Anyway, you say that the russians are stupid to invest millions in something that they cannot control
Not at all. The extension of Aurora OS points to it being a successful investment. And it’s pennies really for a Govt’s budget. You could also see it as having political benefits.
AOSP is inherently bloated. SF can run on anything, and when you think about it, Russia’s had access to ‘Western’ hardware cut off.
Probably, the only thing OMP can’t control is Jolla’s use and direction of its own code. And they may not have access to the current closed code.
When the war against Ukraine started and all the sanctions against Russia were kicking off there was a lot of talk about (EU or national) support for companies suffering as an effect. I wonder what happened to that.
Smartphones and tablets (two different models) with AuroraOS preinstalled went on sale in Moscow for private buyers at the 7th of November 2023. The phone is called F+570e. The devices must be physically collected at Afimall in Moscow to get extra apps including “MyOffice” office suite, telegram client “TAVRO” and …antivirus (DrWeb). There is also an Android version of the same phone, which is 2x more expensive!
Here is a photo with my F+570e (Aurora 4.0.2, 5.0 upgrade anticipated) and Jolla C (Sailfish 4.3.0.15).
This is first time in history, when the Aurora fork of the SFOS becomes available for non-corporate use. If you have any questions, I shall try to answer. Unless Jolla’s Orwellian censors ban my posts for not supporting “the West”.
PTT??? Only thing that comes up is push to talk, which makes no sense, is that literal translation of some russian acronym? Or does it have literally walkie talkie built in?
Edit: or maybe it is:
For other smartphone operating systems (e.g., Sailfish OS) there are Zello-compatible apps provided by third parties.[17]
Edit2: also is aurora binary compatible with sfos? Can you install apps from openrepos on it? Or at least qml-only compatible or did they break silica on purpose?
Edit3: for 150$ this looks pretty cool, are you limited to buying one per passport/id card, or would you be willing to ship one out of russia? The site doesn’t seem to offer delivery outside of russia for some reason
Regarding PTT, it’s a real Push-to-Talk function over cellular network. It’s a function that was present already even in some venerable Nokia phones, like the 3110.
The description of the F570e liked above reads:
“Fplus R570E is an industrial secure smartphone for corporate use based on the Russian mobile OS Aurora. The IP68-rated device with a dedicated PTT button is designed to automate the work of mobile workers in the harshest environments.”
So, it looks like the device hasn’t been designed just as an average smartphone for the general public, but with a particular target of industrial workers.
I wonder if tavro and myoffice would run on sailfish os
They will not run unmodified.
In their infinite wisdom Jolla and OMP have split the platform in two. It is not possible to install packages from Aurora in SFOS because of incompatible dependencies. SFOS packages will not install in Aurora because they are not signed with Aurora keys, have wrong dependencies and, probably, the compression algo differs too (I am not sure about the latter point).
It makes a lot of sense to create some kind of compatibility layer or a VM to run SFOS apps in Aurora and Aurora apps in SFOS and maybe a tool like “alien” to convert packages. Maybe chum will be able to support cross-compilation for libre apps between SFOS, Aurora and Nemo.
Can you run sfos qml apps with qmlscene? Maybe ‘import Sailfish.Silica’ needs changing to Aurora.Silica, or did they rename all components too (silicalistview → auroralistview…)
EU and US sanctions will not allow you to buy it. Almost all forms of money transfer to Russia are currently blocked by them. You can find questions about it at reddit in r/askarussian e.g. Sending money to Russia. Note, that Jolla has been treating most of the world as slime for years by not allowing to buy SFOS devices and licenses outside of the EU . It is still possible to physically travel to Moscow and buy the phone or tablets at Afimall . Even Moscovites have to arrive there in person so far to get the 3 extra apps preinstalled. People who ordered delivery complained about not having the advertised MyOffice, Tavro and DrWeb apps. I hope that this situation will improve with time.
There is another great catch. The phones you buy as a private person come with 0 apps available in the Aurora “Market”. In order to see any apps in that Market you must scan a QR-code that will supply a link to a repo hosting an app. There should be as many codes as commercial developers, but NONE are supplied with the device and there are no hints, where to find the damn codes. No libre apps are provided by default either!
There is a secret “vitrina” (shop window) with recompiled SFOS apps, but it is still available only for the beta-testers and NOT the buyers. I called the Aurora support line and got the answer that the situation is being discussed among the management. Originally the contents of the Aurora Market was to be controlled by your employer. It was their selling point. A dedicated sysadmin would remotely install, update and remove all apps from the corpo’s fleet of devices, but it is unfeasible for individual buyers. Openrepos and chum are not available.
…There is a rumour that the coming Aurora 5x update will include RuStore “market”, which is going to provide Aurora apps alongside with Android ones. Even so the fate of the libre SFOS apps remains in limbo.
. It is still possible to physically travel to Moscow and buy the phone or tablets at Afimall