It isn’t frustration. I’ve got more important things in my life (especially in these times) to frustrate me. It’s just stating facts and describing my experiences.
I’ve given SFOS another go on January 1st when Blackberry turned off their servers, making any further app development impossible (no way to sign code) and restricting usage of BB10 phones.
Since then, i.e. within the last three weeks, I encountered:
- problems with GPS and a hardly working compass (both working fine on Android)
- inability to normally reject incoming calls,
- problems with handling SIM card slots - when I enable and then disable the second slot the SIM card in the first slot becomes inactive and loses network connection
- quite ‘fragile’ Android support, which with more heavy apps such as e.g. Google Maps or YouTube Vanced tends to freeze and restart itself
- problems with connecting to a saved hidden WLAN network, especially after exiting Flight mode. The network is correctly recognized (proper SSID and MAC address are shown) but it still keeps asking for SSID and passphrase, and even if fed with it, it still can’t connect. Sometimes it takes 15 minutes of fiddling, or - much quicker - rebooting for it to connect (maybe restarting the corresponding services would also help, haven’t tried)
- there are also problems with switching between different connections in Android, especially between mobile data and WLAN. Sometimes it takes restarting the whole Android support for Android apps to regain network connectivity.
- all kinds of problems with MMS. Some as bizarre as that MMS must contain some text in addition to image or else SFOS fails at “decoding MMS PDU” and refuses to receive it.
- no way to easily turn off cellular radio when I need to be temporarily ‘unreachable’, without using Flight mode (to avoid having to re-enable WLAN, reconnect Bluetooth, etc). The only way I could find is to enable the second (empty) SIM card slot in order to be able to temporarily disable the first card slot (as it requires at least one slot to be active). I can then enable the first slot (which brings back cellular network connectivity) but since then (until reboot) I can’t disable the second (empty) slot or else the card in the first slot also gets disabled.
- buggy Call barring settings. They do not show options which are enabled (e.g. International calls barred), and setting them does not work, either, because after closing and re-opening they are all inactive again.
- and that’s definitely not all, just what I could recall quickly at the moment. All that after two reflashes to ensure that it wasn’t caused by some bad flashing process, some bad software installed, etc.
I’ve owned (and in fact I still do) the classic Jolla from the very first batch of pre-orders in 2013. I came back to SFOS after many years of using and developing for BlackBerry BB10, and I really hoped that 10 years would have been enough for such basic bugs to have been removed. I was wrong.
I LOVE the look and feel of SFOS, I love its openness giving much more possibilities than what the severely restricted BB10 platform was letting developers do, and I really would love it to stay alive and succeed and allow me to make it my daily driver, because even just thinking about having to go Android or iOS gives me headaches. But all those bugs are really overwhelming.