[Strategies] Bringing more sailors to SFOS

It can be done either way. Cutting of a branch is slightly less work.

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Hi @vige , could we cut the branch from this message please ? I feel like from this one on the topic starts evolving on community development and the Wiki topic.

Thank you for your help !

Hi poetaster, could you add this link to the community wiki created here please ?

If you have other links like this one feel free to add them !

Thanks !

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Ok, what should be the title of the new topic? Sorry I’m a bit unimaginative sometimes…
Also, please mark the posts which should be moved. You can use the flag feature and either mark it as off-topic or “something else”. I will just move the messages, it won’t be counted against anyone :slight_smile:

they should start by making patchmanager work again flawlessy, to begin with.
Could help to build a better reputation, and would be quite useful to most of us.

sorry I couldn’t find out which link you were referring to? I’m about to write up a small python and c-library packaging page, so I’ll add a link to that!

I meant the forum link that helped you to get help

I’ll start collecting them :slight_smile: One external link is in now.

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I’d like to add my (non-extensive) experience with SFOS to this topic.

I’m a long term iPhone user, with very short Android experiments in the past, which didn’t work out well for me, so I quickly switched back to iOS. I am also a mobile developer for iOS, as well as professional C++ linux developer. I like to use free/open source software, I love linux/unix, and I am also a hobby open source developer. I still keep my MacBook and iPhone as daily drivers (since joining jolla forums I have heard this term more often than ever in my life :smiley: ) for usability and compatibility reasons, however I also have several linux/BSD machines in my home.

I was following Pursim for quite a while, excited whether or not the LibreM 5 could be some kind of viable replacement for my phone. While this project is rather unsuccessful, I purchased the Volla Phone last year on indiegogo after I head about it. I liked the phone itself, and I wanted to try out Ubuntu Touch/UBPorts as an alternative for my iPhone, and I love the idea to have less american big tech companies in my life, and better protect my privacy.
When I got the phone, I directly flashed it with UBports and tried it out. While UBports/Ubuntu Touch itself was okay-ish, the lack of apps quickly made clear that this could never be a proper replacement. I found about anbox, and installed it, but found it to be rather clumsy, cumbersome to manage, and also the apps I tried to run just plain did not work.
Before reflashing android and selling the phone again, I found that the UBports installer also offered SailfishOS, and this was the first time I heard about it. I had no clue what it was, and went ahead trying to flash it, only to find it broke the phone, and I had a really hard time to restore it.

But now that I head about SFOS, I started looking it up, checking what phones were supported, and what the OS is like. I then purchased a used XA2 ultra and a SFOS license to try out SFOS. Installing went smoothly, and I was able to get it up and running with no issues. I also directly set up android support, which worked surprisingly well. It took a moment to figure out how installing stuff, the several stores and so worked, but overall it was quite easy to install apps, and even all the android apps I installed worked just fine out of the box. This was amazing, considering the bad experience I previously made with anbox.

However, I’ve never got to the point where I used the XA2 as a real replacement, but I kept it around, still use it every now and then to experience SFOS, and explore apps and features. I liked the OS, I liked the fact that android apps just worked, however there were, of course, also several disadvantages.
One is the overall slowness of things. Opening native apps might take around 3-4 seconds, which is orders of magnitudes slower than on my iPhone, where basically everything opens instantly. Scrolling through lists can be unsmooth, with some stuttering or slow movement. The native browser is way subpar, and in general, using the OS you just have to be a bit more patient overall.
Then, the XA2 itself is not a good Phone for me, because of the camera, form factor and shape of the thing, which just isn’t my cup of tea.
Also, some features available on iOS/android are missing, but I would consider those really minor disadvantages.

However, although I could not use the XA2 as a replacement, I havent let go of the thought of using SFOS in the future, and I kept checking the forums for potential new hardware. I noticed that the 10ii shall be supported soone, and the frequency of forum-checking increased :smiley:
Now that also android support for the 10ii is out, I actually purchased a new 10ii as well as the SFOS license, now waiting for potential delivery tomorrow.
This time, I want to try to use it as main phone, lets see how it goes, I hope I can do it.

Before anyone getting a wrong impression here: I don’t expected a 350$ phone to perform like a 1000+$ phone, that would obviously be stupid. However, for me, personally, a good usability/user experience is one of the most important points in the discussion.
So while I partly agree with the OP about that the lack of apps might be a problem, I would say that, at least for the bunch of apps I am using, it seems like that the combination of native and android apps would just work out well (lets see how it goes, I’m gonna find that out).

So instead of the lack of apps, I would state that the supported hardware plays an important role when it comes to attractiveness of the OS. The current state is, that you can “only” get a mid-range phone of 2020, while with iOS and android, of course, you can pick from all ranges up to top-notch flagship technology.
This is a real pity, in my opinion. Just imagine how it would be like if you had the 5ii/5iii running SFOS, and proper support of all cameras. Or any other high-end phone (probably non-giraffe form factor).
Or imagine jolla selling pre-flashed phones running SFOS already when you open the box. Wouldn’t that be amazing? The average user does not want to flash operating system to their phones (android platform tools? huh??). The average user wants to buy a phone, power it up and start using it.

Of course thats all unrealistic, and a lot depends on the open devices program etc., I just want to point out the importance of supported hardware, but also the availability and installation of the OS, and this topic is about strategies :slight_smile:
I am aware that jolla is just a small company, but I would love to see that SFOS would get more widely spread and known/used. Keep up the great work!

TL;DR
Long and boring personal story, ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ GIB better hardware and pre-flashed devices.

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I may have mentioned it already but SFOS is certainly not ready (yet) for “the average user” so having some kind of steeper learning curve at the beginning is maybe not a such bad thing after all.

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As a freshly minted Xperia 10 II owner I would say, it’s my best Sailfish device so far.

  • most native apps open in under 1 second
  • all four cameras produce much better results than on any of my other phones (X, XA2 Plus)
  • GPS lock seems to be much quicker than on XA2 Plus
  • display seems to be nicer (for me)

cons:

  • no predictive text input (yet)
  • many native apps are not yet aarch64 compatible (I’ve recompiled a few but many won’t compile for various reasons)
  • the back of the phone is much smoother than on my X, XA2 Plus
    Feels great but the weight of the charging cable alone is enough to pull the phone from my desk.
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Thanks for share your personal history. I would like to say something, too. I’m just a regular user (no linux geek or so), and I’m using SFOS for maybe 04 years. I ever wanted to use it as my daily driver, but ever had some king of problem of reliability. Sometimes, the SFOS keyboard hurt my patience, sometimes, an app d’ont show notification, sometimes, an important app can’t be installed because Google play, and so on. So I never could use it as my daily driver because shuch kind of minor problems, that reappear after every update. I think that if Jolla can made SFOS more reliable, it will be easy to bringing more sailors to it. For ‘reliable’ I mean that some basic funtion just need to work fine out of the box, and stay working, whitout need write a script or search an obscure app to solve tinghs. Sorry for my english

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Hi s710 and thanks for your testimony,

Since you are an “external” viewer, on your opinion, which strategies/actions could us users take to develop SFOS and attract more people and companies ?

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Thanks for you testimony rafael,

Just like I asked s710, on your opinion, what could be done on our side (the user/customer side) to bring more external users and companies to adopt SFOS ?

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Thanks for your question, jojo; in my way, the big problem is a result of various small problems, in both sides (Jolla and customer’s sides). For instance, I think that Jolla need to achieve the basics on a smartphone, whit reliability, and us, customers, could help this appointing the problems we see, using the platform in a day by day basis.
SFOS is so close to achieve this… perhaps Jolla could have a separate group to work exclusively on a customer side point of view, I mean, don’t only listen the geek guys, but too the noob guys, like me.
Perhaps we, customers, could be more active in this site, vouting and speaking more about owr experience.
When we have a reliable system, we will need more publicity, more channels like Leszek on youtube, more people sharing how they use SFOS normaly.
So, in conclusion, I thing that the major problem today is the reliability of the basic system. We, customers, could perhaps appoint owr efforts to this basics failures.

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I’m not sure what users (not Jolla, not developers) could do to improve the situation other than buying licenses and spreading the word.
But as @rafaelfrigo mentioned, spreading the word via all channels available would surely help attracting more people, and probably also bring new developers, and thus increase the overall user base.

okay I do agree that we (users) could help improving the system by proving feedback and creating “tutorials” for beginners (hence my topic on documentation)

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thank you you too for your answer, how would you spread the word ? Do you have some leads on how and where to do so ? as a group ? as an individual ? using which levers ?

Good question. I am not a youtuber nor any other kind of influencer, just a “normal guy”, so my range is limited. What I do currently is just telling friends about my “new phone”, and that its not an iPhone nor Android, then most people go like: :face_with_raised_eyebrow: :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

But none of them will probably ever consider switching to SFOS, at least because none of them is techy enough to even master the installation process.

As I wrote earlier, in order to become attractive for mainstream users - and the low price tag on the phones definitely would be attractive - things should just work, without too much tech experience required. I agree with @unmaintained here in that SFOS just is not there yet.

But seeing this thread more as a visionary-forum, this is what I imagine would help most. If you could tell your friends something like: “Look, you can get this XPeria 10 ii or even 10 iii, it has decent hardware for only 300 bucks, and you can use Sailfish OS on it. If you order here (link to some shop), SFOS will be installed already when you buy the phone. Sailfish OS is a linux-based operating system, and using it you would not be bound to use one of the big silicon valley players and hand them over all your data. Plus you support the community of open source software. And best thing is: you can run all of the Android apps if you so wish, so you won’t lose anything when you consider using it”.

Idea:
Jolla could (in my opinion: should) cooperate with one or a small number of cellphone retailers, to sell ready flashed and registered SFOS phones to the end user.
The whole flashing process that is needed, is really much for many possible customers.

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