Not sure where you are from but all gov’t and most of their agenda is aggressively advertised. People buy it everyday. Commodore is an unknown and has to advertise. As long as finlay_bulle buys one, all will be right in the world.
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There’s a lot of truth in that. But Linux has made its mark without aggressive advertising, and in my opinion, word of mouth is far more decisive in shaping its reputation. Perhaps that’s naive – but do allow an old man a bit of naivety. I’ll be following developments with interest and remain open to the Commodore… 
The brand name is not for many people but yes the company behind it probably is.
Linux has made its mark without aggressive advertising
Did it, though? At the enterprise level companies selling Linux distros (like Oracle) spend a lot on advertising all their services among their own clients, and the recent uptick in desktop Linux adoption is because Valve started advertising SteamOS pretty aggressively among their target audience.
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That may be true. In my region (Chemnitz, Saxony), adoption started earlier, around 1999 (I’m talking about desktop adoption). A lot of people were just frustrated with MS 98 and ME. But the university certainly played a big role in that…
Having worked at a division of one of several “new” Commodore franchises when the brand was changing being tossed around wearing down its rep to a minimum I follow this both from nostalgic perspective as well as out of interest in having a phone that does “phone” with all the integrated modern voice and video communication protocols and the possibility to add others.
After 13 years it is clear that Jolla/Sailfish OS will never ever make a communication device worthy of Nokia heritage and the many discussions normalising the need to run banking apps, the official effort spent in offering Microsoft sync..seem that even Linux tinkerers are now mostly average consumers all while for them it is still impossible to show in the very Jolla app store that they put their digitized wallet where their mouth is.
I am curious about the cooperation of “Commodore” with Sailfish OS makers where this will lead them.
Hopefully the Sailfish makers can offload their working and creative spirit glass ceilinged within and by the EU into backdoor support for the rise across the Atlantic of a true out of the box “all American heritage” (haha) communicator device.
Not running Google for the good reasons in this seemingly harmless “ok you said we need to digitally detox the youth, so here you go” playful way. If the Commodore revival device will succeed without running in trouble by non responsive OS Makers and over zealous FCC staff the future will tell.
I don’t stand by the decision to ban web browsers, just filter the bloat and make mobile surfing great again. Yet hackability needs to be proven and the battery, attention to decent wired audio output shows that the public is at least taken half seriously.
Personally for the design, would have picked up at the E65 slider type or rather N97 but ok.. Maybe for the America’s flip phones are the pinacle of just enough modern tech? Too bad they didn’t read into European tech offerings at the time.
Nokia used to imitate all those flip phones as well and to their great wast of resources however boosting for stock shares and sales figures ..
Let’s see where this goes.
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If its real Sailfish and device owners can gain root, then I don’t see why DNS-level restrictions couldn’t be modified.
And even with a browser, given how small the screen will be, I’m pretty sure it would be less distracting than most of today’s smartphones: if I want to read websites, the Commodore Callback’s form factor would be a gentle nudge towards my laptop.
We don’t know if installing Terminal or setting the developer password will be as easy on Callback as it is on Jolla devices/Sailfish OS X, or if you need to transfer the files for those via other means first and if they have blocked install of untrustred 3rd party packages.
But still I’m sure the community will find the way really soon (maybe even day 1) around these restrictions and someone will be able to collect the bounty.
I emailed Commodore support, and they stated that it will be possible to run the Sailfish terminal app, because the phone is real Sailfish. I wanted to be sure I could run the bash scripts I use for noting cash expenses.
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You say that like it is a bad thing. I have a different view.
I bought an Android tablet two years ago. I love technology, but really I had no use case for a tablet before that, even a Jolla tablet. The reason I bought the tablet is my bank switched to compulsory smartphone authentication.
Right now I cannot do my life without Android applications. Not because I developed a psychological dependence, but because booking medical appointments, interacting with government services, using a bank, logging into work e-mail accounts, communicating with my loved ones, are now tied to smartphones applications. This certainly was not the case 13 years ago.
So yes even linux tinkerers right now want to normalize banking apps on SFOS, because paying for and carrying two phones is annoying.
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@moripeluka I’ve written a comment about this here and I’m curious about your situation. If you don’t mind, could you share more information about the government services and bank services that you use that require a smartphone? Do you know if there are alternatives available to those services and their authentication methods? Does your work require you to use your personal phone as an auth token in a way that is platform-specific (i.e. not with standardized TOTP that works with every operating system)? Does making appointments for doctors not work via a website?
(To be clear: I’m not trying to judge or critizise anything - I’m just very interested in this topic and in real-world use cases and experiences!)
- The 2FA authentication in Portugal is the “gov.pt” app. It can work by reading a QR code or sending a code into the app.
- If you book an interaction with a very busy government service, for example to re-validate a driver’s licence, you can either spend the day at the place waiting for your turn, or instead install the “siga” app, it will let you know dynamically when your appointment is approaching. Say you go there early morning to get a ticket for that day and you’re the citizen #46 on the list already, you can’t much guess what time you’ll be attended, the app will let you know
- The website of the European Commission requires 2FA with their app, there have been messages that SMS is phased out.
- I was wrong, you can book a doctor appointment with the website of the private hospital I am using.
While there are alternatives, I don’t always want to look like I’m too stupid for modern world.
- Recently I was at a conference, the way to enter was to use their app. I had to explain at the reception office that I don’t own a smartphone so they manually printed my pass
- Recently I travelled by bus to a far away city using flixbus. My colleague booked the travel for me as I didn’t have the app installed. Arrived at a huge bus station in capital city, there are no indications where the buses are located for specific destinations. I ask a bus driver, he tells me “everything is in the app”. My colleague had only sent me the QR code. Fortunately another bus driver randomly knew where my bus was located, otherwise I would have missed it.
- Also, Ryanair, which unfortunately is the company flying the connection I need between my city and the place where another part of the family lives.
- The new national payment system MBWay uses a smartphone, no way out. The older system Multibanco can be used without smartphone but some websites now support only the newer one.
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Just out of curiosity: have the earlier batches indeed entered production, yet? As the pre-order website still states “Batch 1 ship estimate: Sep-Oct” I’m very curious if shipping is indeed imminent. Patience is a virtue, but damn hard 
Mine hasn’t entered production yet. I don’t know if I was in batch 1 or x, but I ordered the first day when it was promised to deliver in Sept-Oct.
So you’re a slave? I’m pretty sure people have figured out permission-less currency. There’s a way out.
This is not the right thread for your question but sure - there are many people here who have their phones already. I have mine next to me right now - it’s real. 
edit: I was confused, sorry, please disregard the above. Wrong thread. My bad. 
@moripeluka Sorry for getting back so late but thank you for writing that out! One small question: I’m not familiar with services in Portugal but I have the impression that MBWay is run by a private company and not an enforced payment provider for, say, state-run services. Is that correct?
Indeed, MBWay is operated by SIBS, a private company founded by a conglomerate of banks present in the country. It is the same conglomerate that operates the network of ATMs exhibiting the “MB” (multibanco) signage. SIBS also operates payment networks in other countries. Basically MBWay as a brand is the same as Visa. Both MBWay and Visa are a brand of payment systems initially created by a particular private bank(s), managed privately, and universally accepted within certain national borders.
To KorvinSilver, some post from July
While I would agree that there should be a choice of some sort, (yet adding enough friction, e.g. two variants to buy, change by reflashing in terminal which leaves out all normies etc.), I’d be wary of shifting the „blame” of excessive smartphone use on users mental health (or rather seeing it as a personal choice we usually do have in our hands). Truth to be said, for the most part, we don’t.
Sure, no one’s pointing a gun against you, so technically you can „choose” how you use your phone/social networks, but even leaving out factors like social pressure, many companies now requiring to communicate with them specifically etc., it’s not a fair fight.
You’re just a one person without psychology training. On the other side there is an army psychologists and data analysts working altogether to keep you hooked and on screen (using your personal data) for the longest time possible. That also often serves as a starter for various states of anxiety/depression/… so we talk the other way around actually. Not mentioning that the social networks usually serve then as an easy way to run from actual resolve of your anxiety, so even more money to Zuck, I suppose. They (Facebook, now Meta) knew it, ignored the problem, willingly chose worse algorithms for mental health, they went to court for it, they lost, but the show goes on anyway. They even stopped all internal programs which could monitor/prevent this vicious cycle.
Just because you personally feel like you’d be able to make a choice, doesn’t make this easy for a regular person and if there are devices being here able to help someone with at least some, yet not that strong dedication to leave these drug-like mechanisms modern internet presents to us, I see it generally as a good thing. And if Commodore aims to become one of these, why not.
I might be wrong, but I guess they were talking about the Commodore Callback. So I guess this is absolutely the right thread. If you already had yours right beside you, I would be really jealous, as I ordered mine at the first day and it hasn’t entered production yet.
But I think, if Commodore had started delivery, they would have told us on their News page.
You have your Callback phone already? Pics or it didn’t happen. JK, but still post some pics so I can be jealous and hopeful.
I’ve got a batch 3 Jolla phone on the way to the US via UK soon™ and a Callback ordered the first day or orders, but only after the crack of dawn in my time zone (UTC-6), so I’m quite a few units down the list. Which will I get first? I don’t know, Faites vos jeux ladies and gentlemen . . .