The Jolla Smartphone; Sailfish OS

Each passing day the world witnesses new inventions that awe us. The consummate will of human beings to go beyond the conventional stuff and achieve more amazes me daily. Just some days ago the whole world was amazed by Eighteen-year-old Eesha Khare who may have developed a super capacitor that could reduce cell phone charging time to 20 seconds! I was speechless when I heard that. I mean, 20 seconds? But that’s a story for another time.

Now to the main thing. Until very recently I had not as yet heard of a company called Jolla. Commonly called Jolla Mobile, it is an independent Finland-based designer, developer and seller of smartphones. I came to understand later. This however is not what caught my attention. The fact that the company was launching (has launched) an OS to rival the common Android and iOS is. I kind of thought that area of thought had been closed! Well, I guess not. The Jolla Mobile Company are coming out loud with a brand new OS which they call “Sailfish”. Yeah. The Sailfish OS.

Jolla Mobile Company announced itself to the world in late 2011. By now, it has already raised millions in investment from the telecommunications industry to help revive the MeeGo Project, which has only been available to the public once before on the widely praised Nokia N9. The MeeGo project had been a partnership between Intel and Nokia, which they abandoned.

The Sailfish OS is built from the recognised MeeGo Technology. It is Linux-based. The company acclaims this OS because it ensures that core cellular functionalities like power management and connectivity are inbuilt and optimized in restrained embedded environments. This means that users, among them interested developers, can humour fast and easy customisation of the UI. Furthermore it makes development of partner specific screens fast due to the easy to use development tools. Jolla Mobile has revealed too plans to incorporate the following technologies: The Mer operating system core, HTML5, QML and Qt.

The flagship phone featuring the OS is set to be released late 2013 and will be the first to run the Sailfish OS. Most ascribed reviewers say that he Jolla certainly has taken style cues off the Nokia N9. The phone is verily Android friendly. It runs Android apps! So if you’re an Android Junkie…

The design conversely is as inimitable as anything we have seen in recent years. Some predictable specs include: 4.5inch display, 4G support, eight megapixel camera, 16GB of storage, microSD slot and an unspecified dual core processor. These specs however don’t come close to those of the Galaxy S4. I just had to say that. The pre-set price (expected to go way down) is 399 Euros.

I wrote this neither to praise nor chide the company Jolla, but to show support to the more and more rising innovative ideas that could lead to the realisation of a different world. ? I am not a good reviewer (never have been) and haven’t got to use the Sailfish, but I believe that the more ideas that are put to life, the better the world would be. I wish the Sailfish OS the best. This is because ideas drawn from various sundry organisations may one day be brought together and shock us all at what the Human Mind can make. We could in this or the next generation comprehend the incredible!

By the way isn’t it funny these names various tech companies give their products?