Jolla Unveils First Sailfish Smartphone, Includes Android App Support
Finnish startup Jolla has announced its first smartphone, which shows off its Sailfish OS on a 4.5-inch screen.
Jolla, which was founded by former Nokia employees who wanted to continue the development work the Finnish phone maker had done on the MeeGo OS, is with the introduction one big step closer to entering the ultra-competitive smartphone market.
“The earliest memories I have of things really crystalizing is from the summer of 2011. I was on holiday and there was a conference call I took on the beach, and the people that became Jolla, the founders and many of the early contributors were on that call. But to me the hard work really started in January 2012,” said Marc Dillon, who recently stepped down as the company’s CEO to focus on developing the first phone.
The smartphone has a 4.5-inch “Estrade” display, as well as 16GB of internal storage and a microSD slot. There’s an unspecified dual-core processor to handle daily tasks and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera.
Jolla’s first handset is also 4G-enabled and has a replaceable battery, which will go down a treat with power users who often find themselves in the red at the end of the day.
Sailfish is a Linux-based operating system that picks up where MeeGo left off… or rather where Nokia left off when the company abandoned MeeGo and jumped on the Windows Phone bandwagon.
While Sailfish has a unique user interface and supports native apps written for the Linux-based OS, out of the box it will also have support for Android apps.
The heart of the OS consists of thumbnails of opened applications on the homescreen from which users also can access multiple features directly by scrolling from side-to-side or just clicking on them to access the main feature.
“The true multitasking is working in lots of different applications. You can have a video running in a thumbnail while you are doing something else on the device,” Dillon said.
The back cover plates are dubbed “The Other Half” and they will actually do a bit more than just give you a new exterior color. Jolla has said these covers will be able to automatically adjust fonts, ringtones, profiles, color themes and more.
The phone is expected to cost $500 and Indian availability has not been specified yet!
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