Today’s gonna be a weird and long post, so let’s start slow and give you the choice.
We’ve had, for years, seen the constant back and forth between Google and Apple on their respective phone operating systems. Android, which has dominated the market on basically any device you can pick up here in the states, and iOS, which exclusively powers iPhones, iPods and iPads. Despite the two duking it out, Android does hold the highest market share. As of Q2 2018, Statista claims a whopping 82% market share for Android, and no other competitors really exist.
But, for years, I’ve been enamored by an OS that has been seemingly out of my reach, and has had a lot of drawbacks that prevented me from ever considering using it for more than an hour. An OS that’s been going strong for over 5 years, and might soon see a new breath of fresh air due to recent allegations to Huawei. So, after the break, let me tell you my tale of Sailfish OS.
Now one thing I want to briefly mention is the history of this, but don’t take it as gospel. I’m not an expert on this stuff, but what I’ve gathered is Sailfish OS is built on a foundation of MeeGo and Mer. MeeGo has prospered on its own to Tizen, an alternative OS used widely by Samsung on their watches and fridges (for some reason), while Mer was a fork of MeeGo driven by the community, and became the framework for ex-Nokia employees to start a new project, with the funding of Nokia through their Bridge program. Those ex-Nokia employees would found Jolla, and Sailfish OS would be their creation.
I first heard of Sailfish in 2013, as I was dipping my toes into the world of smartphones at that point. It looked incredible, with vivid, vibrant colors, a gesture-driven UI, a uniform design language, and a promise of privacy and openness that we definitely don’t see from companies today. And at the time, I was especially curious of their hardware.
Credit By Michael Coté - Flickr: Charles' Jolla phone, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31979039
The Jolla phone saw its first pre-orders in April of 2013, and was officially available for purchase by November. It had decent specs for the time. Snapdragon 400, a modest 540x960 resolution (keep in mind, the flagship Samsung Galaxy SIII had a mere 720p resolution), 1GB of RAM, a 2100mAh battery, and most interesting to me, the “Other Half” which powered the system’s Ambiences. You slap a new Other Half on it, and the color changed to match in the OS. Cool in concept.
The later Jolla tablet would be promoted with an Indiegogo campaign, but unfortunately, costs and availability of materials, and the development of Sailfish OS 2.0 led to the tablet ultimately being cancelled, with a handful of units out in the wild.
Since then, Jolla’s gotten back on stable footing. The OS is open for licensing with OEMs, and Jolla’s been able to get official support from places like Russia, and companies like... Sony.
I have the Xperia XA2, released in March 2018 for $300 in the US. I snatched it up on eBay for a mere $170, and I’ve enjoyed its clean design, near-stock OS, and the solid in-house Sony apps like the Gallery and Music apps worked wonders. But then I discovered Jolla was working on Sailfish X for the XA2.
As a way to support the OS, and a way to fund the continued development of an Android compatibility layer for those who need Android apps, Jolla has Sailfish X, a version of their OS that features predictive text input with the keyboard, software updates and customer support, and of course, the Alien Dalvik, which lets you run Android apps on the OS natively. This was important, since I knew I needed apps like Discord, Twitter, Google Maps, and I could see the available open-sourced apps of things like Keepass weren’t gonna cut it.
The process was a bit difficult, and I stayed up until 4am on Saturday, trying to get the phone backed up, flashed, and ready to go with what I needed. First, I had to unlock the bootloader, which Sony and Jolla made it pretty easy. Then I had to buy the OS for the meager $35 USD (which I had done before even being certain my phone would do it, don’t make my mistake), download their software package and just... do it. After an hour, I had the phone running Sailfish, and man, it was a delight from the beginning. Swiping, tapping, sliding, the OS felt smooth, it had this flow about it.
After I got the accounts logged in, I proceeded to grab a few apps... before realizing all too soon that I’d need Google Play services. This is where I’m probably gonna get a lot of flack. For all the effort I put in, I was about to install apps that were at least partially at fault for the slowness of my XA2 on Android, and defeating the point of installing Sailfish.
Let me be forward in saying I don’t care that much about privacy. Do I like Google being involved in every facet of my life? Absolutely not, but they are sadly a necessary evil. And it’s not like you, the reader, would be any different. Tumblr, after all, is owned by Verizon, who has a history of screwing customers in plenty of situations, including firefighters who need constant access to emergency services for contact. And too many things want or need Google Play for me to avoid it. Discord, Telegram, Authy, Youtube, I use all this stuff, and without GP, it gets unhappy. I could remedy some of those by using Amazon or just going open-source with F-Droid, but it won’t fix the issue. And even now, microG, an open-source implementation of Google Play services, isn’t perfect, and would likely cause more headaches than I could handle at 4am on a Saturday.
Fortunately, some good Samaritans on Jolla’s Together forums created a simple Bash script I could run by just SSHing into my phone... Wow, that was a sentence. A fitting one though. After that, and after some headaches with the Google Setup wizard (here’s a tip: use Vision settings to get to your Android settings, and disable permissions on “Android Setup” when you’ve gotten your account logged in), I was finally using my phone, and it runs quite well. Android apps don’t consistently work correctly. Often, I have to close apps like the settings or Keepass because the framework stops updating the frontend, or even fully stop and start Android support, but it works well for just about everything I’m using on it now!
I really like the UI and design, and since the Other Half concept isn’t there for the XA2, ambiences are just a menu away from changing the look and feel of the OS in this pleasing way.
The system flows thanks to its gesture-driven controls. Swiping up from the bezel will bring you your app tray, swiping from the top bezel gives you quick settings. When you’re on the home screen, swiping left or right gives you a sort of agenda view where notifications, weather, and updates from your Twitter, Facebook, XMPP, VK and other accounts stack up. When you’re inside an app, swiping from the left or right bezel should bring you back home. Of all the interface controls on this device, that one is the most inconsistent one, a pain point given the nature of Android’s design language encourages these slide-out menus that you can’t consistently swipe open due to that gesture. The only setting I’ve found on that is to change the left-side bezel swipe to open the agenda instead of going home. I’d personally prefer hot zones on the bezels, so if I wanted to go home, swipe in from the lower half of the screen, but if I want the Android menus, slide from the top half.
Other interesting design cues come from the glowing parts of the UI, where extended menu options usually hide, or places you can slide out to are available.
Sliding down if the top is glowing usually opens this pulley menu, where each option can be selected by just pulling a bit and letting go. It’s an odd one, and due to the inconsistencies of apps and options, the pulley menu isn’t as instantly intuitive as I would hope. If there’s a glowing dot on a page though, you can simply slide to return to a menu from previously, or access another menu if the dot’s on the right side. Again, this is a bit inconsistent, as the unofficial Twitter app, Pingviini, showcases. You can actually just swipe left and right at will to access your notifications, conversations, search and trendings, and timeline. That bottom menu you’re seeing there is hidden so often, it’s basically pointless to have it there. This does make the whole system feel more cohesive, Pingviini looks like it belongs on this phone, but it does hurt usability.
Thus far, I’m still testing and learning about this OS. I had to google screenshotting, which is simply holding the volume rocker together. Doesn’t feel as reliable as the Android alternative of Volume Down and Power / Home, but I’ll take it. I don’t plan on gaming with this. Games are just not what I buy a phone for. It’s nice to have it there, but I’d prefer to just play my 3DS if I’m out and about.
I can’t wait to do more with Sailfish. It feels really nice to use, and I’m honestly draining my phone’s battery just from the amusement of swiping and sliding menus around and admiring the design of this. The last OS I really enjoyed using was Blackberry 10, and this feels like a sort of spiritual successor, with the included agenda feed and the persistent cards for apps you’re using.
“Mi seccherebbe essere arrestato per droga solo perché ho un po' d'erba addosso, sarebbe come essere arrestato per violenza carnale perché sto annusando delle mutandine stese al sole ad asciugare.” <\i>
