware they bought and thinking it is a good idea.
i am no fan of the proprietary model here, but i think they disingenuously compare it to the rabbit R1 device.
i love the idea of an local-llm-in-a-box, and they claim to have a working (minimal featureset) model that could be expanded. the rabbit device is a glorified siri
A subscription for OS updates? That won’t for with most users.
The major advantage of a subscription model is that they don’t need most users, just enough to be financially sustainable.
The ai box is 700$ ? Who’s gonna buy it? Anyway, If you anyone want to run local llm on their own phone then try 4bit quantized phi-3.
With what app? How?
It’s a really awesome OS, the UI is one of the slickest and most intuitive gesture based UIs I’ve ever used. But it’s so limited for apps etc. Damn shame, because I enjoyed every minute using it on my Xperia.
Ultimately [the Jolla Mind2] sounds… a lot less useful than the AI-in-a-device features that companies have been promising for products like the Rabbit R1 or Humane AI Pin.
What the hell? Why would the device with a dedicated NPU and local models be less useful than the piece-of-shit marketing stunts that everyone hates?
The Mind2 looks interesting. It solves the issue of your hardware not supporting the requirements to run the model, by providing hardware, and lets you use your existing smartphone to access it remotely. I am curious how it actually performs.
It might not be a long-term product concept though. All new phones are going to come stock with a lot more than 6 TOPS of AI compute onboard very soon.
People see the term AI and instantly get their backs up. All rational independent thought goes out the window at that point.
Wow, what will they think of next!? A subscription for air? For using my own toilet? I hope this company dies quickly…
Haha byeee
