phone review

Senin, 24 Februari 2014

Jolla phone's Android support stands in unique position

Image: Jolla Boat's Sailor girls getting ready at MWC2014. Photo by Marc Dillon

Jolla phone stays unique with its Android Support

We are seeing a lot of new mobile phones introduced at Mobile World Congress 2014, but there's still no other phone model capable of running Android apps on top of another OS. Jolla is powered by Sailfish OS, and Android support can be installed on top of it as a virtual platform.

After the support is installed, any Android app store can be installed on Jolla, and any Android apps can then be downloaded and installed. However, Jolla takes care of the user privacy and security on this - Android apps have no access to the contacts saved in Sailfish, nor can it make phone calls or send SMS. Google has no change for phishing important data here.

Android apps have a limited access including e.g. photos and videos and phone sensors, but they can't change any phone settings or access the hardware buttons.

Jolla's virtual Android platform is developed by Myriad. It's an Android Open Source Project called Alien-Dalvik. It doesn't include Google Play services, so apps depending on those are not running out of the box. Users are able to install Play Services for even better support for more apps, but most of them have kept their phones clean of these services.

While more and more native Sailfish apps are being developed, some users have already removed the whole Android Support from their Jolla's. Meanwhile, Jolla is developing their Sailfish OS further to release it for Android devices

Read more:

Minggu, 23 Februari 2014

Jolla phone and Sailfish OS introduced in Mobile World Congress 2014

Image: Jolla stand at MWC2014 ready for guests. Shared by Marc Dillon in Twitter

Jolla introduces the phone, operating system Sailfish 1.0, new The Other Half andnew partnerships at Mobile World Congress 2014, Barcelona, Spain

What to expect: jolla.com/mwc

Sailfish OS for Android devices

The Other Half - Poppy Red

The Other Half - 3rd parties

Meet Jolla at MWC2014

VIDEO TEASER: Jolla's Sailfish OS running on Nexus 4

Jolla Hack Day at Devaamo (Tampere, Finland)

Reportage: Jolla Hardware and Sailsfish OS software development at Jolla Hack Day

February 22, 2014 at Devaamo (Tampere, Finland)

Devaamo, Tieto and Jolla organised a hack day for Sailfish OS app developers February-22-2014. Event started with introduction to app development by Artem Marchenko (above, right), followed by deeper insgight by Jaakko Roppola (below) from Jolla. Participants had their own laptops equipped with Sailsfish OS SDK, and coding took place both in small groups and individually after the two presentations.

Part of the guests were in a separate room reserved for hardware hacking. Interesting projects going on there:

The last image above shows a circuit designed by Kimmo Lindholm on the left, and 100 of these same circuits for extra screen development ordered by Devaamo and Jolla, shared for free for HW hackers. Kimmo's OLED The Other Half will also be seen at MWC2014 - he has loaned one TOH for Jolla to be introduced there.

I had a small interview with Thomas B Rücker, Open Source Evangelist at Tieto corporation.

Tieto corporation is cooperating with Jolla both in software development (telephone, audio) and in enabling OEM manufacturing for other device manufacturers.

Tieto will also be present at MWC2014, they are not demoing Sailfish device manufacturing this time but manufacturers are welcome to contact them about that.

Thomas also told that their software development for Jolla is almost fully OpenSource, and is available at Nemo project.

Back in the app development room, a lot of code was produced during 8 hours. Apps under development were e.g. a nice Together portal client by Samuli Silvius (above, left) There were about 20 new apps under work during the Hack Day, and most of them are hopefully arriving soon to Jolla Store.

Seravo thanked all participants with good pizza and enough of drinks. Jolla gave everybody a familiar looking stocking cap with Jolla MAKIA logo (image above).

The next hacking day takes place already at March-29-2014. REGISTERATION is already opened - Jolla, Devaamo and Tieto welcomes all new software and hardware hackers along.

Some bad quality videos from the event can be found below, including Kimmo's OLED TOH and Artem's introduction to app development on Sailsfish OS. DIAS of Artem's introduction to Sailfish OS app development are available at: http://www.codingsubmarine.com

Image courtesy: reviewjolla.blogspot.com / licence by CC2.0 (share for free, mention the source)

Jumat, 21 Februari 2014

Welcome!

Change to mobile layout

Blog's desktop layout aims for good readability and user experience:

BLOG LAYOUT let's you choose your view. After the selection, bookmark the page for your personal layout.
CONTENT MENU might be updated every now and then with the currently interesting content.
SIDE MENU on the right opens when you hover you mouse on top of the dark area. Side menu includes:

Subscribe - get new articles directly to your own news reader.
to subscribe with "Tidings" on Jolla, write: http://reviewjolla.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
About me - the author of this blog
Blog archive - To quicly go through older posts here
Together - predefined search quieries - Useful entrance links to Together portal
Jolla Official links - For easy access and guidance
Jolla unofficial links - Other Jolla related sites, blogs and forums. Comment for adding yours
News elsewhere - Google search result page for latest Jolla related news

Default desktop layout is "Magazine", showing you the latest Jolla mobile phone articles and Sailfish OS news.

Default mobile layout is white text on a black background, size and download time optimized for mobile browsing.

Please comment about usability, readability, page download times or the layouts in general. Check the Twitter layout too. What do you think?

LTE 4G supported countries and operators (wiki)

Jolla phone: LTE (4G) frequencies and supported countries

All Jolla phone's mobile network frequencies

GSM (2G)
- 850/900/1800/1900 Mhz
UMTS (3G)
- 900/2100 Mhz
LTE (4G)
- 800/1800/2600 MHz*

Update: LTE 4G feature expected soon

LTE 4G support is a coming feature, already possible with a 3rd party app available at openrepos but not yet fully functional with that. LTE 4G support is an expected feature in fully working Sailfish version. It's quite possible that we'll see this when Sailfish OS drops its current beta sign in the next update release in the beginning of March - The update is confirmed, however the features in it has are not. Update will be introduced during Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona.

more about the update: Sailfish OS for Android devices
more about Mobile World Congress: Jolla at MWC2014
more about network support: Jolla's full hardware specs

LTE 4G supporetd countries and operators

Network is getting wider all the time all around the world. The list presented here could change any time, please contact your local operators for latest support information. Operators using LTE Network in bands 3 (1800Mhz),7 (2600Mhz) and 20 (800Mhz) will be supported by Jolla phone with a maximum speed of 100/50Mbs (download/upload, LTE cat.3):

Africa

Angola (Movicel)
Mauritius (Emtel, Orange)
Namibia (MTC, TN Mobile)
Nigeria (Smile)
South Africa (iBurst, MTN, Neotel, Vodacom)
Tanzania (Smile)
Uganda (Orange, Smile)
Zimbabwe (Econet)

South America + Caribbean

Argentina (Personal)
Aruba (SETAR)
Brazil (Claro, Oi, TIM, Vivo)
Chile (Claro, Entel, Movistar)
Colombia (Claro, DirecTV, Une-EPM)
Costa Rica (ICE Celular)
Dominican Republic (Orange)
Venezuela (Digitel)

North America

Canada (Bell, Rogers wireless)
USA (Sprint [Confirmation needed: supported frequency 800MHz but different band id:26] )

Asia (for Middle East, see further)

Bhutan (Telecom / B-Mobile)
Brunei (DSTCom)
China (Unicom)
Hong Kong (CSL, 3, PCCW-HKT, Smartone, China Mobile)
India (Videocon)
Indonesia (XL Axiata, Indosat / Ooredoo)
Japan (no support in plans of any operator at this point)
Kazakhstan (Telecom / Altel, JSC Kcell)
Kyrgyzstan (Saima Telekom)
Malaysia (Celcom / Axiata, Digi, Maxis, P1, REDtone, Puncak[planned 2014], U Mobile))
Maldives (Ooredoo)
Pakistan [licences to be sold March 2014]
Philippines (Globe Telecom, Smart)
Singapore (M1, SingTel, Starhub)
South Korea (KT Corporation, LG U+) [Confirmation needed]
Sri Lanka (Dialog, Mobitel)
Taiwan (Chunghwa Telekom)
Tajkistan (Babilon Mobile) [Network covers Dushanbe only]
Thailand (TrueMove-H)
Turkmenistan (MTS / Altyn Asyr) [Confirmation needed]
Uzbekistan (Beeline, UCell)
Vietnam (RusViet Telecom) [Confirmation needed]

Asia, Middle East

Bahrain (Batelco, Viva, Zain
Iraq (Regional Telecom / Fastlink)
Kuwait (Viva, Wataniya, Zain)
Lebanon (Alfa, touch)
Oman (Nawras, Omantel)
Qatar (ooredoo, Vodafone)
Saudi Arabia (Mobily, STC, Zain)
UAE (du, Etisalat)

Europe

Armenia (Viva Cell MTS)
Austria (A1, 3, T-Mobile)
Azerbaijan (Azercell)
Belarus (BeST / life:) / beCloud)
Belgium (BASE, Mobistar, Proximus)
Bulgaria (Max Telekom, M-Tel[in trial], )
Croatia (T-Hrvatski, Vipnet)
Chech Republic [Telefonica O2, T-Mobile, Vodafone)
Denmark (3, TDC, Telenor, Telia)
Estonia (Elisa, EMT, Tele2)
Finland (DNA, Elisa, Sonera)
France (Bouygues, Free Mobile, Orange, SFR)
Germany (E-Plus, Deutche Telekom, Telefonica O2, Vodafone)
Greece (Cosmote, Vodafone)
Greenland (TELE)
Hungary (Maguar Telekom, Telenor)
Iceland (365 Media, Nova, Vodafone / Fjarskipti)
Ireland (Eircom, 3 / Telefonica O2, Vodafone)
Isle on Man (Manx Telecom)
Italy (3, TIM, Vodafone)
Latvia (Bite, Tele2, Telecom, Telia / LMT, Triatel)
Liechtenstein (Orange)
Lithuania (BITE, Omnitel, Tele2)
Luxembourg (Tango, Orange, Post Telecom)
Malta (Vodafone)
Moldova (Interdnestrcom, Moldcell / Teliasonera, Orange)
Monaco (Telecom)
Montenegro (T-Mobile, Telenor)
Netherlands (KPN, T-Mobile, Tele2, Vodafone)
Norway (Telco Data, Telenor, Netcom / Telia Sonera)
Poland (Aero2 / Mobyland / Centernet, Orange, Play / P4, PPolkomtel / Plus, T-Mobile / PTC)
Portugal (Optimus, TMN, Vodafone)
Romania (Cosmote, Orange, Vodafone)
Russia (Beeline[Moscow], MegaFon / Yota], MTS, Tele2 [Merges with Rostelekom and Skylink soon])
Slovakia (Telekom, Telefonica O2[in trial])
Slovenia [Mobitel, Si.mobil)
Spain (Euskaltel, Jazztel, Movistar, ONO, Orange, R, Telecable de Asturias SAU, Telecom Castilla La Mancha, Vodafone, Yoigo)
Sweden (3, Telenor, Tele2, Telia)
Switzerland (Orange, Sunrise, Swisscom)
UK (EE, 3, Telefonica O2, Vodafone)

Oceania

Australia (Optus[excluding Canberra], Telstra, VHA)
Fiji (Digicel, TFL, Vodafone)
New Zealand (2degrees[planned], Telecom, Vodafone)

Notes

For final confirmation for LTE support in your area, please wait for official release from Jolla and contact your local operators
Jolla phone uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chip for connecting to mobile networks. The hardware support multiple other bandwidths too, but devices using different bands (to be used in other countries) are not yet manufactured. It's common in smartphone industry that only few bandwidths are taken to use due to the power consumption issues
Country list is based on wiki information for known LTE Networks using the bands 3,7 and 20 which Jolla phone's antenna supports. These bands are confirmed by Jolla

Jolla Phone News: Sailfish OS for Android Devices

Jolla Phone - Latest News

Jolla Phone's fourth update to Sailfish OS will be released at the beginning of March, after which the software will be commercially ready for global distribution.

Some of Jolla's introductions at WMC2014

Jolla is releasing Sailfish OS experience as downloadable software to devices running Android OS. This will be a launcer application which can be used to simulate the Sailfish OS experience on Android devices, release will take place during the first half of 2014. Jolla community have already ported Sailfish OS to e.g. Samsung Galaxy, Google Nexus & Sony Xperia (as partially working OS, not an app)
Sailfish OS has reached release 1.0 and is now ready for global distribution. In the beginning of March 2014 Sailfish OS will drop its beta sign

NEW PARTNERSHIPS (final releases planned on Q2/2014)

With Rovio Ltd., Jolla launches a special The Other Half Angry Birds smart cover providing exclusive Angry Birds user experience
With F-Secure Corp., Jolla co-operates in mobile security and establishes trusted cloud services to its customers. All Jolla customers will enjoy gigabytes of free secure cloud storage integrated with their Jolla device experience
With Tieto Corporation, Jolla will offer integration services to OEMs and ODMs willing to start the use of Sailfish OS in their products
Makia, Finnish clothing company, is co-creating with Jolla unique The Other Half concept for its clothing line.

[OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE] HELSINKI, Finland – February 21, 2014 -- Jolla, the Finnish smartphone and Sailfish OS developer, today announced that Jolla’s mobile operating system Sailfish OS has reached release 1.0 and is now ready for global distribution. Jolla is also introducing availability of the Sailfish OS experience as downloadable software to devices running Android OS.

The world’s first Jolla phones were sold to mobile operator DNA’s customers in Finland in late November last year. After the limited availability sales start of Jolla smartphones with Sailfish OS beta, Jolla has released three significant software updates. The fourth update will be released at the beginning of March, after which the software will be commercially ready for global distribution.

“We’re very excited to announce this. We’ve been working hard together with our user community to make the user experience of the Jolla smartphone and Sailfish OS effortless and distinct. We believe that Jolla now offers a truly viable option for all smartphone users. Naturally we are not stopping here, as we continue to provide monthly software updates to Jolla devices and Sailfish OS,” says Marc Dillon, Co-Founder and COO of Jolla.

Sailfish OS is a distinctive, gesture-based mobile operating system. Effortless navigation and live multitasking are at the heart of Sailfish OS, giving the user full control of their digital life at a given moment. The OS supports both native Sailfish OS applications as well as AndroidTM applications. The availability and interoperability of Android apps in Sailfish OS has increased greatly since the sales start.

“Customers are now able to install their preferred Android app store, and choose from hundreds of thousands of available Android applications. In addition, the active and passionate Sailfish OS community has already developed major social media applications, such as Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, and Foursquare, natively to the Sailfish OS,” Marc Dillon says.

New Jolla markets to open soon

Currently Jolla smartphones are available for orders online at shop.jolla.com at the price of 399€ (incl. VAT) to all European Union countries, Switzerland and Norway. In Finland Jolla smartphones can be purchased also through local operator DNA’s shops, and sales is now expanding to all common retail channels.

Jolla is now rapidly entering into new markets, and is negotiating with partners in several countries, including Russia, India and Hong Kong where Jolla will open online sales in the near future. Negotiations in several European countries are well on the way for Jolla to soon open new channels in main European markets.

Smartphone and OS that get better every month

Already in two months, Sailfish OS has been developed with major steps in terms of feature additions, fine-tuned performance and increased battery life. Among the major features and fixes have been landscape mode, camera zoom, and impred battery life, to name a few.

The fourth software update released in the beginning of March, raising the software to commercial readiness, will again include many important improvements and new features. These will include further improved performance, extended landscape support, lots of visual improvements, lots of new camera functionalities, enhancements to the Jolla store, new general settings, and many more.

Furthermore, thanks to its open development and open source software contribution model, Sailfish OS update cycle is extremely fast, resulting in monthly software releases, and the release plan provides unseen transparency for interested developers. This fits in particularly well for those who want to develop their own products using the Sailfish OS.

Sailfish OS downloadable to existing Android devices

Sailfish OS has been developed to be compatible with commonly available Android hardware platforms. Due to this advanced technology, Jolla is introducing the Sailfish OS experience as downloadable software to devices running Android OS. Users can soon start to enjoy the modern, gesture based Sailfish OS in selected Android devices and also renew the lifecycle of their existing older Android devices.

The Sailfish community has already ported Sailfish OS into several devices including major versions of popular Samsung Galaxy, Google Nexus, and Sony Xperia. Also, porting for highly popular Chinese Xiaomi products is under work in community projects.

In addition, Jolla is releasing its own Sailfish user interface launcher as an Android application, which can be used to simulate the Sailfish OS experience on Android devices. The app will be available for download in the near future from Jolla.com and from common Android market places.

“We see this as a huge volume opportunity for Sailfish OS as there are close to a billion Android users globally. Many of them are looking for new user experiences to freshen up their existing devices. Last year in China alone, about 100 million devices were re-flashed after the purchase with a new operating system. This approach allows Sailfish OS to scale into volume fast without limitations. This is a scaling opportunity in a similar way as we have seen in the mobile gaming industry recently,” Antti Saarnio, Chairman of the Board of Jolla comments.

Jolla will release the downloadable Sailfish OS software in phases during the first half of 2014. First, the UI launcher application is released so users can start to experience the Sailfish user interface in their existing devices running Android OS. Later Android smartphone users can get the full Sailfish OS to their devices.

Announcing new partnerships

Jolla has formed new key partnerships in order to scale up its device business and Sailfish OS availability:
With Rovio Ltd., Jolla launches a special The Other Half Angry Birds smart cover providing exclusive Angry Birds user experience (see separate press release)
With F-Secure Corp., Jolla co-operates in mobile security and establishes trusted cloud services to its customers. All Jolla customers will enjoy gigabytes of free secure cloud storage integrated with their Jolla device experience (see separate press release)
With Tieto Corporation, Jolla will offer integration services to OEMs and ODMs willing to start the use of Sailfish OS in their products
“We believe that now is the momentum for next generation mobile operating systems to emerge. The current dominating mobile operating systems are being developed more and more towards closed ecosystems by their overly dominant owners closing their platforms from other businesses. At the same time the internet business growth already comes from the mobile internet, leaving many major businesses without sales channels and differentiation opportunities. The world needs a mobile operating system, which is open to developers, customers, service providers and different business models. Just in a few months we have shown how fast an open operating system can develop compared to closed ecosystems. It’s time for free choice instead of closed walled gardens,” Antti Saarnio says.

Jolla is demonstrating the Jolla smartphone with Sailfish OS 1.0, Sailfish OS for devices running Android, and The Other Half partnerships at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 24-27, 2014. Jolla can be found in Hall 1, booth 1B25.

For more information please contact: press@jolla.com.

Source: Jolla.com Press Releases (pdf1 pdf2 pdf3)

Selasa, 18 Februari 2014

[HowTo] Jolla Phone Ambience text color with Paint Shop Pro

Jolla Phone Ambience design, desired text color using Paint Shop Pro

Walkthrough for creating your own energy saving background with Paint Shop Pro in Windows. In this guide we create an energy saving black background with your desired font color. Selected color is used in Sailfish UI on Jolla Phone. Ok, open your Paint Shop Pro and follow the path:

Select New (CTRL+N). Create a new image:

Width 540
Height 1600
background color black (RGB 0,0,0)

Select New (CTRL+N). Create a second new image:

Width 1
Height 4
Backgrounf color black (RGB 0,0,0)

Zoom in to the second image until you see the four pixels.
Change the color of the bottom pixel only:

Use tool "Paint Brush" with size 1 (all other tool values at 100)
Select you desired color to the brush (Materials -> Foregroung color)
Click on the bottom pixel

Select all (CTRL+A) and copy (CTRL+C)
Activate the first image by clicking it's window
Paste (CTRL+L) your selection (1x4 image) as a new layer to your background image (540x1600)

Additionally you can decorate your image with any greyscale photos, or create any colorful header to the top (use area of 113 px high on top for your header, colors used there doesn't affect to the text color).

Your image is ready. For some reason you can't save the image directly to Jolla Phone from Paint Shop Pro, so let's save it to the computer and move it to the phone:

Select Save As...

Name: [your image name]
Format: JPEG
Options: Compression factor 1
Target: Any folder in your computer
Save
(you see a warning about merging and a confirmation: select Yes)

Open the target folder in windows
Copy the image (CTRL+C)
Connect your Jolla to your PC with USB cable. Select "PC connection" from Jolla's screen.
Browse to phone folder: Pictures / Jolla
Paste the image to Sailfish / Phone Memory / Pictures / Jolla (CTRL+V)

For next, let's create a favourite ambience of the image. You can disconnect the USB cable now:

Start Gallery app in your Jolla.
Select "Photos"
Tap on your new image.
(note: at this point your display seems totally black)
Tap again. Image drops to the bottom and options become visible
Select "Create ambience" from Pulley menu
Flick right two times to return to the gallery menu
Select "Ambiences"
Tap on your new ambience (black square)
Tap on the star icon. The ambience is now favourited
Write a name and select your desired tones for your new ambience
Flick left to Save

We are ready. Your new ambience is available in your favourite ambience selection screen (accessible with Swipe left/right from the home screen or the lock screen).

Example Background

Tap twice for full size (540 x 1600) image. You can save this directly to Jolla Phone:

http://reviewjolla.blogspot.com/2014/01/ambience-background-design.html