And do you really believe a user from that club 95 can get happy with SFOS? Anyway, we are at 6518 units for the J2.
The masses are still somewhat hesitating to let go of their super private iPhones and ultra safe Androids for a new TikTok experience with SFOS.
Yes. Cause SFOS allows to use those apps, and still have a lean and alternative OS.
At least all people i introduced to SFOS are happy with what they name as ‘best of both worlds’.
I dont myself need those android apps, and i am myself not average since i am satisfied with Jolla Store apps alone, wich doesnt seem so usual. But i can only witness the fact that most people i know do use those big tech android apps on Sailfish, and are glad about such a mix.
Even Jolla uses it in its own https://sailfishos.org/ website:
I think my point was said already by @pherjung , but mainly its that Jolla shouldnt provide easily any app that can/could break phone/updates…
Thats how Jolla store is curating carefull apps. And how Android apps, being in a container, are…well contained, so dont interfear.
Jolla store may get a little more flexible to what it allows, Jolla already mentionned that in one of this year’s community meeting.
But that’s the problem: the Jolla Store doesn’t contain apps the “common Joe” wants. Like for example Whisperfish. This will then lead to the “common Joe” just installing Signal Android which we all mostly agree is not the idea how Sailfish should be used.
There are just a lot of very good apps which are not in the Jolla Store but might be perfectly fine for the common Joe..
Jolla should finally work on Jolla store.
Give developers what they need regarding restrictions, tools and monetization.
And then users what they also need. Proper curated apps that work as advertised, notify users if the app is not updated to support their current OS version, proper permission documentation etc.
Developers need and should be able make money from their apps. Jolla getting their cut would help them maintain a proper store as well.
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Unmaintained:
Jolla Store has several nice apps that are important to me. I prefer these above the Android and iTunes apps about the same subject. E.g. Nednieuws, Welkweer, Guardfish. Talefish is a fine app while Android is hopeless with audiobooks. The new radio app is good, I like the Clock app, etc. My grandchildren love games like Parking Chaos, Country Quiz and more. Because paid for apps aren’t available some beautiful games from iTunes (Amanita Design) and Steam aren’t avalable in Jolla Srore. That’s a pity.
Perhaps we could ask which apps are wanted in Jolla Store?
As @pherung has stated and has been discussed, these are very different distribution mechanisms.
My view as a developer:
In short, in the long term i have hopes that obs/chum become a conduit for distributing to harbour. That would save me time and allow me to use a unified build system with verification mechanisms, perhaps signing, etc, etc.
Chum/OpenRepos is pretty much the only way to distribute apps which can’t run inside a sadbox. Jolla Store admission process insists on sadboxing.
Well with that kind of growth rate Jolla could afford more devs, maybe update Qt, solve problems faster, accelerate development etc. → Better SailfishOS experience all together. With bigger user space there probably would even be more app developers. Might be a little bit long shot the 1%, but if Jolla could achieve even 0,01% that would be amazing start for Jolla.
Just to put that in the perspective, according to Fairphone - Wikipedia FP sold 103053pcs phones during 2024. If we assume there were 200-250 million new phones sold 2024 that is like 0,04-0,05% market share. 0,01% market share of next year in Europe would mean ~20k sold phones.
That would mean much more new phases to the user space and community, which would hopefully increase the app offering in all of the mentioned 3 native sources 
More app developers without any way to make money?
Either you have a platform for people to publish whatever they can do for a hobby after their day job (current state for 10+ years), or you have a platform that is worth supporting from a financial standpoint.
Is there a rule against including donation links in software like FUTO does?
Technically FUTO request we buy licenses but the software is fully functional without.
Plenty of apps have that.
For a while there was integrated functionality in store for it even, via flutter. But that is before i started making apps, so i can’t comment on how much it did.
I have no idea how much paid app support would do; but there are several classes of paid apps we definitely don’t need carried over from other platforms. And just as an observation, none of mine would have been worthy to charge for already from the beginning.
Oh, I fully support the monetisation. Hopefully that can be included in the Jolla store
Whisperfish might not be “feature complete” but it’s perfectly suitable for daily driving. I have been daily driving it for years.
Sure, there is no calling, but do you really need that that often?
Yes, every day. It is also behind on encryption but that is less important.
I don’t have such a link in any SFOS app, but from experience from a few of my Android apps: I get whopping $4 a month from all of them combined.
And that’s only because I offer it as an optional subscription using Play Services, when I only include a link/button and ask for donations I get zero.
I don’t trust Google with my payment information. Since I’ll be part of the Jolla ecosystem and they already have my info I’d be willing to pay for apps. I bought a used Google Pixel and flashed it with GrapheneOS. All of the apps are free and the OS developer knows nothing about me.
The annoying thing about buying apps instead of donating is VAT.
Play Services is not the point, the point is that if I include a native subscription which takes all of two clicks to pay I do actually get something (and it’s from my least popular app no less!), while including a donation button to a 3rd party website, I get nothing.
In short, unless someone creates a two tap solution to pay for stuff, donation buttons are mostly useless.
