Now first of all, this is not a question - I think it could be useful for me to post an installation report of my new phone here (plus, given it is a “Community Phone” I take it feedback is appreciated). Suggestions on how I can do things better are appreciated though.’
So, I got my new Jolla C2 Community Phone. Came in a good package, not overly padded but just right. Well done, Jolla! No superfluous waste. Already making a good impression right there.
I did initial setup in German (sorry, had not seen Jolla C2 first time use instructions ) but all was well. It was finicky to power on (just saw logo then it powered off again), but as with many Android phones, plugging it in during first boot fixed it all (it did claim to have 99% battery though). So from my perspective all fine here; not sure how many bugs referenced on the thread still exist. My only complaint about the initial setup was that all the usernames I tend to use on the internet are taken - this is the first place ever I got that issue, so I went with the name of the game I released.
Then I checked out the hardware and it turned out there is one serious issue: the rotation sensor is not working at all. In the test tool you reach by tapping the version number 5 times, the accelerometer/gyro always reads all zeros. Rebooting or restarting sensorfw, or even using GPS for a few seconds, changes nothing. While at it, I found that compass fails too (expected as it needs gyro to calibrate, but also, I never had a phone with a working compass and I had multiple Pixels and iPhones, so I don’t care that much, I am already used to do pedestrian navigation without working compass anyway) and for some odd reason it claims the SIM card slot fails, even though I can make, receive calls and texts, and use mobile data just fine (except it later stopped working once and I had to toggle airplane mode - used to that from Android too).
As I definitely need to also use landscape orientation for watching videos, and going to settings is too cumbersome, this is the point where I discovered Patch Manager. It lists a bunch of patches that put manual control of rotation in the upper menu, but none apply (they generally want to add a new file whose path already exists). But given those patches looked simple enough, I made my own that makes the orientation lock button no longer toggle between unlocked / lock at current, but between portrait and landscape by one tap (I need to publish the patch later, have not figured out yet how to). Now the phone is usable to me.
Setting up Android App Support and microG was simple enough, nothing to comment there.
The File Manager from the Jolla Store seems to be entirely useless, as it can’t look into the local downloads or the Android downloads, so I had to install the OpenRepos version (however, it did tell me that).
One remaining issue is that getting a GPS fix took ages; turns out I had to install MLS Manager from OpenRepos and download the data for Germany, now it’s still not as fast as Android but good enough.
Now, I consider every Android app I use a bug, as that means it’s something in the way of using a native Sailfish OS system (e.g. if self compiled, as I read one can’t get App Support at all on non-supported devices). So here is the list of Android apps I had to install for now:
With no native replacement in sight:
- Bolt (E-scooter rentals… likely not gonna happen)
- Deutsche Bahn Navigator (workaround needed: had to install an Android web browser too - went with Fennec F-Droid - or else the web-browser-based login flow wouldn’t point back at the app and thus wouldn’t complete the login)
- DKB Banking (well… not gonna happen, I understand… it does work properly though, despite being a banking app)
- WhatsApp (well… not gonna happen, I understand)
With possible future native replacement:
- AAAAXY (my own game - the main issue is that it uses Ebitengine, which doesn’t support Wayland yet, so to make it run natively, I’d need to either move from Ebitengine to something else, or add Wayland support to Ebitengine, or get Xwayland to work)
- Element X (there are a bunch of other Matrix clients in the Jolla Store, but none could manage to verify to be able to use encryption - I will investigate more later, and also look into what OpenRepos has)
With possible but “inconvenient” native replacement:
- NewPipe (SailPipe is in the works, but can’t bookmark a playlist yet - if I did not have App Support, I’d however have an alternate solution ready, a sync script between a local folder and a YT playlist using yt-dlp that I use to feed my iPad)
- Subway Tooter (I need both Misskey and Mastodon support, and it seems not a single client in the Jolla Store supports Misskey); however if necessary I’d be using their web versions instead. Note that I did not exercise the login flow yet - I just exported my settings including login token from an Android device and imported here.
- Two church apps (not gonna happen, but without App Support I’d just use the web version)
One rough edge of Android App Support I found is that it seems very hard to share files between Android and Sailfish apps. E.g. after I transferred a file from Bluetooth, it showed up in Android file selectors but was not selectable. I ended up moving it into app_support/Download/, that didn’t fix it, but then I saw it was chmod’d 600, so making it 644 finally made it work. Not sure if the chmod alone would have sufficed, will look into it more next time.
Also, SSH file transfer over WiFi with this phone is faster than any transfer solution (even adb over USB) with my Pixel 8a, and also way outperforms ifuse with my iPad.
All in all this phone and OS makes a good impression. Some rough edges still, but already quite well working for my use cases. In general Android app performance of the phone feels like it compares to a new low-end Android and not the Pixel 8a I was using before - but that is fine with me (plus it has 8G of RAM, which means that unlike on a real low-end Android, I don’t get apps crashing all the time for running out of memory).
