December 17, 2013 at 02:14For pioneers. On the waves with Jolla (UPD)
After the disappointment with Nokia’s act to disband the entire Maemo / Meego division reached its maximum, rumors appeared on the Internet that a startup could revive this great OS and continue its development. Then there were a lot of rumors, allegedly Nokia gave all the development to this startup (which, of course, was not). Soon, the name of this startup itself surfaced - Jolla. For a whole year, bits of information about the future phone, screenshots, news, ideas fell on the Internet and finally, in December 2013, this phone appeared on the open market. First, back in June, a pre-order in the amount of 100 euros was opened, for which a T-shirt and a letter were sent with words of gratitude for the trust and support rendered, but the phone itself arrived only six months later - this winter. At last, I hold this long-awaited device in my hands and want to share my impressions about it. Nevertheless, the phone is still rare and there is no opportunity to go to the store with your own hands to feel it.
Specifications
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Assembly
The device itself is made of quality materials: a metal bezel, metal power buttons and a volume rocker, Gorilla Glass. Everything is in order here. But the wire and charging give cheapness - yet Nokia spoiled us with quality materials. There are no headphones in the kit, although if you look at the Samsung headphones, which have long been bundled with mobile phones, I can say that it’s better that none are bad. But these are trifles, since I use my headset.
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Front and back view
All phones come with a matte white back cover, but the most loyal fans (who made a prepayment on their first call in June) are given an orange cover with the inscription “the first one”.
The phone is slightly larger than the Nokia N9. On the one hand, it has become easier to type on a vertical keyboard, on the other, for example, it has become more difficult for me to control the phone with just one thumb. I like the N9 form factor because it fits well in the palm of your hand. By the way, iPhohe is damn convenient for me: their shape is just perfect - neither big nor small, just the way you need it. You can easily use the phone with one hand. So the N9 is the same. Personally, I can’t understand the fans of large devices like Samsung Note, although I admit that there are enough admirers of these smartphones. Jolla is a bit too big for me, but just a little. Already almost used.
First impression
I can say that after the excitement of the new purchase has died down, the first impression is disappointment. Jolla positions itself as a successor to Meego, but in fact it turned out that Sailfish OS was created more “based on” and is still very young. The common features of both operating systems, of course, can be traced, but Jolla often lacks the functionality that I'm used to on N9. I can’t say exactly what this is connected with: most likely, Nokia was not profitable to give all its achievements and the two companies had disagreements on licensing agreements, this is felt. Therefore, you need to treat Sailfish OS with understanding. This is a young team and they are now "sawing" everything from the very beginning.
Battery
 Nokia N9 |  Jolla |
The same kind of settings for the battery. Nokia has a choice of setting the economy mode, while Yolla has only battery status so far.
The second factor that unpleasantly surprised was the battery. With minimal use, it holds barely a day. Here it must be clarified that my N9 held for at least two days, and when the economy mode was turned on, the charge was enough to exchange SMS for at least another half day. In fairness, it should be noted that on N9 I used a schedulerwho turned off all services at night and the phone was poisoning to sleep with me. In the morning, 5 minutes before the rise, the phone woke up, connected to the network, updated and synchronized all services, checked mail and only then joyfully turned on the alarm clock. With this approach, the battery was effectively saved. You quickly get used to the good and now I really miss this chip in Yoll. I really hope that it will be added in the next updates, because the eco-mode helped me out dozens of times.
Nfc
Well, the third factor is the lack of NFC. Judging by the specification, this module is present in hardware, but so far I have not found the option to read NFC tags anywhere. I hope that this functionality will also be added to the firmware soon.
Comparison with Nokia N9
The new Jolla is larger than the N9 and has a more angular design.
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that only lovers of new products and admirers of Meego / Maemo know about Jolla, but, basically, of course, those few fans who were once betrayed and abandoned by the company Nokia, like Napoleon’s soldiers after the defeat near Moscow. Therefore, voluntarily or involuntarily, but you begin to compare this phone with the N9.
To begin with, about the organization of the workspace. The N9 had three workspaces arranged horizontally. Yolla also has three, but they are already arranged vertically. The OS is still completely based on gestures - swipes. For example, all messages in the system can be viewed by swiping from the very bottom of the screen. To go back, you need to drag the screen to the left with your finger, and if forward, to the right. By the way, you quickly get used to this type of communication, but people who hold the device for the first time in their hands may have a slight panic, because there are often no additional prompts in the form of arrows or buttons on the screen.
 Click to enlarge |  Click to enlarge |
Relative desktop layout for Nokia and Yolla
What common?
Let me give you a couple of examples of common programs. How it was on N9 and how it now works on Yolla, because the similarity is felt in many ways.
The calendar
 Nokia N9 |  Jolla |
Calendars on both phones
Alarm clock
 Nokia N9 |  Jolla |
Alarms on both phones
Manage running programs
 Nokia N9 |  Jolla |
These screenshots show how all running applications look like and how they can be closed in one fell swoop. The screenshot on the right shows how I pulled out the Pulley Menu, which is normally hidden behind the top edge of the screen.
System settings
 Nokia N9 |  Jolla |
Settings look similar, Meego users will not get lost
App store
This is a completely new platform, so you should not expect a large number of different programs. Jolla has now launched its store, called Jolla Harbor . Let's hope that the store will quickly replenish with time.
 Nokia N9 |  Jolla |
Ovi Store on the Nokia N9 phone on the left and the Jolla Store on the right.
Immediately you need to make a reservation about the support for Android applications, which was loudly announced. Firstly, there is only one store on the phone - Yandex.Store. And there are significantly fewer applications than in the native Google Play and far from all programs can be found. Secondly, each program runs in a kind of virtual Android OS. I can’t say how this affects the battery, but it seems to work pretty quickly. Naturally, all the styles are taken from the native Android, but I would like to see them in the style of the new Sailfish OS. Well, on the forums, many complain that some applications work rather unstably, some errors constantly come out. I myself don’t really chase after many Android applications, I got used to certain ones over time, so I already wrote letters with a nod to the authors of my favorite applications from the Meego platform. Suddenly, the fuse is still there and they will update. But many authors are already too lazy to redo their program for the new OS. Although they wrotethat the migration from Meego to Sailfish OS is not so painful, all the same people have not yet been inspired by the idea of a common revolutionary movement. Let's wait. And if all the old-time programmers are inactive, you have to grab the keyboard yourself :)
GPS
There is an internal GPS receiver, but so far there has not been a chance to try it out. In such cloudy and cloudy weather, as it is now established in our latitudes, you should not even try. But I can immediately say that there is one important function missing for me - the N9 was able to connect to an external receiver via Bluetooth. Since Nokia Maps can be stored for offline use, this together provides an excellent opportunity for traveling abroad when it is expensive to use roaming.
With this equipment I have been traveling for the last couple of years. No problems.
Since the receiver is external, the navigation on the maps in connection with the satellite practically did not waste battery energy. During all the trips, I charged the phone once every two days with active use. So if the Jolla developers are hearing me right now, then for users it's just a must have. Integrations in social networks can wait, it’s better to finalize really useful functions first.
 Nokia N9 |  Jolla |
Type of geolocation settings. The abundance of free space at Yolla on this screen gives hope that soon something will appear there ...
And I also want to note that the camera can not yet place geo-tags in photos. So there is still no way to look at the map where this or that picture was taken. It's a pity! I constantly used this function, especially when traveling.
Accounts
So far, the choice of integration into services is not enough. It works perfectly with Google: I downloaded all the mail and contacts.
 Nokia N9 |  Jolla |
Type of social network profiles for both phones. Most likely, in the near future, Yolla will have this list more, although for me personally this is not critical.
Cool Chips
What is unusual about this phone? Of course, you can’t say that this phone is “only one in millions” - it is different and even unique. This alone can boast to others. Just kidding, of course. I’ll try to tell more specifically.
1. Removing items
Common Are You Sure? Dialog Box For a long time everyone was tired. For the first time in my memory they got rid of it even in Gmail: there the letter could be deleted with one click and the message “Undo?” Hung in the upper part of the window for several seconds in case of an error. This was a fresh solution and now many products are trying to use this approach. Jolla also came up with their own chip: if you delete something, then within 5 seconds a fading progress bar is displayed at the place of the deleted element. If the deletion was made by mistake, this process can be quickly undone with just one touch. The screenshot below shows how it looks:
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In the screenshot on the left, I delete the picture from my gallery, and on the right - the email.
Removing messages, unnecessary accounts, contacts and other things happens the same way.
2. Работа с иконками запущенных приложений
On Maemo, and then on Meego, there was a cool killing feature: multitasking. It was possible to “collapse” all applications and see only their small windows, which were updated and showed what was happening in the program itself. A very cool thing, which made it quite easy to work simultaneously with several programs and switch between them. But Jolla went further - on these "previews" there is not only a live display of the program, but also two main functions of the running application, which can be activated without opening the program itself. Well, let's say, if you have a player running and you want to enable the next track, then you do not need to open the entire program at all, but you can click on its small "preview" and move it to the side. At first I did not understand the main advantages of this innovation, but now I managed to try it. Imagine a situation when you have a player open and want to connect a bluetooth headset. You will need to switch between the settings and the player. So the player can not be deployed at all in order to click on the “play” button. You can enable it through a minimized application. It's comfortable. Thanks to the developers.
3. Pulley menus
Jolla has revised the principle of the context menu and their phone has the so-called. Pulley menu - a context menu that pops up at the very top of the application. The meaning of the idea: if you select an element from the menu, then once you touch the screen and, without releasing your finger, as if you stretch the menu down until the desired element is highlighted and only then release it. At first I missed, but I got used to it during the day and now it seems to me a very elegant solution.
4. Other half
Let me remind you that one of the main features of this device is the so-called Other half - the other half of the device, which will expand its functionality or just give the opportunity to stylize the phone for yourself. In the simplest case, this is an ordinary cover made in different colors, but as conceived by the authors, new hardware features can be added to the cover that will communicate with the phone itself via an I²C connector. This may be an additional battery, hardware keyboard, various sensors and receivers.
At the moment, the second half is not yet on sale. The community has gathered a lot of different ideas , but so far I do not know which of them will be implemented. Although there are already real stepsto create a prototype keyboard, which was the Nokia N900. And even the first functioning prototype of the other half was shown to the public - a module for wireless charging . Personally, I'm only interested in a more energy-intensive battery. I can live without any newfangled lotions, but a good battery is now worth its weight in gold.
Total
At first glance, of course, everything is unusual and in a new way. I can’t say that the navigation in the phone is intuitive, there are some serious comments on the UX design, but somehow you quickly get used to it. Already in one evening you can get used to it. Despite the fact that a lot is missing now, I still believe in future updates. Jolla is a small company, there are only a couple of dozen programmers working there, so you should not expect speed from them, like from Android, in which Google fully invests.
Everything is relative. Only when I played around with another phone did I realize how great the Nokia N9 is. And given that when he entered the market, Android still walked under the table, Apple stamped the next iPhone 4S model, and then it seemed to me that this phone had every chance of crowding out its competitors. Despite the fact that there are not so many programs for N9, I can say that on this phone the developers paid attention to the little things that create all the charm of owning the device. I’ll give you a very small example that makes me happy every day: if you listen to a long music file, for example, a podcast for an hour and a half, then when you stop the player and turn it off, the phone remembers the place where you stopped. But that is not all. When you open the player the next morning, to continue listening to yesterday's unfinished podcast, the player unwinds 10-20 seconds ago so that you can start listening with the latest sentences and remember what was discussed yesterday. A trifle! And how uplifting. And so in everything. I can’t say that the phone is really unique, but it feels like it’s already an adult. I still can not understand and forgive Nokia for closing the development of Meego, eh.
And I wish the comrades from Jolla good luck! Incidentally, in Finnish the word "jolla" means skiff, a small boat. As the developers themselves joked, the idea of the name came precisely from the analogy with a huge sinking liner and lifeboats. So these guys now have everything they need for a great start and further successful “swimming”: the most devoted technofanates, the still warm rays of the former glory of the mobile giant, past developments and support from around the world. The main thing now is to try to live up to expectations. As for devotion, I myself was surprised. Even after the beginning of the end was already visible, some programmers still continued to update applications, after which there were a lot of sincere thanks in the comments on the Ovi Store. For example, a couple of switches back it became known that Nokia is finally closing support for Symbian and Meego,Profilematic . Well, what can you call it? Real geek love.
Someone thinks that the guys made Sailfish OS just to make it popular and then sell it to the big giants of the mobile market. I really hope that these are only misconceptions, otherwise "who should I believe now?" I myself am always happy to support new startups of talented developers, so I wish them good luck in the new year. And we are waiting for updates!
Upd (6.01.2014):
As EuroElessar prompted me , there is a way to fix a battery drain leak. The fact is that despite the fact that the phone has NFC , I did not find it anywhere in the settings. Nevertheless, he was constantly on and monitoring the soulmate. As planned, the phone usingNFC watched which half was connected to it and, if anything, would automatically change the background and color of the design. A bit dubious functionality, but it had a significant impact on battery consumption. If you turn off this service on your phone, then the battery may last as much as 4 days or more! There is no this option anywhere in the menu, so we will disable NFC through the console.
In order for the terminal to appear in the list of programs, you need to enter the development mode.
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After you enable development mode, a menu appears for setting up a connection to the phone via SSH.
After you enable development mode, turn on the remote connection at the same time. We will not connect to the phone, but we will need to enter a password, which will be used to authorize su .
Now you can enter the console. We open the list of programs, and at the very end we should have a terminal. We open it and enter the commands:
devel-su
systemctl stop tohd.service
For authorization, we use the password that was entered in the remote connection settings via SSH.
After this simple operation, the Jolla phone can calmly stretch for at least 3-4 days. I really hope that very soon in the new firmware after the update this problem will be fixed and the NFC disable point will appear in the settings . But in any case, the developers already know about this bug.