Great new Jolla phone and new users - no go!

General
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I received my new Jolla phone yesterday. I was really excited to see what had happened since the first proper Jolla phone. The disappointment was huge—basically nothing.

If you switch to Jolla from an Android or an iPhone, you will be completely lost. There should be import wizard, maybe Jolla app for Android and iPhone that does the job.

There are no familiar apps, and even if you manage to install them, they likely won’t work out of the box without using the terminal. The end-user has clearly been forgotten in the OS design. I can manage fine myself since I’ve been using Linux since 1994, but I absolutely couldn’t recommend this phone to my wife, for example.

Banking apps work—if they work at all. There is no contactless payment support, which everyone uses these days. There is a significantly high number of broken Android apps, etc. It also seemed like there were at least two, maybe even three, different keyboards.

Do you guys have a UX designer? I can’t handle my banking, I can’t use my cards, and I can’t really navigate properly with the phone since there is no voice guidance in Finnish.

I hope things get sorted out in the future.

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Why do people spend many 100s credits for something they don’t like? I’m not complaining of course, but I don’t get it. It’s not like SfOS’ unique UX couldn’t have been tested out beforehand.

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I use my money to support Finnish engineering regardless of the quality. For me, it’s about supporting my country’s entrepreneurs and their efforts.

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Yeaa… exactly the point of SFOS. It’s an alternative, not another clone or derivate from ios/andy.
If you want another A-/I- system, then you have come to to the wrong place. Just face it. This is not iOS, it is not Android… it is an ALTERNATIVE.

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In 2012/2013 it was created with a promise to be UNLIKE, and - thanks God - 13/14 years later it still remains faithful to that promise.

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I think you may be a victim of your own expectations here.

There is a lot to do for Jolla, but certain items of your list are out of their control, or just an immensly high bar for a company with somwhere around 15 to 50 employees and a very limited budget.

SailfishOS has developed a lot since the J1, and it’s kind of a miracle that it still exists, while other competitors to the big duopoly, like Microsoft, had to give up.

We have people of all variety in our community. From the full fledged IT guy up to the elderly. It’s possible to use SFOS as a daily driver, even without the terminal or IT knowledge… but it’s definitely not as polished as Android or iOS. Would be a miracle if that would be the case. Apple and Google are Juggernauts, most probably spending more money per day on their systems development … than Jolla earns in a year. It’s an infinite difference in resources.

Especially speaking about the apps, there often ist just not much more Jolla can do. We need more native apps, and not all of them can be provided by them. That should not even be the goal.

Regarding Android Apps… besides current technical limitations like lacking support for NFC, most problems are not caused by SailfishOS, but by the apps. They use some weird SDK, integrity tests that are especially designed to block environments like SFOS, or similar. Besides eliminating those technical limitations, and keeping the API level up to speed, Jolla can’t do much about it. There is much space for improvement, but if someone needs a fully working, perfect Android environment… they most probably should use Android in the first place.

100% coversge without limitations is an almost impossible task, and should not even be the designated goal. Not even Android derivates like GrapheneOS, using the same base tech instead of emulation, are able to achieve 100% compatability with Stock Google Android.

What we instead need is more developers, for more native apps. And as soon as there are enough of these to cover most day to day tasks for most users… then we might speak about chichi like an “Switch to SailfishOS App”.

But thats just my two cents.

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It’s not Android. It’s not even based on Android. Please don’t expect it to be like Android.

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I’m not expecting perfection myself. However, I think the general public expects more, since it’s marketed as a free European alternative.

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My non-techi-Ex still uses SFOS more than four years after breakup. Perhaps the question lays at a different point.

I use a lot of Android-Apps, most of them work. Please specify, what you are missing, so we could help out. And yes Im pretty sure a lot people using contactless payment, but still a lot use simple cash and/or a real card. Try it, cards are not that hard to carry around. And obviously banking apps are a bigger topic in this forum, you could have noticed before, that contactless payment is not possible with SFOS. But it would be helpful if you ask your bank, when they will support SFOS.

So, whats exactly your point for this rant, you took time to post it? What do you expect from community?

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Please, not another thread of someone suddenly discovering Sailfish is not Android, only to complain and be negative because things are different. :unamused_face:

People on this forum will do everything they can to help if there are genuine questions, but they’re much less likely to if the very first post is just trying to p*** people off.

Some things, like banking apps deliberately blocking non-spyware operating systems, are even an issue with Android forks like Graphene.

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Well, I myself have kinda been always against linux but Jolla has presented option that exists outside big tech. Kinda good still learn new stuff even if you are not the biggest fan!

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It surely is the European alternative, but by “alternative”, you can’t expect SFOS to be exactly what you are used to… can you?
Of course you have to adapt, like the rest of us, and I can almost promise… if you do, you will love it.

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Kinda have to do so that if you are new to Sailfish/Jolla keep it as secondary tinker with it and learn its secrets :wink:

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I actually use S-Mobiili, Revolut, OP Mobiili, Nordea mobile bank, Nordea ID, and the Duolingo app on a daily basis. Additionally, I need the Europark, Edenred, AimoPark, and Parkman apps. As a bonus, it would be nice to have 112 Suomi, Wolt, Bolt, Uber, Snap, and all the Office apps. Oh, and the McDonald’s and Hesburger apps too.

Naturally, native apps like Firefox are missing. Yeah, and Jolla will definitely remain in use as my secondary phone, and I’ll try to get everything working with it :slight_smile:

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Actually we don’t have any Windows computers anymore. Only 8 PC:s running Linux :slight_smile:

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That’s good to read!

FWIW, the stock browser is built on Gecko, though it’s currently on ESR115, so still a little behind, and they are working to bring it more up to date.

Firefox for Android does work really well for those sites that the native version struggles with.

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Just try going to mtvuutiset.fi with the native browser—nothing works, and both the phone and the browser lag like crazy. It is actually the only news site I visit daily.

But hey everyone! I wanted this topic to be a good discussion opener for newcomers. It is not easy to jump on board with Jolla when there are so many missing apps. Please feel free to share your thoughts!

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Perhaps I am a luddite - “old man yells at cloud” and all that - but why in the name of hell do people think these things are necessary? A McDonalds app? On your privacy-centric phone? Next you’ll tell me you have a McDonalds account, and that they know your email address and phone number, your mother’s maiden name, the name of your first pet, your home address and credit card number.

SailfishOS is a completely viable alternative. It can browse the web. Make calls, send texts, take a picture. When I first switched to it as a daily driver, I was using an official port with AppSupport, and that helped ease the transition. But today I use no Android apps, and I am better for it. If I need something not available as a SFOS app, 9 times out of 10 I can just use the website, such as is the case with my bank, for example. But McDonalds does not need an app on my phone for me to be able to purchase some chicken nuggets, that’s ridiculous. If you absolutely cannot live another second without being reminded what kind of burgers they sell, look it up on their website!

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It sucks at it (assuming that you don’t want to use app support and firefox). And its far from ready for the average joe.

Clearly a huge amount of people that bought the new phone havent done their research and thats why the forum is plagued by 50 annoying “why my android app doesn’t work“ threads per day.

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There are ways. I have found Atlantic Browser fills in many gaps where the stock one can’t manage, but I dislike that it was developed with an LLM so I avoid it if I don’t need it. But yes, I did use Fennec probably most out of any Android App when I had AppSupport.

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