Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery

Comments

Comment by elseleigh 1 day ago

I had a SailfishOS phone for four years; an Xperia XA2+. The operating system was wonderful, and being able to run Android apps when there was no alternative was a good way of filling in the gaps in the Jolla store.

However, as I've got older I find large phones more and more unwieldy, and I couldn't find a small enough SailfishOS phone to switch to. I'm now running LineageOS on a Jelly Star. The form factor is perfect for me.

Would I return to SailfishOS? Absolutely. But there'd need to be a small phone in the line up for me to migrate to.

Comment by owaislone 21 hours ago

I had a Nokia N9 or was it N7 that ran the predecessor OS to Sailfish. It was so good back then. The UX left android and iOS in dust. Both ended up adopting a lot of patterns from it later. Loved that phone.

Comment by onli 1 day ago

Which version of LOS do you run exactly? Did you compile it yourself, or did you pick a pre-made version? One from XDA?

I ask, because the device is not officially supported by LineageOS, but if it works well with a different approach it would be an interesting option for me as well.

Comment by jcgl 21 hours ago

I had no idea that you could run Lineage on the Jelly Star! That sounds phenomenal. My dream phone is a Star running Graphene. But short of that, Lineage would be great.

Any notes on your experience?

Comment by igorramazanov 20 hours ago

Not an author, but I've been using Jelly Star with a stock Android for 2 years.

Actually, typing this comment right now with this phone.

1. Keyboard: MessagEase or ThumbKey + Jelly Star is a perfect match.

2. Bitwarden passkeys + Firefox doesn't work. As I've researched, same with LineageOS. Didn't check Chrome, though.

3. All apps work without issues. Banking, Google Wallet, taxi, etc. It's a regular Android.

4. Battery isn't great, but charges fast and enough to carry on through the most of the day.

5. It's perfect for running or other outdoor activities.

6. 4G only, I sometimes also use it as an external modem for the laptop, and definitely would appreciate 5G.

7. Android 13 and no updates:/

All in all, I'm happy, but if I could foresee it advance, then I'd go with Jelly Max instead, because freshier Android version, Bitwarden + Firefox passkeys and 5G support.

Unfortunately, Jelly Max a bit bigger than Jelly Star, but still much smaller than other regular smartphones.

Comment by Hoodedcrow 13 hours ago

To my understanding, you need Google services for passkeys to work, at least for now. I wouldn't want them even sandboxed, and on Lineage they're not restricted in any way so this would be a big concession.

Comment by bluebarbet 20 hours ago

Did not know about Lineage either, now I'm interested too.

For the last 2 years I've been using a similar device from Unihertz's competitor, Cubot. Namely the King Kong Mini 3. No issues, very solid. Given how tiny it is, it gets lots of attention and marks me out as an eccentric (no objections). But stock Android, of course.

Comment by jzkdroid 1 day ago

Can you use teams/outlook on your jelly star? I've been wondering how bad the ux could be in real world use.

Comment by vrinsd 20 hours ago

I used Sailfish OS and so did several of my family members for many years. The "vanilla" Linux OS aspect (besides using rpm) makes it trivial to set up things like dnsmasq-adblocking, firewall rules, etc.

Unfortunately, the Sailfish UI itself feels "different for the sake of different" and not because it's functionally more useful. I think the UI is pretty ugly and difficult to navigate. Anyone who "loved" Win8 tiles and/or Windows Mobile flat monochrome UI always praises the SailfishOS UI but outside of that small group I don't think the UI is that functional. It's definitely eschewed it's MeeGo / Nokia N9 UI heritage.

What always surprised me about SFOS is despite running on some pretty decent hardware, the UI always felt sluggish, especially given it's kind of reversed-big-text UI paradigm which shouldn't take much work to render.

I'm glad there's an alternative, but sad it's hasn't seen a reasonable set of UI improvements despite its age.

Comment by usr1106 14 hours ago

I still use Sailfish daily. I have no problem with the UI, but their Firefox is seriously outdated and predictive text for the keyboard is no longer available.

Comment by nottorp 1 day ago

Are these non Google non Apple phones viable any more?

Considering you almost can't do banking, and in some places interact with the government, without a locked down phone...

Comment by rolandog 1 day ago

They will be able to do banking at least once the legislators tear down the walled gardens in a sensible way. Are the security benefits from the Appstore/Playstore real or security theatre?

I'm pretty sure that, if there are security benefits, they have been artificially tied to the use of the company's distribution method, that coincidentally really needs to be sending usage statistics, monitoring, etc. Surely there exist no conflicts of interest to be found.

Comment by gbrindisi 23 hours ago

fifteen years ago I use to do mobile pentests for banks and when we could not find anything significant for the reports we could’ve always count on “lack of rooting detection” and pin the risk on some vague mobile banking malware threat pushed by marketing. I am sorry I contributed to this nonsense.

100% security theater, and here we are.

Comment by rolandog 22 hours ago

It's understandable; I would maybe expect to undergo an extra step in verification for a sensitive app like, "we noticed this is the first time you are using this system that is not locked down; please type in the token we have mailed you".

But locking users out (which may not directly be the bank's fault for relying on OS's security APIs) seems anti-competitive.

Comment by Cpoll 1 day ago

Would you bet your company on that happening soon? :)

Comment by rolandog 21 hours ago

Ha! Well, not right now! Previous to the last year or so, this wouldn't have escalated to the current situation where we're actively having to be wary of fending off Big Brother or blatant power grabs.

However, given that we're talking about a European phone, I'm willing to bet that this type of effort goes hand in hand with decoupling from American-backed services (at least for those who've seen the writing on the wall and understand the risk to their sovereignty if they put all their eggs on an American basket).

Comment by ece 23 hours ago

A similar question could be asked of the banks too.

Comment by amarant 1 day ago

Looks like the Swedish bankid at the very least actually does work on sailfish[1]!

Not sure about equivalent apps for other regions, but I don't see why they shouldn't work.

[1] https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/swedish-bank-id-swish/11781/3

Comment by izacus 12 hours ago

There's now someone who wants to build an open attestation system which should comply with both banking requirements for security and allow 3rd party OSes to thrive: https://uattest.net/

Comment by moobsen 22 hours ago

I just switched to a Fairphone 5 with e/OS, which is a de-googled Android (it uses microG), and am pleasantly surprised how well everything works. My banking apps work, contacts and calendar lived on nextcloud already, the learning apps I use work. The two things I have to get used to is not having google maps, but the map app on there has also worked fine for me so far. And casting to a Chromecast doesn't really work for me, but I can live without that.

Comment by Fnoord 21 hours ago

If you want, we can ritually bury your Chromecast? I'll bring the marshmallows, spiders, and the Necronomicon. Oh, and two of my old Chromecasts, rotting in a drawer.

Comment by burningChrome 17 hours ago

Yes but will you speak the exact words?

Comment by iamnothere 20 hours ago

They are European, certainly the Euros could come up with some regulation to force banks etc to support a Euro phone. I’d actually welcome this as more competition is better and we can’t seem to kill the duopoly here in the US.

Comment by Fnoord 21 hours ago

If you don't expect Google Pay / Apple Pay to work? Yes. There's a thread on the SFOS forums dedicated to this [1].

[1] https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/banking-apps-on-sailfish-os/1...

Comment by usr1106 14 hours ago

Using a Sailfish phone comes from the desire not to use Google or Apple. So wanting to pay using those companies seems an odd requirement. Luckily for paying there are still widely accepted alternatives.

Comment by Fnoord 4 hours ago

I wouldn't say it is a requirement. The thing is, if you want to use bank apps in NL, they all quit with native NFC. It is either Google Pay or Apple Pay >:(

Comment by poulpy123 1 day ago

Afaik there is an android compatibility layer but I don't know if it allows banking apps to works

Comment by lukeasch21 1 day ago

It would not in principle, those rely on hardware backed keys with Google's latest iteration of Google Play Integrity. The only success people have had is by using leaked vendor keys and spoofing device fingerprints for old A11-era devices which did not have the hardware baked in. In time even this avenue will no longer work. People have been trying to get around it for a while [1] but afaik the concept is cryptographically airtight.

[1] https://xdaforums.com/t/discussion-the-root-and-mod-hiding-f...

Comment by jeroenhd 23 hours ago

My banking app works fine on a rooted phone that I don't bother faking a proper Play Integrity signature for. Except for a warning about the phone being rooted when setting it up, of course. I'm not 100% sure what happens when you have integrity and lose it by rooting your phone, but I imagine the bank app will log you out.

Bank apps only stop working because banks decided they know better than you.

Unfortunately my bank also switched to Google Pay which does require Play Integrity, so contactless payments are out of the question on that phone now. Maybe if Wero compatible terminals extend support for QR payments I could use my bank app again on that phone.

Comment by HNisCIS 1 day ago

Maybe I'm out of the loop but what is everyone doing with banking apps on their phones that's so essential. I see this argument all the time but it's baffling to me.

Comment by distances 1 day ago

For quite many banks a mobile phone is now the only 2FA they support.

Comment by NewJazz 1 day ago

So glad my brokerage supports good old totp.

Comment by nottorp 1 day ago

Or worse.

My bank closed down their old online banking site and the new one needs the phone for 2FA... but ... drumroll ...

... the idiots also want me to keep using the token device to log in before approving the log in via my phone.

Security theater.

Comment by fsflover 1 day ago

So switch the bank? Worked for me.

Comment by nottorp 23 hours ago

I'm doing the research ofc. Have other things to look for besides not being dependent on a phone so it will take a bit.

Comment by burningChrome 17 hours ago

I have several hockey leagues and pick up sessions that only take payment via Venmo; prior to league or the session starting. Makes it way easier than going around to everybody in the locker room trying to round up cash.

I also use it for a few vendors for some small payments I make every month for my studio.

I don't use them a lot and I know some people that use them for 90-95% of the stuff they do which is crazy to me like yourself. I try and limit my use of the apps to as little as possible. Whatever works for people I guess.

Comment by Tade0 1 day ago

MFA largely, some banks also provide wallets for contactless payments.

I refuse to have my browser fingerprinted as a "trusted device" because part my bank is just bad at it.

Comment by IshKebab 1 day ago

Paying for things? Transferring money? What else do you do with a bank account?

Comment by bluebarbet 20 hours ago

If we were rational creatures we might choose to do such things while seated at home in front of a comfortably sized screen, rather than squinting at a pocket gadget on a street corner.

Comment by IshKebab 11 hours ago

That doesn't sound very rational to me. Modern banking apps require no squinting, and they're conveniently in your pocket when you need them.

Comment by bluebarbet 9 hours ago

IMO the word "need" is doing all the work here. I have a fairly complex financial situation and yet - with a bit of intentionality and organisation - I get by fine without any banking apps installed on mobile.

Comment by IshKebab 7 hours ago

There isn't a hard line between "need" and "want". It isn't irrational to want more than "get by fine".

Comment by joemazerino 5 hours ago

Jolla is working on a unification attestation program for companies to solve this problem.

https://uattest.net/

Comment by logicchains 22 hours ago

The vast majority of people on this site can afford a couple hundred dollars for a basic Android phone that's used only for tasks like that, and as a bonus it's safer than having banking apps on your main phone. Anyone who isn't willing to spend a couple hundred bucks on the freedom to run whatever software they want on their phone probably doesn't consider software freedom a priority anyway.

Comment by izacus 12 hours ago

Affording a phone and having to carry a second phone around with you everywhere is not quite the same.

Comment by drnick1 17 hours ago

Absolutely, and the cheapest Android phones are actually around $100.

Comment by Hoodedcrow 13 hours ago

A couple hundred is still a lot tho

Comment by carlosjobim 23 hours ago

You are allowed to have more than one cell phone.

Comment by BoredPositron 1 day ago

If you use it without compatibility layer it's probably on the same level as a kaios phone. There is a lot of slop on the sailfish store.

Comment by muhehe 1 day ago

I really wish them success, but I just can't see it anymore. I had the first version and it seems it didn't move much forward from that time. And there were also many screwups, as poisonborz reminded a bit earlier.

Their UI looked novel, but wasn't that great in practice. It wasn't stable (hopefully that changed) and the lack of real apps was killing it before and now even more, as more banks/govs require some "trusted" apps

Comment by fractallyte 1 day ago

I dispute your assertion: Sailfish's UI is WAY ahead of iOS and Android. It's simple, consistent, and intuitive; a complete contrast to the mess of iOS and the clunkiness of Android. As for stability, native Sailfish apps on my Xperia XA2 seldom, if ever, crash.

And, to my eyes, it simply looks better.

Comment by muhehe 22 hours ago

I won't dispute you. Maybe it evolved into more usable state, but the beginings had many problems and rough edges.

Comment by Matl 23 hours ago

I had Sailfish on XPERIA and it was no less stable than Android/iOS in my experience. But that wasn't the first version I don't think.

Comment by usr1106 13 hours ago

On track? Jolla has a track record of shipping late (or not at all in an unfortunate case). So if they kept their promises this time I would be more than surprised. Still, I do hope and wish them that they can ship at some point in time without any major disaster.

(Typed on SailfishOS)

Comment by kombine 1 day ago

The absence of eSIM is a deal breaker for me. I need to travel to the US for work and last time I was there I was having a hard time to find a physical SIM for the phone I had then.

Comment by slipheen 1 day ago

I certainly do not want to try to talk you into this particular phone – but just in the general case so you know, it's pretty easy to get physical Sims that you can download an eSIM onto.

Comment by Fnoord 21 hours ago

Yeah but usually you need to use an app to upload the eSIM to the SIM card. And that app runs on a certain OS. Whether they run on SFOS, I do not know. It is worth finding out, if you can afford the time for the research.

Comment by microtonal 1 day ago

In 2026, I would not want to travel to the US with a phone that does not have the level of device security of a Pixel with GrapheneOS or an iPhone.

(I actually do not want to travel to the US, period. But that's a different story.)

Comment by Fnoord 21 hours ago

If you travel to communist/fascist or otherwise authoritarian [1] countries, use a burner. And if your boss wants you to go to USA, have the guts to say no.

[1] Includes UK, as they have FDE unlock laws. No cooperation = years of prison.

Comment by craftkiller 17 hours ago

You could purchase a physical sim card that you load eSims onto. Personally I own one from https://jmp.chat/esim-adapter

Comment by ozlikethewizard 22 hours ago

Would highly recommend not taking your actual phone to the US anyways

Comment by leke 21 hours ago

Looks like the Google news has peaked some interest. I'm currently waiting for my Xiaomi account to activate so I can unlock the bootloader and install Ubuntu touch on a Redmi 9.

Comment by _imnothere 1 day ago

So many years and they can't(or refuse to?) ship to Asia, ridiculous.

Comment by butz 23 hours ago

That camera bump, though. Maybe they could've shuffled components in such way, that phone would be overall smaller, but as deep as camera bump, to make whole back flat?

Comment by _ZeD_ 12 hours ago

Am I the only one who use plastic covers? who cares about anything on the back of the phone?

Comment by ChrisArchitect 1 day ago

Previously:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47216037

Comment by r-w 19 hours ago

AI slop article with telltale signs of poor writing that no one bothered editing. Better one from El Reg here dating back to last December: https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/15/jolla_sailfish_5_hand... Not sure why this is back in the news again now after almost 3 months, but Wired also has a more recent article here: https://www.wired.com/story/jolla-phone-2026/

Comment by fractallyte 1 day ago

Regarding the issues of banking apps: if the EU is serious about tech sovereignty, it's up to members to mandate that banks allow their apps to run on Sailfish, or other alternative operating systems. It really is as simple as that.

(But whether any EU member is capable of rising to this (very shallow) challenge... well, I'm justifiably cynical.)

Comment by frogperson 3 hours ago

Will this include the idiotic age verification at the OS level that Meta has been lobbying for?

Comment by notorandit 1 day ago

I would like it to have also hardware video output.

Then I could become a PC in our pocket.

Comment by fsflover 1 day ago

Librem 5 already exists: https://puri.sm/posts/my-first-year-of-librem-5-convergence/

Comment by notorandit 5 minutes ago

Honestly I would not buy such a dock: same weight and size of a laptop without the power.

But it's a cool idea.

Comment by curt15 23 hours ago

How can a review of a smartphone not comment on how well it works as a phone? Calling, texting, and battery life are table stakes for a mobile phone, and the last time I heard about this device it was still struggling with those basics.

Comment by teddyh 23 hours ago

I think your information is very out of date.

Comment by fsflover 23 hours ago

I wrote a bit here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45276516 and here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39461180.

Comment by written-beyond 23 hours ago

Man I really loved MeeGo, I was in my early teens when I got the N9 specifically because it was such a beautiful experiment from Nokia. Amoled display, MeeGo os and the polycarbonate shell. The phone was hot garbage technically, would over heat had 0 apps and had idle battery times worse than a cup of tea left out on a cold day. However the phone was such a work of art I could accept just about any flaw.

Right after that I got a Blackberry Z10 and there's just something about the multitasking UI in both of these OSs' that just felt like it was the right way of doing it.

Blackberry OS 10 and MeeGo where so wonderful, I truly had a rich experience of mobile phone OSs' growing up.

I'm not sure about Jolla as much though. Like I enjoy having this additional option but I wished they digged deeper into features other than enhanced privacy. Not that I'm complaining, I enjoy having enhanced privacy but if they added more productivity features like the Blackberry Hub.

Comment by carlosjobim 23 hours ago

Nokia N9 still has the most modern and refined user interface, 15 years after being discontinued:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCFNXhiFnKY

Comment by Maken 19 hours ago

And they dropped this for that unfinished mess that was Windows Phone. I still don't understand what they were thinking at Nokia.

Comment by written-beyond 22 hours ago

But it really was a once in a lifetime experimental device. The aesthetics were a little whack, in an endearing sort of way.

Comment by rzerowan 1 day ago

This is why i keep saying the Jolla management neds a rethink. Its 2026 GraphenOS is in a partnership with Motorola while Jolla is still doing early 2K style kickstarter campaigns.

The market is there , product is loved and ppeople have proved they are willing to take some pain adopting the product.But still the execution to serve that market is shambolic to say the least.

Comment by polar 1 day ago

Jolla does have an arrangement with Sony, so there are a few other device options: https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Supported_Devices/

Comment by rzerowan 23 hours ago

As i recall , they do not come preloaded and the usr has to do a song and dance to flash the ROM with the new OS. While also paying a separete license fee for the OS and updates.

Too much friction and limiting the potential - thats why i reiterate. The SailFishOS is a delight technically and aesthetically - the business side though needs a major overhaul.

Just thinking out loud , they could partner with someone likee huawei to preload for EU/rest of world customers that cannot use HarmonyOS outside CH. Or even one of the other smaller OEM with access to the deep tech ecosystem to give a prebuild/preloaded f;agship at a cost competitive price. Or do a Apple and auction search/maps defaults to keep BOM costs down and aim for widespread adoption.

Comment by 4k93n2 22 hours ago

they sell some preloaded xperias on their website, but i get the impression the only have a few at any given time because ive been checking every now and again and half the time they are sold out

Comment by joecool1029 1 day ago

Americans/Canadians (and I guess Asians since they won't ship there) don't waste your time reading this, they have a Mediatek SoC and made the choice long ago to not touch these markets. The devices will not carry the band support needed for these markets.

Europeans, I guess good luck, have fun. I followed them in the early days and ran early builds of Sailfish on the N9, had high hopes but have long given up on them.

EDIT: I will say though I'm still impressed by the libhybris project which went on to make it possible to run linux distros on android SoC's, but the guy who did that for Jolla I think is not with the company anymore for some time.

Comment by chrononaut 23 hours ago

> The devices will not carry the band support needed for these markets.

Their technical specifications state:

> Cellular: 4G + 5G with dual nano-SIM and global roaming modem configuration[0]

Is that implying "global" is actually not global?

[0] https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-preorder

Comment by joecool1029 13 hours ago

> Is that implying "global" is actually not global?

It was what I was implying.

I did find a better link: https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-sept-26

LTE FDD: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28AB, 66 LTE TDD: 34, 38, 39, 40, 41 5G NR: n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n20, n26, n28, n38, n40, n41, n66, n77, n78

So this is a strange band list for US, it can roam. It’s not ideal for any carrier outside of a city (n41, n77 2.5ghz/3.5ghz) supported, well maybe. n25 notably missing but subset n2 works via mbfi. band 71 missing for low-band tmobile rural coverage. 13 and 14 missing for firstnet/verizon lowband. Good to see n66.

Now setting that aside that yes, I was partially wrong, we got more bands than usual, it still needs to pass through certification and get IMS profiles from the US carriers to make calls.

Anyways, it’s possible things changed, they have new people in leadership, maybe they pivoted, I just don’t think it’s likely, I’ve yet to see a mediatek flagship or even upper mid-range that is well configured for US market.

Comment by walterbell 23 hours ago

> The devices will not carry the band support needed for these [non-EU] markets.

Would they have zero radio coverage, or sub-optimal coverage?

Could be a feature for those wanting a Wi-Fi only mobile Linux device.

Comment by joecool1029 13 hours ago

> Would they have zero radio coverage, or sub-optimal coverage?

Sub-optimal for data if it allows attach. If they don’t have working IMS profile it may reject the attach at worst or just have no working calls/texts at best (we do not have fallback 2g/3g except for 911 on 2g with pockets of t-mobile). There is 911 IMS profile but it sometimes doesn’t work with foreign phones, its tricky: https://optimerainc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/OptimERA_...

> Could be a feature for those wanting a Wi-Fi only mobile Linux device.

I’m sorry but this is cope for a phone. At that point just buy a better linux device not built on a complex phone soc, it’s not a phone then.

Comment by walterbell 7 hours ago

> better linux device not built on a complex phone soc

Any suggestions in handheld form factor, comparable to iPod Touch? There was PinePhone Pro with Sailfish and RK3399S SoC, now discontinued.

Comment by poisonborz 1 day ago

Jolla / Sailfish is a 13 year old project and through all this time they couldn't make a foothold, or even sustain some small motivated community around them. During this time:

- company folded and changed hand multiple times, including russian ownership

- the tablet scandal leaving users with lost funds

- closed source parts

- locked bootloader

- charging a $50 device reset fee

- not much change in Sailfish OS since ages

- buggy Android compatibility and near zero native devs, all jumped ship

At this point I think they are just one of the grifters preying on naive "EU first" supporters shoveling whatever they still have in a new casing.

I'd love the idea of a greenfield EU Linux mobile OS, but I don't think it should come from this company.

Comment by dijit 1 day ago

> Jolla / Sailfish is a 13 year old project

Realistically building a production quality database takes 10 years. Building a production quality game engine takes 10 years.

They're building a mobile operating system and the hardware it runs on; that's harder and a moving target.

How long do you think it takes to build a supply chain of hardware that doesn't suck (if it takes 2 years to get moving: you need to start with hardware specs for 2 years from now) and an operating system that doesn't suck when you're also trying to catch up to a major duopoly cranking out devices at an unfathomable volume, with more money than most nation states?

Your standard is "succeed against Google and Apple within 13 years on a shoestring budget with no volume discounts." How can any project clear that bar?

What would you do?

Comment by poisonborz 1 day ago

> Your standard is "succeed against Google and Apple within 13 years..."

Absolutely not. My standard is the many other AOSP-based ROMs communities and companies that were founded around them, having success within a few years - yes, they could lean on the ecosystem compatibility and didn't produce their own hardware, but maybe that's a more viable way to start?

"shoestring budget with no volume discounts" does not explain the points of criticism above.

Comment by dijit 1 day ago

AOSP is just a totally different destination, it's not a faster route to the same one.

Sailfish is spiritually MeeGo: actual Linux on the phone, not a custom skin on Google's foundations. Obviously it's faster to build a kit-car than a car factory, I don't see how that's a rebuttal, it's an entirely different conversation.

An AOSP fork on Qualcomm hardware isn't independence. Jolla are actually trying to build the factory.

The $50 fee and tablet scandal are fair hits- but fuck-ups don't make you a grifter, and we've forgiven larger players far worse.

You still haven't said what you'd actually do.

Comment by microtonal 1 day ago

I don't see the issue of using AOSP. You get to skip the many years that Sailfish OS will still need in user testing. You get to skip all the possible incompatibilities with Android apps through the compatibility layer. AOSP is also Linux on the phone. I guess you mean GNU/Linux on the phone, but AOSP now also has official support for a Linux VM (you want a VM because traditional desktop Linux security is not great). They are even adding support for running Wayland apps. With the recently-added desktop support, you can plug a phone into an external screen and you'll have a desktop with Android apps and Linux desktop apps.

I think the chance of Google completely closing AOSP is pretty small, AOSP being open maintains a power equilibrium between Google and other OEMs. Closing up AOSP carries the huge risk that Samsung and some other big OEMs will fork it and Google has essentially lost the whole market overnight. I am pretty sure this is why Samsung phones also have the Galaxy Store with a bunch of apps like Netflix in it. The Galaxy Store is Samsung's subtle message to Google saying: don't try to rein us in, we can cut you out.

That said, even if Google closes AOSP, forking it and maintaining it as an open project is going to be far less work than brining Sailfish OS to the level of polish, security, etc. of AOSP.

Comment by poisonborz 1 day ago

Why is AOSP a wrong path? Why would it be "tainted"? Any large enough entity can fork. Hundreds already did, successfully. Even China couldn't do otherwise - via Huawei they mutated it to HarmonyOS (becoming much different from its roots, and incompatible to it, structurally becoming superior in many ways). Why throw away 20 years of development and a sea of dev experience?

But even if you insist on a non-AOSP way: Supporting any other, more well regarded projects and initiatives? Random top of my head idea: motivate Fairphone (Denmark) to adopt some non-android OS like Ubuntu Touch?

Comment by fsflover 1 day ago

> Why is AOSP a wrong path?

Because its existence relies on a good will of Google. See:

Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android (9to5google.com)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45017028

and

GrapheneOS accessed Android security patches but not allowed to publish sources (grapheneos.social)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45208925

> Any large enough entity can fork.

Only megacorps will likely be able to support a hard fork for such a large codebase.

> Hundreds already did, successfully.

Which of them are hard forks? China will not be a benevolent dictator of AOSP

> Fairphone

It's Android again.

There are indeed non-Android alternatives, but not in Europe. I use Librem 5 btw.

Comment by charcircuit 23 hours ago

>Because its existence relies on a good will of Google

AOSP is open source. Anyone can fork it.

>Google will allow only apps from verified developers

This is done by Play Services which is not included in AOSP even.

>Only megacorps will likely be able to support a hard fork for such a large codebase.

The same can be said about any operating system. The scope of an operating system is huge.

Comment by fsflover 23 hours ago

> The same can be said about any operating system.

GNU/Linux is already supported without a (single) megacorp. So not all OSes have this problem.

Comment by mpol 22 hours ago

@charcircuit

Sailfish is more like GNU/Linux, that is the OS in this context. For Jolla that is less code to maintain themselves then what Google maintains in Android/Linux. Hard forking Android/Linux looks to be quite a big bite to chew on.

Comment by charcircuit 21 hours ago

Jolla doesn't need to hard fork AOSP. They can continue to benefit from the billions of dollars Google infests into AOSP and Android.

Comment by dijit 20 hours ago

infests is a nice freudian slip.

When millions of dollars support a feature, that feature beats others- even technically superior ones, on the basis of support and polish.

We’re all playing to the tune of what Google wants because Google has the power.

Imagine a world where theres no Linux because MacOS and Windows paid lip service to people using partially functional derivatives of their OS’s, they’d still push things like liquid ass and windows recall, and those features would be spidered in.

Then people would be saying “don’t use linux, you can just use WinCore” Even though using Wincore is aiding Windows commercial interests over those of the industry as a whole.

Comment by charcircuit 20 hours ago

If a product meets all of the needs of their users that's a good thing. It is a good thing to reward commercial entities for providing value to their users.

Comment by fsflover 10 hours ago

How do you know that the product meets the needs of users? From the usage? Did you hear about duopolies and walled gardens? Did you hear about banks forcing people on the duopoly?

Comment by charcircuit 3 hours ago

Because if they didn't a competitor could get a foothold by solving those needs.

Comment by fsflover 22 minutes ago

No, it couldn't, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in

Comment by charcircuit 22 hours ago

Most of Linux is written by corporations and that's just a kernel, not a full operating system like ChromeOS which took Google to be able to build.

Comment by fsflover 22 hours ago

I updated my comment to indicate GNU/Linux.

Comment by charcircuit 18 hours ago

That still uses the Linux kernel which uses the work of mega corporations.

Comment by fsflover 10 hours ago

Which is not the same as one single, hostile corp.

Comment by jimbokun 16 hours ago

If they can’t succeed against Google and Apple the project is useless.

Even if it’s not for lack of trying or lack of talent on their part, the fact remains their efforts could have been spent more productively elsewhere.

Comment by 1 day ago

Comment by embedding-shape 1 day ago

> but I don't think it should come from this company.

Could*, maybe than should, unless you believe that all those things will apply to the phone they plan to release in September. Otherwise I don't see the issue with a company keep trying until they get something right (or give up). Why not?

Comment by poisonborz 1 day ago

True, but I also wanted to signify that I find any user trust (eg as a result of this new marketing campaign) is misplaced and steals air from a better alternative.

Comment by fsflover 1 day ago

Which is?

Comment by poisonborz 1 day ago

See my reply above

Comment by furryrain 21 hours ago

"- buggy Android compatibility and near zero native devs, all jumped ship"

I'm a bit confused by this. Are you saying that the developers who once wrote native Sailfish OS apps are no longer writing those native apps?

Is there any hope for using the responsive libadwaita programs from the Mobile Linux space? I realise this isn't particularly large, but it is active.

Comment by mpol 21 hours ago

> Is there any hope for using the responsive libadwaita programs from the Mobile Linux space?

Currently not, if I understand correctly. There are plans to update or rewrite the Wayland compositor. If all goes well it should support GTK programs and I assume libadwaita too.

Comment by toast0 1 day ago

> Jolla / Sailfish is a 13 year old project and through all this time they couldn't make a foothold, or even sustain some small motivated community around them.

Sure, but somehow RCS is viable in 2026. Old projects can come back!

Comment by tpoacher 1 day ago

on one hand you're not wrong

on the other, I really, really loved my original jolla phone back in the day. I happily used it as my daily driver and only phone for 2 years. Until it had a hardware fault which I could no longer repair via the company.

Comment by cookiengineer 15 hours ago

You should instead check out Plasma Mobile devices. They're _very_ close to releasing something for daily use and the whole KDE stack on mobile has come a long way.

I have no idea about the state of ModemManager though, because that has been historically always painful to use.

I'm currently betting personally on a Hackberry Pi variant. It's a Wi-Fi only device, so doesn't have a SIM without a breakout/addon board though. But at least it's fully open source and not whatever SailfishOS is. To me, SailfishOS is the same kind of fail like the "ZTE Open" with FirefoxOS, which, contrary to its name, was not open at all.

[1] https://plasma-mobile.org/

Comment by badgersnake 23 hours ago

I got burned with the tablet too. Still have the phone and the first one t-shirt that went with it, as well as a Nokia N9.

And I agree, it’s turned into a bandwagon grift. They’re also selling AI boxes that do who knows what.

Comment by shmerl 1 day ago

What network connectivity does it have for US?

Comment by embedding-shape 1 day ago

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but they're aiming to serve the EU and UK (and Norway and Switzerland) markets only. Although, with that said, the page for the September 2026 phone says this (https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-sept-26):

> LTE FDD: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28AB, 66

> LTE TDD: 34, 38, 39, 40, 41

> 5G NR: n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n20, n26, n28, n38, n40, n41, n66, n77, n78

But I have no idea if that means it'll work for you in the US/elsewhere.

Comment by toast0 1 day ago

> But I have no idea if that means it'll work for you in the US/elsewhere.

Yeah, that's a fun part of the crazy bandplan for lte/5g where it's just a little here and there without global coordination.

But a look here [1], says it has all 5G bands for AT&T, 2/4 bands for TMo, and 4/5 for Verizon. Seems maybe a bit iffy for TMo, one of the missing bands is n71 (600 MHz) which is extended range that helps fill in coverage.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_5G_NR_networks

Comment by BenjiWiebe 22 hours ago

Some carriers also require your phone to be on their whitelist - for example AT&T.

And Verizon claims they don't do it that way, but we had a phone that worked on Verizon with an old SIM card until Verizon caught on, and then suddenly it wasn't compatible with their network and couldn't be used on Verizon.

Comment by kevvok 1 day ago

Also missing Band 13, which is Verizon’s main band for coverage

Comment by shmerl 1 day ago

Why aren't modern SoC modems just support all bands? How hard is it?

Comment by karteum 17 hours ago

It's not only the issue of SoC modems but about the whole integration (RFIC, LNA/PA, RF switches, antennas...). The more bands you integrate, the more difficult it becomes (or with compromises such as worse performance because of wideband antennas...). If I may risk a comparison : you can't have a lense with a huge focal range that would simultaneously be perfectly sharp and have a wide aperture like fixed focals...

Comment by microtonal 1 day ago

Just a guess: maybe it requires fairly expensive certification that is not worth it when a SoC family is barely used in a region (yes, I know, chicken-egg).

Comment by mempko 1 day ago

I used to use a Sony phone with Sailfish but stopped when US shifted to voice over LTE and phones I used were not supported by the networks. If this phone works on US networks, I can't wait to get rid of my Android phone for sailfish. I vibed with Sailfish so hard.

Comment by Sarkie 18 hours ago

What GPU?

Comment by drnick1 1 day ago

They should have collaborated with GrapheneOS like Motorola instead of starting from scratch with Linux and a proprietary user interface. As it stands, this phone will have worse security than a Pixel with Graphene or the upcoming Motorola phone.

It's not an improvement over common closed source Android varieties either, and will certainly have worse app compatibility than Android. Hardware switches are irrelevant if you can't trust the software.

Comment by NicuCalcea 1 day ago

Their entire raison d'être is to make Sailfish OS (non-Android Linux) phones. I'm happy they're doing it. Graphene OS is great but it's just another Android ROM and still dependent on Google.

Comment by NewJazz 1 day ago

They could have done both. GrapheneOS is as dependent on google as their android app compatibility layrr, if I had to guess.

Comment by heavyset_go 1 day ago

This is part of the (spiritual) lineage of Meego/Maemo, it's much older than GrapheneOS and the latter is older than Android itself

Anyway, it's as secure as any Linux distro as it uses the same standard stack as servers and desktops and does sandboxing[1], which is also really nice from a development perspective. You can harden it like you would a Linux box using standard Linux tools + kernel features.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS#Software_architect...

Comment by mpol 1 day ago

Did GrapheneOS even exist in 2012? There is history at play here, they are still building forward from the Nokia Linux phones.

Also, what's up with all the sour grapes from people who use or develop GrapheneOS? There seems to be a general force dismissing Sailfish as insecure, without ever explaning how. Can't we just be friends in a de-googled world? Are people from Graphene feeling insecure about Sailfish as competition? It feels to me like infighting in small churches. It turns me off from ever considering GrapheneOS before I even looked into it.

Comment by distances 1 day ago

They didn't start from scratch, the first Jolla phone was released in 2013. The Sailfish OS continues the Maemo/MeeGo lineage that Nokia abandoned.

Comment by jasonvorhe 1 day ago

Agreed. Also, the second I found out that their entire UI stack is proprietary I lost all interest in that platform.

Comment by fsflover 1 day ago

Don't the security hardware features of the GrapheneOS phones also rely on proprietary software/firmware?

Comment by jasonvorhe 1 day ago

To my knowledge you have some proprietary firmware blobs, drivers, HAL and the Trusted Execution Environment shipping with GrapheneOS. But replacing Pixel's stock Android with GrapheneOS doesn't expose you to more proprietary components but instead reduces it (by sandboxing Google Play Services for example) and improves upon Android security overall (memory allocation, etc).

So yeah, GrapheneOS isn't 100% OSS, as far as I'm aware. But it doesn't expose me to more proprietary stuff like Jolla would.

Comment by fsflover 1 day ago

You're not wrong, but the main selling point of GrapheneOS in comparison to other options is security, and it relies on proprietary software. So to me it looks a bit similar, although I agree that less blobs is definitely important.

Comment by miohtama 1 day ago

They cannot, because for some reason GrapheneOS is shitting on them

https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/2029651838975328512

Comment by NicuCalcea 1 day ago

Graphene OS really like to shit on competing projects, it seems. Maybe they're right, but it seems a bit obsessive.

/e/OS: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1946269698498105813

iodéOS: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1892555359656534284

CalyxOS: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1953856218931376421

Unplugged: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1861593971685798351

PinePhone: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1964441930760409499

Comment by fsflover 1 day ago

More projects:

Kicksecure: https://forums.kicksecure.com/t/grapheneos-attacks-kicksecur...

Purism Librem 5 and Pinephone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47260196

Comment by gruez 1 day ago

Seems fair given that it was in response to a tweet referring to the phone as "ULTRA secure!"

Comment by miohtama 22 hours ago

Yes but that was not from Jolla, but some random Twitter user.

They were also shitting on it earlier in December, so GrapheneOS is probably run by some teenagers going through problematic puberty

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/115685433938468549

Comment by gruez 22 hours ago

>Yes but that was not from Jolla, but some random Twitter user.

So if a random auto blog was saying how Tesla FSD was "ULTRA reliable", it wouldn't be fair for Waymo (or anyone else) to reply back and point that out?

Comment by drnick1 1 day ago

Is there anything inaccurate in that post by the Graphene devs however?

Comment by embedding-shape 1 day ago

> They should have collaborated with GrapheneOS like Motorola

Well, Motorola is already doing that :)

I for one is happy that there is at least someone out there not happy with the status quo and go with something completely different and homegrown instead of just going with customizing Android and calling it a day.