Sailfish is stagnant - some improvement's that are neeed IMO

Design
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Dear Sailfish devs & community - recently I got Sony Xperia XA2 Plus that I flashed with Sailfish OS (community, so no aliendalvik) and I have few suggestions for devs that IMO should be taken seriously.

1. Apps/Packages

Aliendalvik
So because I’m using the free version of Sailfish without android support (and Waydroid is currently completely broken at least in my case) I’m trying to use it without android apps, and it’s just terrible - everything is outdated, nobody updates packages & if something works, then you are lucky. As some people suggested - Sailfish needs Flutter or something that can make apps to be developed more easily (if anyone will ever consider that as an option due to low market share).
I also think, that Sailfish team needs to do something, to make apps from regular Linux distros to work here. Currently there is Postmarket OS (and many other mobile ARM Linux distros) with biggest initiatives from KDE Mobile team & GNOME Mobile/Phosh to make mobile linux apps.

Because Sailfish is using outdated QT version (as far as I understand) & it’s own packages that don’t work with other distros we are ending up with outdated everything - the team doesn’t even bother to update (at least it looks like that) web browser.

Relaying on Android support is not a solution - this can be used as a backup (kinda like Valve is using Proton to run Windows games on Linux, but in the end they want bigger Linux/SteamOS market share). You either need to make flatpak/appimage apps working on SailfishOS, or Sailfish will be stuck with demand, to update everything on their own, when such a simple thing like a web browser is being handled by Firefox team, or Chromium team, or other software on normal Linux (& the scale down UI for mobile).

Also it’s not really that needed right now for a web browser to look like the rest of SailfishOS UI - I would rather prefer up to date browser (with working extensions compared to what we have now, even adblocking requires some DNS shenanigans instead of simple uBlock Origin install on Firefox).

RPM apps
Native Sailfish apps need some permission management - there is no sense for music player to get location access when it doesn’t even need it.

2. UI

Gestures
I think that few things about UI need to be changed. Most of the phones we have today are 6”+ (new Sailfish phone is supposed to be 6.3”) and even on my Xperia XA2+ with 6” I have issues to reach top corner to slide down to close the app. Generally speaking I think that some gestures need to be changed to work better with bigger devices - Jolla Phone was 4,5”, we don’t have this any more and probably not gonna get it any time.

Lock button in top-down menu
Also ,lock button” in the top-down menu needs to go or there should be an easy way to remove it - I know original Jolla phone was ,no buttons - only gestures” design, but if you intend for Sailfish OS to work on different devices, then you can be sure that it has some kind of power button - as my XA2+ has, and this button only take space in top menu, no use for it.
There is a mod to remove it, but it was not updated for latest SailfishOS so it’s not working any more.

Status bar privacy indicators (on top, with wifi/cellular/battery%)
I think that Sailfish needs to inform user when some app is using mic/webcam/gps - there should be an indicator next to the wifi/cellular range icons with GPS pin icon, and mic/webcam icon when some app is using it.

3. Being unique philosophy

With SailfishOS I’m kinda getting a feeling, that you do too much to be unique, at the cost of doing things the most sensible way. SailfishOS looks good in my opinion, but it lacks a lot of simple features, that iOS/Android had for years for a sake of looks. To me currently SailfishOS lacks even simple package updates from dev team. It’s almost a joke, that a web browser is now so old, that a lot of websites just inform the user, to update it, when there is nothing to do about it - unless you use aliendalvik and Firefox fro Android.

Also - I paid nothing for the phone & currently money is in shortage, so no - I don’t consider to pay for Sailfish X - and when I see how outdated stuff is it only ensures me, that staying on some AOSP rom is a better choice for now.

EDIT: Also the editor is kinda broken on this website, or it’s not working correctly for me.

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Welcome on boat!

nobody updates packages

Quite strange, there are several updates. Since November 2025, there were 13 apps updated in the Jolla Store. Check the Harbour News in the community-news. If you check all alternatives stores, there were even more updates and new apps. Check OpenRepos (the infrastructure behind Storeman) and Chum (apps automatically built from sources) if you don’t believe me :slight_smile:

Native Sailfish apps need some permission management - there is no sense for music player to get location access when it doesn’t even need it.

Can you elaborate?

In any case, I invite you to dig a bit more to understand the actual situation.

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Please stop posting AI garbage in this forum.

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What is it with newbies coming in recently and making demands?

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Unfortunately it is not really new. Somehow netiquette has gone out of fashion.
Is it really so hard to sanity-check if the suggestions are at all reasonable?

How about contributing instead of just complaining?

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to get a not completely outdated browser is not complaining. Also not everybody has the time/interest/ressources to contribute
(all regarding to post #1 browser issue. I didnt read the ai nonsense)

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I read here and there people talking about postmarketOS in comparison to SailfishOS but when I go to the official website I don’t see any device that could be used as a daily driver with it.

Can we really compare the two OSes?

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What is it with new users lately coming to the forum and creating (often AI-generated) walls of text?

I almost stopped reading after this:

It is for you. There are plenty of Android distributions out there.
You should consider sticking to these. Don’t waste your time on Sailfish if it’s so bad.

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Did the OP even bother to read the forum before posting? This is a well-known fact that does not change by repeating it ad nauseam. There is work underway to update the browser, as stated in several threads already. How is creating yet another thread to complain about real or imaginary problems helpful in any way, shape, or form?

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Have you tried Angelfish?

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What are your propositions?

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You do realize Sailfish OS has been around for over a decade, right?
Do you really think you are somehow special, and that they waited all this time just for you to come along, make this discovery, and save the day?

I am sorry. I am not normally this rude, I am just slowly getting tired of this happening at least once a week, with someone thinking they are the new genius Sailfish needs to be saved.

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Personally I had no idea that the browser was outdated or that Sailfish doesn’t have feature parity with the global duopoly. This is news to me as I’ve been living under a rock. It must be news to Jolla as well, it’s a good thing this is now finally brought to their attention after floating around aimlessly for over a decade.

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Hello,

I just read your analysis. I see, you

《Posted 16 hours ago, Joined 17 hours ago, Read 40m》

Is your post by any chance AI generated?

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I vote for a way of full Linux and FOSS compatibity.
For the Android compatibility layer adapt LineageOS. It’s on Android 13 and supports a lot of devices officially and more unofficially.
SFOS needs no own browser if it’s easy to install one from F-Droid.
The same for e-mail, various chat apps, audio, video, and so on.

Customers need also more compatible easy to get phone models, more screen sizes and also tablets please.

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What does this even mean?

And this?!

Ah, yes, become completely beholden to Android seems like a great way forward.

I hope you were joking.

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And what do those people, who don’t have an AAS license, do? Or don’t want to install AAS/Waydroid?

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Sigh. For the time being we install Angelfish from @piggz qt6 builds on obs…..

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And all of that aside, it’s impossible to browse with an Android browser for devices like C2.
Unless of course 2 FPS is tolerable for some people.

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The same that people do who can’t use browsers or don’t want to or just don’t use browsers. Some use other browsers. Some don’t. Some even don’t do that. And than there’s people who can never get along with how things are. These are divided in two groups: Users of alternatives and the other half.