Sailfish Community News, 8th January 2026 - New Year

Community News
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Sailfish OS update from Jolla

We’re back and wish each and everybody have had relaxing break for Christmas and New Year time :hugs:. It is almost a month since the last newsletter Sailfish Community News, 11th December 2025 - Mimetype handlers. Happy to be back from vacation and happy new year 2026 to the whole Sailfish OS community :partying_face:! Today after vacation period, we focus on Harbour news authored by @vige and there are quite few apps – thank you @vige. We are back on normal rhythm so next week we have the first community meeting of this year.

In case you have not noticed, we have new community moderators on the Sailfish OS Forum. As we have not officially announced them, let’s utilize the newsletter to do so. Thank you @pherjung and @filip.k for stepping up and for your efforts thus far :pray:. Warm moderator welcome.

Thank you for all the ideas and input that you gave to the Jolla Phone referral program in planning as noted in the Next gen Jolla Phone update - 12/25. We have gone thru the inputs and are working on to finalize the referral program to reach goal of 10,000 pre-orders and unlocking The Other Half (TOH). We’ll soon open the program and share the perks. We should be ready in coming days and let’s make a joint push to reach 10,000 pre-orders!

Before Christmas we noted that we’re working on an update for Sailfish 5.0. We’re are not quite ready yet but it’s getting there. This time we will need to have a longer Community Beta (CBeta) time. Here are some items that we have planned for the update:

  • AppSupport Bluetooth support
  • AppSupport 13 (Android API level 33 compatibility) for all 64bit devices
  • VPN fixes
  • Plus smaller fixes

We appreciate the community efforts and pondering around the AppSupport Bluetooth Potential Bluetooth Support in the Android App Support (AAS). Further, we understand that some Android apps have stopped working with the Android 11. Thus, this update would focus mostly on AppSupport improvements and fixes. Unfortunately, it looks like that efforts needed to upgrade AppSupport 13 for 32bit devices is out of scope (Sony Xperia XA2 and Xperia 10 devices). Supported devices would be Xperia 10 II, Xperia 10 III, Xperia 10 IV, Xperia 10 V and Jolla C2.

The upcoming AppSupport Bluetooth support won’t be complete and we’re looking for feedback and testing, first within the CBeta group. We simply cannot get all gears and test them all. However, together we can iron out issues. After we have ironed out the core issues in the CBeta phase, we’ll roll it for everybody in a public release.

We are there in the FOSDEM 2026 in the Linux on Mobile stand. If you happen to be there, please stop by. Thank you @flypig for organizing (at least big part goes to you) once again Linux on Mobile stand. We’ll help with rollups and other gears needed. Hopefully we still get a FOSDEM 2026 Birds Of a Feather (BOF) FOSDEM 2026 - Schedule room like we had last year. Would be great to discuss together what you would need and how’d you like to go forward. On Saturday evening we’ll organize a Sailfish OS meetup – at least there we have a chance to discuss. We update on the Forum topic regarding the event.

Harbour news

Quite a few apps in our Harbour news section this time! It’s partly because it’s been a while since previous newsletter, but it’s also clear that app maintainers have been busy during the holiday period.

J2: Enjoyer!, Dampffisch and Sailimgur
J2: Enjoyer!, Dampffisch and Sailimgur1920×853 135 KB

J2: Enjoyer!

This is an app I’m sure many of you have already noticed. It really has only one function, but it does it extremely well: It displays the number of people who have pre-ordered the next generation Jolla phone.

Dampffisch

Dampffisch is another new app. It allows you to read the news from your Steam games. You can add steam games by their game id or from your recently played games if your Steam profile is public.

All the news

All the news is a client for newsapi.org. It allows you to read news from quite many different sources. You need an API key in order to use it. The latest version (0.5.0) brings bug fixes for audio and video, and a possibility to open external URLs.

Fast chess

Fast chess allows you to play chess. You can either play against the Stockfish engine, or against another player who is also using a Sailfish device. You can also use the app as a chess clock. The version 0.9.2 is a bug fix release, fixing issues with castling and enpassant, among others.

Sailtrix

Sailtrix is a Matrix chat app with end-to-end encryption among many other features. The latest version (1.4.2) brings URL linkifying and bug fixes to emoji verification and viewing images/avatars with authenticated media. Also Italian and Slovak translations were added.

SFOS Forum Viewer

SFOS Forum Viewer, a native client for this forum right here, received yet another update:

1.14.4 distinguishes moderators, no longer highlights own posts as new, shows less threads on cover and hopefully supports /t/ links.

OSM Scout

OSM Scout, a Sailfish is map viewer with search and navigation, was updated to version 2.41. The main improvement is the capability of opening “geo” links without installing harbour-osmscout-open-url package. Another improvement is wrapping long error messages in map downloader.

Sailimgur

Sailimgur is not a new app, but somehow it has managed to sail unnoticed on the forum. As the name suggests, it is an imgur client for Sailfish OS. It packs a ton of features while still keeping the UI simple and easy to use. The latest update to version 0.12.0 brings Sailjail profile, improved downloader and UI fixes.

Quickddit

Quickddit, the native reddit client, was updated to version 1.14.6. The big news is adaptive video streams - which in practice means working sound for many videos which didn’t have sound before. It has to be enabled in the settings, I suppose because it’s a bit unstable. There’s also some metadata and elapsed time on the video player page. User avatars are now loaded on the profile page and the account list. Inline GIFs now fill the page width, and large posted GIFs no longer cause OOM crashes. There is now “My Saved Things” in the main menu. Comment reply boxes have a “cancel” button.

Fire

The classic fire effect, which all of us who were part of the demoscene in the early nineties remember well. Version 1.0.6. brings improvements to the intensity changes.

Tooterβ

Tooter is a Mastodon client for Sailfish OS. During the holiday period it was updated from 1.2.1 to 1.2.4. There is now a “Trending” page, and some crash was fixed. Also Norwegian and Russian translations were updated.

Tidings

Tidings is a news feed and podcast aggregator. The latest update to version 1.4.3 contains interface improvements.

Repository roundup

Camera

  • jolla-camera, the application to shoot pictures, direc85 changed the model name recorded in the metadata to use a more meaning full label for users instead of the technical model label. pvuorela fixed a regression in the selection of the secondary camera (used for selfies).

Browsing the web

Network, communication and telephony stack

Multimedia

Low level libraries

Developer’s corner

Please feed us your news

Hope you enjoyed reading this fortnight!

This is a community update, and frankly we can’t always keep up with all the exciting stuff happening in the Sailfish Community. Plus, the less of this we have to actually write ourselves the better. So please help us out by posting your Sailfish news updates to the forum as a reply to this post. We’ll collate as much of it as possible into one easily digestible post for the next update. This is your news!

Please do also join us at our community meetings on IRC, Matrix and Telegram. The next community meeting will be on the 15th January. Please note change in the time slot due to the standard time change (6:00 PM EET). We had a tons of great meetings last year. Let’s continue on the same track and keep on improving there as well.

Remember to follow us also in Mastodon jolla (@jolla@techhub.social) - TechHub

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Thank you for the great summary, as always!

The upcoming support for Bluetooth in Android AppSupport sounds great!

And that means, in turn, that the only two fully supported devices will be the C2 and the yet-to-be-released J2, correct?

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Reads to me like Xperia 10 II and III should work too and they explicitly mean the Xperia 10 without numbering.

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What a way to start new year! Just hands on amazing with all the Jolla phone work with the same time :heart: I think the Bluetooth support especially is good one for Jolla phone also as that brings quite a lot new faces

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Wow, Bluetooth Android Support is really a game changer! Fantastic - and a happy new year to the Jolla team!

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Xperia 10 II and Xperia 10 III would also receive AppSupport 13.

Putting other way around, AppSupport 13 would be available after update for:

Xperia 10 II
Xperia 10 III
Xperia 10 IV
Xperia 10 V
Jolla C2

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Thank you, Jolla, and welcome back from a well deserved rest!

Strongly agree! Thank you @pherjung and @filip.k for helping threads stay on topic. Your efforts splitting out posts to other threads improves the forum a lot.

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I have a question on this repository roundup part. The listed things are such that are done and prepared for the next SFOS update or can those improvements be installed as separate packages (and if yes how)?

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It depends. Some of the changes reported in the repository roundup can be directly applied and enjoyed on device after recompilation, some not.

  • when the change introduces a change that is incompatible with the current software stack running on device, recompiling the package and use it can be hasardous. It requires a proper migration path (like upgrading some local storage, also updating lower level libraries…). This migration path is properly done by the official software update (and that’s why it’s not really possible to downgrade most of the time).
  • when the change is a bug fix, or fully compatible with the stack on device. Then one can recompile and use it on device. To do so:
    • clone the repository,
    • compile it within the SDK,
    • install the created RPM on device.
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As this seems to be no topic this time: Will the open sourcing of apps proceed? What about the calendar or mail app as next candidates?

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To me this is depressing news because it adds just another nail in the coffin of prospective native SailfishOS apps.

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That depends on the point of view. Having Bluetooth for android apps will offer the option to use things with our sailfish device which may otherwise need a secondary phone. So for example setting up a 3D-Printer, a balcony solar power plant or similar things where we might never see any native app.

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Let us first show the implementation to you. Like said:

I’m not hammering any nails to any coffin.

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I understand what you mean. But I mainly see that as beneficial for users who migrate to SFOS. The better experience people have after they migrate the more likely it is that they are satisfied and will stay. For example to my understanding in Sweden there is ID app which needs bluetooth so that you can transfer your profile.

The more we have “passengers” in the boat, more we probably have devs in boat. And I would like to believe that people prefer to use those beautiful native apps over android counterparts. So in long run I see it beneficial for SFOS ecosystem. But to my understanding there definitely could be improvements done to app developers!

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This argument is irrelevant until SailfishOS has a double digit market share and will even hinder it from reaching said market share numbers.

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I didn’t want to belittle the work done, both by you, Jolla in general, and last but not least the community members who were involved in moving this forward! This is not my intention at all.

I just want to point out the more useful AAS is made, the less incentive is there to make native apps to fulfill whatever functions Android apps cover.

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And yet, people seem to enjoy Amazfish and appreciate it exists!

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Why should that be? I can’t see how the two could be connected in the slightest.
Android developers aren’t going to start porting their apps to Sailfish just because Bluetooth is missing in App Support, and Sailfish developers won’t stop developing native apps simply because Android apps may have Bluetooth in App Support.

We already have multiple native Telegram apps and Whisperfish, despite both Telegram and Signal working in App Support. The same applies to many other Android apps that have Sailfish equivalents, even though they run flawlessly under App Support.

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Sure, I prefer native apps as they tend to work better and have no ads or other anti features.
But still without AAS, I couldn’t run SailfishOS as my daily driver.

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I, for my part, wouldn’t stop developing apps for Sailfish even if every single Android app in the world ran flawlessly in App Support including Bluetooth and NFC.
Android apps would still be too ugly. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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