New binaries / blobs for Xperia V and IV : What is happening actually?

General
238

What you people want? You keep asking what Jolla is doing and when they tell you they are working on it and let you know when they have something ready, you say that doesn’t change anything, tell us what you are doing!

I actually don’t get your attitude here. What am I supposed to do? What could I (or we) even do?
We are waiting for months, a timespan over years even, literally begging for any single piece or line of information only to get yet another “It’s done when it’s done ™” answer.

They use devices in the Sony Open Device Program, and the devices enter the program only after it has been already replaced by the newer “current year” model. After that Jolla is on the mercy of the Sony AOSP-team (which is different from the stock Android-team) and complaining on this forum about the slow progress doesn’t affect their work at all. The reason on sticking on these Sony devices probably lies in the fact, that Sony offers all these bootloader unlocking tools, AOSP blobs, limited support to Jolla behind the scenes etc. from official sources and that keeps the flashing process easy and clean.

Exactly my argument- why even rely on “Sony’s mercy” while there are obviously other options?

Be realistic, probably none of us needs or even wants some “bleeding Edge” technology device from the fruit company or Samsung / Google / whatever, but to have at least ONE decent 5G capable device with a working Camera doesn’t seem to me an exaggerated task.

I don’t mind buying outdated / deprecated devices from Sony for overcharged prices in hope to get at least some time later a working port but despite all announcements and promises nothing happens month for month for month.

Honestly, I really don’t even get the idea why to make dependent on only one and obviously also unreliable partner in that regard- and there are alternatives.

8 Likes
239

Maybe this will change, as Sony is so slow. At least, no “new” Sony Models are announced yet.

240

Maybe I’m having a bad day, or this exact same question gets asked again and again on these forums like it is a clock.

They said in the meeting, that they are working on it. Isn’t that a single line of information? Should someone from Jolla make a post every week to every discussion about Xperia 10 IV and V telling us that they are still working on it?

I don’t know why you are telling me this, maybe you should post this to the next gen phone discussion?

We, or Jolla, can’t hurry Sony, and only after Sony has done their work properly, Jolla can start finalizing their work.

Has Sony been unreliable before this Xperia 10 IV/V blob fiasco? Maybe the other alternatives don’t offer Jolla same commitment or support behind the scenes Sony offers? Jolla originally chose Xperia 10 over the more powerful Sony models from ODP, because it was cheap. I know the current Xperia 10 models are twice as expensive as the original Xperia 10 was back in the days, but are there any serious alternatives available today that are also as cheap or cheaper?

1 Like
241

Ok, then lets take another approach now.

We are all enthusiasts, I think that’s out of the question- otherwise none of us would probably stick here around. But lets change the perspective to something we are all too- being a customer.

From a customers point of view this is all plain bullshit, sorry to say so, but that’s it.

From a customers point of view I don’t care “whose fault” it is. I don’t care if Sony has been reliable before- why should I? All I want is a working device, why would I want to buy it otherwise?

The homepage f.e. states:

Sailfish OS has been ported to almost a hundred different devices* with new devices added regularly

Pointing to libhybris, but the most recent device there is from 2019. Guess that says enough.

As a customer the best for me would be a small phone selection like “Small, Medium, Big” and take that for physical size or CPU power or memory.

As a customer I personally wouldn’t even care about the branding of such a phone, all I want is that it supports the “regular” set of features any phone does, like 5G (which is really badly needed nowadays in most regions) and for some maybe a decent camera yet.

I mean, how does Volla do it? (most are Gigasets iirc). What devices are supported by GrapheneOS ? (hint: they use the pixel series f.e.). How does any “secure and private” Android based solution make it? How are the community based ports done?

See, if I tell anyone interested in the slightest in the topics of smartphone security or google and apple free phones about SFOS they are more than curious, even excited and the first question is always: Where to get it?
I then have to tell them: Yes you can buy SFOS, but there is no any recent hardware < 5 years old it is running on. It’s great, stable, feels good, almost any function one could need is there or could be done otherwise by using android apps, but right now it is entirely unusable for the average user.

So, what is the Agenda here? Does SFOS have no priority compared to the other products jolla sells like automotive or AI Computers? Are we just guinea pigs to iron out bugs so that they can sell SFOS to some company or government?
My guess is as good as yours, but obviously there seems to be no interest in having customers. Who needs customers anyway, they are just annoying and demand stuff all the time.

Ok, to be serious again- how is this supposed to be working?
Yes: “It’s done when it’s done ™”

9 Likes
242

I don’t know how Volla does it, they probably get the blobs straight from hardware vendors when they buy the parts, but GrapheneOS uses blobs extracted from stock Android devices instead of AOSP blobs like Jolla does.

Automotive side is handled by Seafarix and my guess is, and my guess is, that they are currently subsidizing the other ventures of SFOS-ecosystem. If Jolla could get any company or government to adopt SFOS, that would be great and would bring growth opportunities and hopefully continued significant funding.

Anyone, who has ever worked with customers, will surely agree with you on this point!

2 Likes
243

This is wrong as the storage can and will degrade which makes it slower as the controller has more work to do.

1 Like
244

The main difference is (and this was explained several times): GrapheneOS, “VollaOS”, e/OS…are android versions and use the blobs direct.
Sailfish OS uses libhybris to communicate with the blobs (as the linux kernel must have access to the hardware drivers), which is always a kind of reverse engineering - which is way more difficult.

10 Likes
245

And what’s with Volla’s Ubuntu Touch version? I’m really just curious.

1 Like
246

Afaik this situation is the same like with Sailfish. There are some ports, but not as many as android derivatives.

2 Likes
247

So it seems to be extra difficult to communicate with Sony blobs in comparison to Volla blobs or others?

248

It seems so, what I meant: There is a big difference between Android versions and (real) Linux versions for smartphones.

1 Like
249

At EU-level there is coming “big problem” with Android platforms in near feature. So, every eu-boss (who understand coming problems ..hmm) must back up EU’s own mob platform. Clever people knows how/ what. So, there might be lighting …

4 Likes
250

could you be a little less cryptic, and define in real terms what this ‘big problem’ is?

i’m getting lost in all the veiled allusions of impending doom…

13 Likes
251

To get back on topic, and to get back on my promise to share results:

I just reflashed my phone with the new blobs and the new SFOS version (5.0.0.71), and it froze during setup. So there are certainly bugs that makes the phone unusable using the new blobs.

Also, I entered my jolla account info, and it told me there was an error registering the device. I double, triple and quadruple checked my username and password for typos, but it was correct. So probably some settings for using the version 5.0.0.71 makes it unable to register the device.

1 Like
252

I do not have this problem, over the air update on my x10v to x.71 was without any problems. Everything works fine

253

Did the OTA update, no problems, but no noticeable differences also. Still no cam and it very much looks like the battery ain’t updated as well.

Do I need to update the blobs manually yet or are there plain no changes for the V in there?

1 Like
254

At least to my understanding the update didn’t have any specific fixes to Xperia V/IV. I assume Jolla will for sure specifically announce when they can make the battery indicator and camera work.

2 Likes
255

Battery indicator is working since v4b blobs…

2 Likes
256

Yes, but I’ve read this is possible along with some other reports about various (possible) issues doing so.
Didn’t seem to be feasible for me yet.

257

Which issues? I’m using them without problems since months… The 10 V would be my perfect device if the camera would not be missing.

3 Likes