Comment by gulpahum | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gulpahum | Hacker News Reader

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It has a bit unusual user interface. They designed it to be usable by one hand, but I think they just ended up with a bit messy UI. It takes some time to get used to and some features are not easy to discover (like the top sliding menu or the context menu on list items).

It runs its own native Sailfish apps (there's few hundred of them) and Android apps (you can install Google Play, if you follow a bit cumbersome instructions). However, the UI logic in native apps is different than in Android apps. Native apps use a lot of wiping gestures, while Android apps use more tapping and the back button.

There is also a native web browser (built on top of Gecko) and it has its own UI logic (the usual web browser logic with a back button, no gestures).

So, all together, it has three way to navigate, which makes the whole experience a bit fragmented.

But, if you want to escape the surveillance riddled Android and iPhone, Jolla is a good basic phone. It offers a lot for hackers, because its built on top of Linux and you have access to almost everything without rooting. I got my phone three years ago and I'm still getting OS updates regularly, which is also nice. I just wish the UI was better.

I think this is a very fair point. The user interface tries to innovate, but personally I think it's a miss. I wish they kept the N9 style UI that was pretty widely applauded.

The cumbersome interface and missing native application features were the main points why I switched back to Android.

The user interface is my favorite thing about it. I find Android painful to use. This is probably because I hadn't used Android until after I had already used Sailfish. I don't see any advantage in copying N9.

It is certainly different, so I can see it dividing opinions. Good that you like it!

Thanks for the writeup. I wouldn't mind having a very hackable phone I suppose. Does one need Linux to enjoy it at its fullest, or is OSX also okay?

They have an SDK built on top of Qt Creator and it runs on OS X, Windows and Linux [1].

Linux may offer some advantages, such as access to the phone file system. OSX has a bit cumbersome ways to access it [2].

If you want to write programs for it, you can use Qt C++, QML or Python. It also has a terminal with the usual bash commands. And, of course, you can always write Android apps with tools given by Google and run those apps on Jolla.

As a niche hardware feature, the original Jolla phone has a hackable i2c bus under its back cover. Some people have tried to build keyboards, e-ink screens etc. connected to it. The specs for the bus are public [3].

I'm not sure if the new Jolla C is really meant for casual users, because you need to participate in their community device program to get one.

EDIT: removed some speculations about the community program

EDIT2: looks like the original Jolla phone isn't sold anymore

[1] https://sailfishos.org/wiki/Application_SDK_Installation

[2] https://jolla.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201440867-How-do...

[3] http://jolla.com/the-other-half-developer-kit/

The phone itself runs Linux. You can ssh into it if you want. I can't think onf any reason why you would need to use Linux for anything, but if you did then I guess you could run it in a VM.

There's a tutorial included with the phone, that takes the user through all the important concepts. I personally find the UI very neat, consistent, and innovative. It's almost a step backward to use Apple or Android devices now.

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