Sailfish Mobile OS

https://sailfishos.org/

by getwiththeprog • 2 years ago

153 144 2 years ago

sailfishos.org

getwiththeprog• 2 years ago

Does anyone use or have feedback on Sailfish?

fractallyte7• 2 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41755272

Part of this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41754074 [We need a real GNU/Linux (not Android) smartphone ecosystem]

Self-Perfection• 2 years ago

I owned Jolla and Jolla C phones, that were made by the developers of Sailfish OS, until I got tired of swimming against the tide and switched to Android.

At the time it was very close to desktop GNU/linux OSes: software in rpm packages, wayland, pulse audio, easy SSH to device. It was easy. I still find myself confused when using Android, Sailfish OS was easy.

BoredPositron2• 2 years ago

Not great, not terrible. The android support is hit and miss and the official store is mostly full of junk. Their SDK is rudimentary and there is close to no documentation. After they signed a deal with the russian state I gave up on them. I am on Plasma now which has an overall better experience.

vrinsd5• 2 years ago

Do you use Plasma on a phone or tablet? If phone, can you say which hardware platform and how "well" it works as an actual phone, making calls, texting, etc?

fractallyte7• 2 years ago

The deal with Russia is finished. Jolla is free of all Russian ownership now.

https://www.is.fi/taloussanomat/art-2000010451277.html

vrinsd5• 2 years ago

I've used it for several years and the feedback from a user point of view is not positive. My sample size includes me and several members of my family who used Sony Xperia devices running SailfishOS for several years.

The Sailfish guys for some odd reason decide to invent their own "user interactions" where you click-slide ("one handed") to do certain opertaions. This makes the UI not only awkward, but NOT intuitive. You don't know what your options are until you perform this strange operation. I get why they did this, it was a way to potentially reduce swiping, etc but now that we have phones with big screens, you can actually put those options in one UI.

Further, basic things like composing a text and attaching a photo requires a round-trip to the photo app where you 'tag' the images you want ONE BY ONE rather than being able to do this inline from the SMS/MMS application. I think this has gotten better recently but for a long time it was SUPER awkward.

Two other perplexing points was how SLOW the UI felt for what should have been compiled Qt code and poor battery life on the older Xperia devices. Maybe they're using QML and it's not compiled?

The Sailfish guys have what I think is an ugly looking UI as well.

They've "dithered" certain parts of the UI so it really looks like old-school EGA/CGA graphics, even though the display is high-DPI and they have what's effectively a TUI style interface.

The only people I know who "LOVE" or claim "it's the best" UI are the same ones who LOVE Zune and Windows Phone UIs which are basically flat UI, almost monocolor nearly TUI type which is what you see pieces of in Win10 as well. Personally I dislike this UI and so do many people I know, there's a reason why UIs have icons and ideally text labels. TUIs have their place but so do GUIs.

If the Sailfish guys abandoned their weird UI ideas and frankly made it more like iOS or Android (I know, so boring, we have to re-invent the wheel just because...) it would actually be compelling.

On the very very plus side of Sailfish, as someone else pointed out, it's basically a GNU/Linux device that uses RPMs. I was able to install dnsmasq, set up DNS based adblock filtering, curate firewall rules and basically harden the device. You could SSH into the device via USB without adb stupidity and once I set it up, it stayed working until the VOLTE switch-over occured.

I think Ubuntu Touch has a better "UI" (I've also run this) but the Ubuntu guys have basically been ignoring VOLTE and since all major US carriers have switched over to VOLTE, your phone basically can't really make calls now on Ubuntu Touch (but that's OK, they've improved a bunch of other stuff! /sarcasm off).

Ubuntu Touch (not that you asked) is also a LOT slower than it should be and because the Ubuntu Touch guys are pursuing an 'Over the Air' update model, since the OS can basically be overwritten, applications aren't actually unpacked at install time but dynamically at run time. On a desktop this is OK but on a phone it leads to very slow app loading times.

I have high hopes for the current batch of Linux phone projects, Mobian, postmarketOS, etc but sadly I'm on Android until these are fully solidified.

cycomanic• 2 years ago

Funny, I used the Nokia N9 back in the days and the UI of (what was called Meego back the IIRC) was head and shoulders above everyone else. I believe the they were the first to have general gesture navigation so your comment about reinventing the UI is somewhat off the mark. Android implemented things after them, it's sort of like the argument that unix terminals should adopted ctrl-C for copy because it's the "standard".

I actually bought a Sony Xperia 10 and sail fish because I wanted the UI back so bad, but unfortunately I have some apps which didn't seem to work with android emulation (mainly banking...)

Tor37• 2 years ago

I actually have the opposite opinion. I like their UI, with the drag-down feature to select options, etc etc. Though I liked the very early Sailfish version on my old Jolla phone even better (it was upgraded on the Jolla phone as well, but yeah, the old one felt better. But not everybody agreed with me on that). The issues I have with my current Sony Xperia w/Sailfish is a) Nearly impossible to get a Japanese SIM card to function (as a second SIM), and when it worked it did so only sporadically. Basically useless. Same SIM worked fine in an Android phone and an iPhone (both brought over from Europe). And the camera.. it works, but it can take many seconds before the photo is actually taken, and all the features of the camera(s) aren't available. Not that I use it much for photos (though the ones I do take look good), but.. (And of course I also hate the long narrow super-slick easy-to-drop Xperia phones, but they're just like nearly every other phones these days, and the only option for an Android-enabled Sailfish phone now)

mpol• 2 years ago

I use it since 2014, 10 years and counting. I used the first Jolla 1, which was a lovely device, with a very dim screen :) It uses Wayland, Pulseaudio and Qt. I also used it on a Sony Xperia XA2, and since recently am on a Sony Xperia 10 III.

The Android App support is good, I use Whatsapp and Signal with it, also Firefox and DuckDuckGo browser. Just keep in mind that the Android App support is to get a few apps running that are important to you. Choosing Sailfish also means choosing mostly native apps. The system browser is built on the Firefox engine. SSH support is lovely though. It feels just like desktop Linux.

Don't expect a super slick experience. Companies like Apple and Google are pooring billions into their mobile OS. A small comapny like Jolla cannot keep up with that. Also the Android drivers are as is, the Jolla developers cannot improve on them.

Edit: by the way, it uses Firejail to have apps locked into their own jail.

nextos2• 2 years ago

IMHO it's good enough for daily usage if your needs are not very sophisticated and you are willing to deal with some rough edges.

It has some fantastic native & open indie applications, see https://openrepos.net.

If it managed to attract some extra users and gain a critical mass, it could become a credible (niche) alternative. It's nearly there.

fph• 2 years ago

I used it for years, owning multiple phones, up to 1-2 years ago, then switched to Graphene OS and never looked back. It is an interesting project, with a very innovative UI and very close to a true GNU/Linux on your phone. But ultimately the reasons that led me to change were: (1) they never managed to get the critical mass needed to continue, so there were very few native apps that were more than hobby projects (2) the Android support was never 100% working and stable for me, with frequent connection drops in particular and some unsupported apps (3) a small team meant that both Android and Linux security patches were always months behind upstream (4) it's not really open source in the end.

But mostly it was (2): on my daily driver phone I need to be connected 100% of the time, things like the Android networking silently failing were a major problem.

m4rtink4• 2 years ago

I'm using Sailfish OS as my primary phone OS since 2013. Also I have non-technical family member using Sailfish OS just fine in similar capacity. :)

desdenova• 2 years ago

I wish it was feasible to have alternative mobile systems, but it's not really.

You can't simply give up every popular app for a system nobody else uses or develops for.

Sailfish has Android emulation, but good luck running banking apps without Google SafetyNet. Even pure Android ROMs, like LineageOS, can't do that.

Also good luck with proprietary firmware for mobile networking and cameras. Another thing that usually holds back AOSP distributions, and will likely be even worse in a non-Android system.

beardyw• 2 years ago

But for an old phone a very open and developer friendly environment (Linux like maybe) is attractive. Sadly those available are limited to more modern phones, which is I think a mistake. Maybe the answer is a side loaded application with a ridiculous amount of permissions?

brunoqc• 2 years ago

good luck running banking apps without Google SafetyNet.

Doesn't most banks have a mobile version of their website. Maybe not the best but it could be a good compromise.

zamadatix• 2 years ago

If you want to go in and do the basics (check balance, do a normal transfer, look at activity) this can get you by. A lot of the more useful features tend to be app only though. E.g. "scan to deposit check" is an app only item for my bank.

izacus5• 2 years ago

Most banks here in Europe require Mobile apps to login into their website.

fuomag9• 2 years ago

Here in Europe you cannot login to bank websites without the bank app on your phone for 2FA codes

silisili3• 2 years ago

Today sure, it just needs support from a major player. Not -that- long ago, nearly every mfg had their own OS(Blackberry, Meego/Symbian, Win Mobile, Palm, etc) and each had enough apps.

If Samsung or Huawei or probably even Motorola decided to ditch Android and go all in on Sailfish, we'd see support for apps in short order. But as a third party OS you have to install yourself, it's basically dead in the water.

What BlackBerry did before giving up was a smart approach, they basically just converted Android apps to BlackBerry ones for you. And that'd be a fast way to get bootstrapped. They just didn't have enough steam left in them, sadly.

FormerBandmate• 2 years ago

BlackBerry was a huge player. They declined, as with Nokia, entirely because they didn’t use a platform

bsimpson2• 2 years ago

Sailfish is the successor to Nokia's Linux efforts, before they scrapped it all for Windows.

makeitdouble• 2 years ago

each had enough apps.

They had enough apps in the same way 640k of RAM was enough for everyone.

I think it's a fantastic topic, but to be succinct: we couldn't get app makers to keep parity between iOS and android, including banks, government and transportation apps for a very long time.

Assuming it would go easier with a random 3rd OS where "I'm sued for illegal deals" Google has struggled so much doesn't sound realistic.

SoftTalker2• 2 years ago

Does it have good messaging and maps? That’s 90% of my phone usage. I don’t do banking on my phone.

nextos2• 2 years ago

It has outstanding offline maps and navigation. One of its strongest points.

Messaging support depends on the protocol. Very good for Telegram, good for Matrix and Signal.

Lots of people use e.g. WhatsApp through the Android emulation layer.

gbraad11• 2 years ago

SafetyNet

PlayIntegrityFix I hear

gbraad11• 2 years ago

for the downvoter, it is a tool people use to deal with this.

stiray• 2 years ago

Yep, if you capitulate from the start than nothing changes. And you as a user are giving them a chance to lock you into custom OTPs (that are just little changed standard OTP to force you to use their app so they can track you, steal your contacts and god knows what else (i have reversed it, got the seed and i am running it from shell as I was sick of it) even if they have a classic web page.

Everyone just agreed that it is fine if certificates are no longer used for web apps (even with a fully standardized pkcs#12 tokens), everyone just agreed that bank is using some non-standard otp generator, everyone just agreed with everything. Now you will soon have to pay heating in car on monthly basis.

Stop agreeing. Start complaining. Now and you.

Sailfish on Sony Xperia 10 works like a charm, with working things that even modded roms are having issue with.

If you fight it back... I am running my banking app (that they have even if they also have a web based app) for 4 years now without any issues, they did a major rewrite in between, but quite frankly in most of cases Safety-net is just a bunch of sand into eyes of security, if implemented right it might have impact but at the end most of banking banks are reducing it to if statement (that i patched).

Yep, true that normal user cant do this, but this is users call. Complain to financial ombudsman, complain to the bank, demand a way for you to authenticate if you are paying for the product, complain bank supporting phone monopoly etc.

Harass developers that decided to verify if phone is rooted, prove in media that they are just a bunch of kids having a boner on security they don't understand (which is a huge fact in all annoying login schemes, from mail to sms etc., OTP was more than enough (sms... giggling... ss7 access on tor for 500 dollars monthly)

Actually you are addressing wrong problem. It starts somewhere else, when you want to use Bluetooth hardware that has a custom app to use it and you cant use it on Sailfish while you cant use it in Android layer as there is no bluetooth pass-trough. Here I vote with my wallet, not buying such devices and waiting for Sailfish to implement it.

lproven4• 2 years ago

I wish it was feasible to have alternative mobile systems, but it's not really.

I think there is a possible exception here.

I mean, firstly, yes, sadly this is largely true.

I had a Blackberry Passport, a beautiful handset running the QNX-based BB X OS. Over a year of ownership it gradually got less and less useful as app vendors turned off BB X support. No FB IM, no Whatsapp, and I have a phone that won't let me text with 90% of the most-contacted people on my phone.

And in those days (2014-2015) I did much less with my phone than now.

But I also own 2 little-used tablets.

I use tablets for watching films and TV, reading books, occasionally email. I don't do any of the mobile-phone stuff on my tablets, and they do not have SIM cards in them.

I would have as much use for a FOSS-powered tablet as I do for an Android or iOS tablet.

Poor patchy phone support does not cut it, sadly, and that's more than doubly so without apps.

But good support for at least one currently-available cheap Chinese tablet would be of legitimate interest to me.

Tepix• 2 years ago

You can't simply give up every popular app for a system nobody else uses or develops for.

Perhaps the solution for such a phone is to make PWAs feasible for every kind of app?

I guess it would need a few essential built-in apps (something like an Apple Health analog) but hopefully the rest could be web apps with extra privileges, if needed and approved by the user.

Is geofencing already possible with PWAs? I.e. location based events? If not, that would also have to be a builtin (helper) app.

fractallyte7• 2 years ago

By far the best mobile OS, way better than iOS or Android (simpler and more consistent).

The biggest obstacle to greater adoption is the lack of availability outside of the EU; of course, this is easy to work around...

It has a 'killer feature': Android App Support (https://jolla.com/appsupport), which enables a SFOS device to run Android apps in a sandbox.

I would also love to see a carefully engineered photo app...

BSDobelix2• 2 years ago

Na thanks no closed source "near scam" OS/Company for me.

fractallyte7• 2 years ago

Well, I think you ought to write more than that... Enlighten us!

yazzku2• 2 years ago

I am skeptical too, but the company is Finnish. Anybody know more about them?

Edit: looks like a non-free OS indeed. The developer tools just seem to include an SDK. It's a pass for me.

SoftTalker2• 2 years ago

Is there any reason it would not work in the USA, assuming an unlocked compatible phone?

doctor_radium• 2 years ago

Assuming a compatible phone and a compatible carrier (AFAIK AT&T and Verizon both still operate white lists), no there's nothing stopping you. There are/were US users who bought Sailfish over VPN. But for official hardware at least, "compatible phone" is the sticking point. The last phone with a North American variant was the Sony XA2 from early 2018. Today it's a brick because Jolla never gave it VoLTE support.

hulitu• 2 years ago

Sailfish Mobile OS
Available for supported Sony Xperia™ devices.

So not very useful for other devices. /s

forgotpwd16• 2 years ago

There's a 70p document (available at: https://docs.sailfishos.org/Develop/HADK/) that details how to port Sailfish to any Android device. From a skim, seems straightforward and not harder than building an Android ROM. Could maybe be outdated in some parts, since even if says last updated 2023, mentioned Android versions are from 2021.

NotPractical3• 2 years ago

See also from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41754074

ksec2• 2 years ago

Thinking of the same thing. It would be interesting to see a graph of all the submissions that came from various discussions, and people are discovering or rediscovering new things. Dont know if anyone has every done something similar.

sillystuff• 2 years ago

Apparently Sailfish is using libhybris.

I looked at the libhybris page and a few other sources, but am unsure how much of Android is implied when using libhybris. Random person on Internet claimed it is a minimal, but complete, Android user space install, but my reading of the libhybris page doesn't seem to imply that. The libhybris page does imply some of Android user space. A (probably out of date) Android kernel with all the OOT binary blob drivers Android is famous for, seems like it would also be a requirement.

Am I misunderstanding how bad this is? Or, is Sailfish rather than being a real alternative to Android just helping to entrench the terrible situation with Android Linux kernels?

SanjayMehta4• 2 years ago

Android apps on Sailfish were rarely usable, if they worked at all. One issue I remember, because it caused us a lot of grief was GPS.

The android app would not get an accurate fix unless a Sailfish app first woke up the GPS and obtained an accurate lock.

m4rtink4• 2 years ago

Well, again, while not covering all aspects of mobile apps, it could run Android apps at a time no other mobile Linux (or any other non-Android device could do it).

vrinsd5• 2 years ago

The Sailfish guys are actually the creators of libhybris.

If you run SailfishOS you have to first have Android flashed onto the phone. They use the same kernel, camera drivers, GPU drivers, etc as the original OEM including the prorprietary wireless BLOBs and the Android Radio-Interface-Layer ("RIL").

I've spoken to the Sailfish guys awhile back and I get why they did this -- 10+ years ago there was basically no choice but to use the Android port of drivers + the Linux kernel the vendor shipped because there was no other way to make these hardware pieces work, thanks to the silicon vendors.

The story of not needing BLOBs and things like a libhybris-shim has slowly improved, but not 100% . We can run Debian linux on the Qualcomm Snapdragon laptop devices (Thinkpad X13s, etc) but bits and pieces are still not there (audio, full power management, Bluetooth, etc).

To current Qualcomm's credit there are people inside who are pushing for everything mainline Linux, and minimizing proprietary pieces.

Ubuntu Touch relies on libhybris as well.

happosai• 2 years ago

Libhybris is great for making a tech demo. I wouldn't base a product on such hack, anymore than sell Linux laptops with ndiswrapper...

If something doesn't work in the binary android drivers, the vendor won't help you (we support only android, sir). Nor can you fix the drivers yourself, because you don't have the sources or the knowledge how drivers work.

gbraad11• 2 years ago

'world domination' not possible with "Sorry not available in your country".

I have worked Sailfish before, so I know what to expect. while a great OS, it is hard to compete with the established market. even the inclusion of libhybris won't change that... as in that case, why not just buy an Android device. unfortunately privacy is a niche to tailor to

SanjayMehta4• 2 years ago

I have two Jolla phones left over from when they launched in India, years ago.

I vaguely remember there was an India specific phone running Sailfish as well, but by that time my company was no longer working with mobile applications.

We ported several proprietary telco Linux tools to Jolla but it turned out using a laptop with a 3G dongle was more convenient than a tiny low res screen (big surprise).

I’m not sure why they’ve limited themselves to Europe, probably because of support costs. Pity, Sailfish was ahead of the curve on many aspects, especially the swipe from the side UI pattern which showed up years later in IOS.

gbraad11• 2 years ago

Yep, economics. They used to even have their own phone, but soon moved to repurposing Xperia devices. Not sure if there was a relation between Ericsson and Jolla employees, but this would not amaze me.

Note: I have worked a lot on MeeGo and Maemo before this. I only had Sailfish running on my N950s, so can't judge the final devices. Wish I could ...

triyambakam• 2 years ago

So if I want to run it, what would the best supported device? I do see the list of supported devices, but they vary. Which one would provide the best experience?

saidinesh510• 2 years ago

Usually the first party supported Sony xperia devices should all work well with all the bells and whistles of sailfish (their Android app support, some proprietary sync functionality)

If you have an old Motorola, OnePlus, older Xiaomi Devices - you can get the community ported Sailfish OS. That won't have their Android app support, but there are other options to get that working.

gbraad11• 2 years ago

What are the other options to get Android app support?

bsimpson2• 2 years ago

Did something happen that made Sailfish relevant again? Surprised to see it on the front page today.

It's unfortunate that they're taking a closed source model when others like System76 and Librem are using their hardware sales to fund open source development.

There's also webOS, which was originally funded by Palm and doesn't seem to have any open source development any longer, and the Maui project which is basically one guy trying to make his own Linux UI.

I'd love to see a team with decent UX sensibilities tackle a touch-first Linux UI. Nothing I've seen so far has impressed me. Seems like there are a lot of onesie-and-twosie sized projects that take forever to ship anything and never hit critical mass; meanwhile, nothing really holds a candle to the design of Android/iOS.

saidinesh510• 2 years ago

WebOS/Lune OS recently made a release in February no? Apparently they rebased themselves on top of LG's WebOS OSE. Rebase - being loosely used.

I think the Librem 5's adaptation of Gnome looks like a decent touch friendly Linux OS these days. Haven't touched it in a while though.

wluu• 2 years ago

Speaking of webOS, it's making it's way into some of the latest EVs from Hyundai/KIA

https://www.lg.com/global/mobility/media-center/press-releas...

rickdeckard• 2 years ago

There's also webOS, which was originally funded by Palm and doesn't seem to have any open source development any longer,

After a short stint at HP, webOS is now owned by LG, they use it as the OS for their Home Entertainment (TVs, projectors,...) and nowadays also as an Automotive OS platform.

Open Source: https://www.webosose.org/

ZuLuuuuuu2• 2 years ago

I cannot get pass the cookie screen without "accept all". I cannot find "accept selected" or something like that.

nmfisher• 2 years ago

It's very much alive, too - LG just sponsored a hackathon to develop games for the new webOS store (including a Flutter-specific stream) with some legitimately good prizes (I think first prize was $100k, second was $80k).

necovek2• 2 years ago

TBH, I prefer all of WebOS (on HP Pre 3), Maemo/Meego (on Nokia N9 and N900) and Ubuntu Touch (on Meizu MX4) over Android for the UX qualities.

Obviously, they lacked in phone hardware and app selection, but basic experience was unmatched.

IIRC, Sailfish was inspired or derived from Maemo, so I wouldn't be surprised it took some great stuff with it.

Hitting the critical mass is tricky without having hundreds of millions to lose before you "validate" your experiment: Nokia was at that point with N9 release (to a wide acclaim in reviews too), but shifted right after that release fully to Microsoft Windows straight to their demise.

Canonical pulled out quickly as well, and well, HP Pre 3 didn't even make it to the market (WebOS changed hands weeks before the release).

I actually used each of these phones for a couple of years, and that was so much smoother (OS-wise) than Android. Never used iOS for a longer period to make any claim there (though if I go by MacOS, it's much hype for nothing).

tiltowait• 2 years ago

WebOS was so good. If it had stuck around, I’d likely be using it instead of iOS.

nsonha• 2 years ago

Does it have a Desktop mode like Samsung, tbh I don't even get the point of a Linux phone without a desktop mode.

Is this even a proper Linux phone? What distribution is it?

lproven4• 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS

ktosobcy• 2 years ago

Eh...I wanted to love it, got first Jolla device (still have it in the drawer) but I simply couldn't made myself use it... Swipe navigation is just annoying and imprecise to use daily :|

tpoacher3• 2 years ago

I used to own a Jolla phone, and there was something magical about it. At the time, their ideas and execution were a breath of fresh air, and the experience was amazing even despite some unavoidable teething problems. I happily used it as my daily driver for about 2 years, proudly showing it off to friends at every opportunity, and not wanting to switch to another phone.

Now, as such things go, many of the unique ideas dreamt up by Sailfish have been absorbed into the major OSs (which will no doubt claim they innovated them themselves), and Jolla had to close because competing at both the software and the hardware model simultaneously turned out to be unsustainable for them. And my own Jolla phone developed a hardware fault and that was that.

So I reluctantly switched back to Android. But none of the mainstream OSs managed to quite capture that magic, even despite having now copied most of its features. And when I tried the latest version of Sailfish on a Pinephone about a year ago, it too no longer felt like it had that sleekness I had come to love on the Jolla.

brylie• 2 years ago

Jolla had to close

From the best I can tell, Jolla is still an active company:

https://jolla.com/

gbraad11• 2 years ago

they had to reorganize/laid off a large amount of personnel

tpoacher3• 2 years ago

Jolla, as opposed to Sailfish itself, was all about the physical phone, running Sailfish OS.

At some point they became a 'consultancy' company, effectively using Sailfish OS on devices or whatnot, but without bespoke hardware. There were a very small number of devices that more or less supported Sailfish.

I was surprised to see they have now restarted their hardware attempts, with a limited batch of specially ordered "reference implementation" devices, made by a partner in Turkey.

I might have been tempted to order one if the campaign hadn't ended already. But, having said that, I don't have much faith in such 'limited batch campaigns' anymore. Having a phone whose entire ecosystem is at risk of completely expiring after a couple of years isn't fun anymore; even if it's still a linux phone in theory.

CRConrad4• 2 years ago

I used to own a Jolla phone, and there was something magical about it.

I did too, and I more or less hated it. The whole UI was impossible-to-remember gestures and swipes this way and that. Pretty much like iOS, but even worse. (Even Android has been going that way since then. Can't tell for sure when its usability peaked; sometime between 2013 and 2018?)

tpoacher3• 2 years ago

I found the vision behind gestures very intuitive.

The main idea you had to understand was that you have 'edge' gestures, and 'inner' gestures. 'Edge' gestures relate to functionality that has to do with the phone as a whole and are available at all times, and 'inner' gestures relate to functionality that has to do with the specific app currently in use, and if any actions are available they will be clearly signposted in the app. And the apps were explicitly designed with this interface in mind.

I thought the onboarding tutorial was very clear, and the learning curve to start using the phone effectively was negligible once the above 'phone vs app gestures' was understood.

By contrast, Android has attempted to copy these gestures, but they are severely lacking with no unifying theme in my view (I cannot speak for iPhones since I do not own one, but from my limited interaction with them they don't seem any better, and when I used relative's iPads, my personal response was that the gestures effectively needed to be 'learned' and really didn't make intuitive sense to me).

Effectively android doesn't quite make the distinction clear between 'edge vs inner' or 'phone vs app' gestures, and it comes down to the user (and/or app developer) to figure out what works where by trial and error; the horizontal swipe from the edge constitutes a 'back' button (but only if you keep it 'pressed'), the vertical constitutes a 'apps list' button (but only if you keep it 'pressed'), and a vertical swipe without keeping it pressed acts as a 'home' button. The only thing they've kept from Sailfish is the top-to-bottom edge swipe showing you notifications. But it shows that effectively instead of making gestures a first class citizen, they've just said "how can we add gestures that act as buttons", but it's still a button-centric experience rather than a genuinely intuitive gesture-based UX.

As a result, most people I know tend to turn these off and use the software buttons instead, despite the slighty cost of screen real-estate. I've chosen to keep them on, but whenever I hand my phone over to my wife, the first thing she asks is if I can enable buttons so that she can do what she wants to effectively.

transpute2• 2 years ago

With DIY effort, Blackberry keyboard fans can attach a BB Q10 keyboard to modern phones, https://liliputing.com/fairberry-lets-you-attach-a-blackberr... & https://github.com/Dakkaron/Fairberry

There's also the HackBerry cyberdeck with Pi Zero 2W and original BB keyboard, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41138701 & https://github.com/ZitaoTech/Hackberry-Pi_Zero

Topfi• 2 years ago

For something a bit more streamlined, I can recommend Clicks [0] which is a well thought out keyboard case for current iPhones.

[0] https://www.clicks.tech/

transpute2• 2 years ago

DIY enables original Blackberry keyboard. How does the Clicks keyboard compare?

Sailfish Mobile OS

Related Stories