I'm very happy to see that Sailfish keeps shipping because more alternatives are always good.
I tried to use it a while ago (Sailfish 3) but was driven off it because of the huge gap between the marketing and the actual reality.
The claim that they are privacy and security focused was total bogus (and perhaps someone can comment if it still is).
To use the phone features, a Jolla account is needed, so it will "ping home to Jolla". Privacy policy is pretty standard, so they reserve the right to track you all they want and of course, this is tied to your license, payment method etc. So much for privacy focused...
What fully drove me off was that they launched full disk "encryption", but the LUKS encryption-key password they used was the user's numeric pin (4-8 digits long). So encryption keys could be bruteforced by a kid and they seemed to be fine with it (I don't know if nowadays it supports a passphrase).
Then I also learned that apps in the "app-store" were not signed in any way so impossible to certify that what you are installing is actually coming from the app repository etc. the phone was just lacking basic security all over the place.
I hope they are closer now to closing the "gap" between their marketing and the reality.
There is still some truth to this. But the os does not phone home like google and apple phones do. Not even close. Package signing is usable but still not widly adopted. App jails are still in beta, since, 4. Luks passphrases are almost ready for noobs. I decided to work on it since it only calls home when you ask. And ui.
I think that gap has more to do with manpower/funding than a lack of genuine desire on Jollas part to make those features work. I still don't understand why it's so hard for there to be a market for alternatives to iOS and Android, but as the Microsoft Nokia fiasco as well as the Ubuntu phone and delays of the Purism Librem phone show, it's not easy.
I've been using Jolla and Meego before that and I like the interface a lot better than the main players. Granted, I'm not much of a phone/app user beyond the basics like a music player, calendar, clock and TOTP app, so your mileage may vary.
Nemo Mobile and/or Mer are, I think, the FOSS builds/parts (I forget; there are way too many pieces and too many names in the mix), but the sailfish GUI is proprietary so YMMV.
i think if we're deciding what people hypothetically decide to do with their time and effort, someone needs to just work on getting one interface to the point of being stable and usable for the basics. From what I can tell there's a ton of options all with their own shortcomings right now. We don't really need yet another half complete option
I use Sailfish on a Sony Xperia XA2, as well as an iPhone and Android phone.
The Sailfish UI far outclasses those other two. It's simple, consistent, and pretty. That's all one can ask for! And it's familiar Linux underneath, with easy access through SSH - no rooting required. This is the phone that everyone else wants, whether they realize it or not...
In comparison, I find iOS annoyingly inconsistent and obtuse. Android is straightforward, but feels like a step backward.
I just wish Jolla had bigger investors, and more developers. It's really a breath of fresh air in the claustrophobic (and increasingly dystopic) mobile landscape...
This may have changed in the last few years, but another thing I really liked back when I ran Sailfish, was how even the third-party apps would use the standard UI assets and look/function exactly like native apps. That and the fact that they were usually open source and ad-free. For instance one I liked was "Solar System"[1]. Since no sane person would make a Sailfish app in order to get rich, Sailfish apps weren't trying to make money.
Sailfish does not run on top of Android. It is a gnu/linux system with a Qt interface. It has an Android layer called AlienDalvik which runs on top of it. But it also has native apps written in C++/Qt. You can also run FlatPack apps which is interesting. I believe it uses Wayland for it's display server.
The Android apps blend pretty seamlessly with the whole experience. For example, the keyboard that pops up in Android apps is the same as the one in that pops up in native apps.
Libhybris is andoid dependant. There are a ton of community ports. The volla I use (gigaset gs290 also) also has ubuntu touch support. But sfos is much better. Mobian can also be installed via ubports, but i havent tried.
Has anyone experience with Sailfish? Can it run apps like Signal and WhatsApp? Is it stable?
I know the website says that it can, but I'm looking for actual user feedback.
Yes, the Android layer can run Whatsapp and Signal. I also run Firefox as an apk on it, I use the last v68 version of that.
The Android layer is only available on the commercial version, and only on officially supported device. It has been available since 2013 on the original Jolla 1, which was for me the reason to upgrade from a Nokia N9.
For me it is stable on my XA2. Though the software is made by a small company and their efforts are spread relatively thin. They don't have thousands of developers working on their mobile OS.
For Android apps, the bluetooth stack of Android and Linux/Bluez is different, and the middleware called libhybris does not support offering bluetooth to Android apps. It might come in the future, many people in the community wish it to come available. There are many native apps, and there might not be that much need for all kinds of Android apps. Also, there is talk about offering Android support for community devices, like the Sony Tama devices (high end, small form factor) or Xiaumi devices.
I use it a majority of the time. (Seldom need Android for work). It runs Signal just fine, along with all the other chat apps. I enjoy Sailfish very much.
I will say that installing the google play store is not a simple click through, but I also don't care for it. A majority of the apps I want don't use google play anyway.
I would highly recommend you give it a try for a few weeks and you won't go back.
I'm just curious: when you say "I enjoy Sailfish very much" what does that entail? What does it mean to enjoy an OS.
I ask this because I find myself numerous times disappointed: after installing a new OS, there's mostly nothing "new" or outstanding to enjoy other than the few limited different features. After that, it's just the same old terminal and Chrome with the occasional trip to the file browser.
I enjoy the overall user experience. They did a fantastic job with making navigation smooth.
I am a linux desktop user so allowing me to ssh to my phone is amazing. Easy to terminal into it, gives me sudo, easy to navigate.
For the Apps, this one is a little tricky, however I have managed to live with a few things such as open street maps over google maps. However, I can still use google maps just in browser. It is not ideal but it is not that bad. I am certain someone will come out with something in the future so it is a matter of waiting.
There are absolutely things that can be improved no doubt. My personal experience is that I like to look at things in a more positive light of, what can I do rather than what can it not do. I got to the point of how I do not like Apple's and Google's practices, that you are basically locked into their environments and malicious practices.
I own the phone and what is on it. That means a lot to me. Sailfish helps a lot with that. There are always naysayers, but they also are the same people that are too critical of things.
Finding an old oneplus one or any community supported phone for cheap is not too bad. I ended up getting an XA2 and that worked out the best for me. I find that my phone performs quite well even though it is "older" compared to the latest flagships. I am not too caring about a 64 megapixel photo or image blending etc. I can do that on my normal box.
Not the parent poster, but I often say similar things :)
For me it's the idea that the software provider thinks privacy is important and I trust them much more than Google or Apple. It's also very close to desktop linux. Root access over ssh is just one checkbox away in the settings. After that I can install any software that is available on Linux, or I can mess about in /etc.
The Ambience system is very nice as well. With almost only native apps and a white-on-black ambience, my phone is visually very quiet and not that much distracting.
It feels like I own this phone, almost as much as my desktop computer. I am not renting it where someone else has root access and I don't (or I have to fight for it).
It's once way easier to handle a real Linux box which can be backed up in the same way. Bash/Zsh scripts work and I can compile much more software for it than termux on Android supports.
Additionally, the user interface is swipe-focused, with little bars where yozu can swipe that are that thin that they only trigger you subconcious, while not registering them actively with my view. It's the best unser interface design I've seen so far and recent iOS/Android design changes support the decisions they made years before Apple/Google.
Not the parent poster. For maps I use OSM. I have 3 apps installed, Pure Maps, OSMscout and modRana. I don't use navigation, but I understand that with OSM the navigation can be somewhat of a disappointment.
There was a native app for Here Maps, but IIRC it was only licensed and available for the Jolla 1. I don't have it installed on my Sony XA2 and I think it's not available either.
> Has anyone experience with Sailfish? Can it run apps like Signal and WhatsApp? Is it stable?
I ran Sailfish in the 2.x days on an old Moto G Falcon. They did not support Android apps at the time, but recent versions are supposed to.[1]
My experience with Sailfish was pretty positive, but I have a high pain tolerance and don't need or want my phone to be more than a phone. (I need it to make calls and handle SMS/MMS. MMS messaging was iffy: reception was fine, but multiparty conversations didn't always thread well. I consider web browsing on the phone a bit of a mixed bag. Tethering is a bonus.)
It was pretty. I liked being able to SSH into the phone. I appreciated the easy way to change themes (and that they migrated settings like volume, etc.). It was a slick O/S.
Sadly my Falcon died, and I got a burner phone. It's hard to argue with $40 for the phone (KaiOS) and an MVNO that handles my comms on the cheap. I've toyed with the idea of picking up another one that's compatible and flashing the phone--but it looks like it's harder to get the OS onto newer devices these days.
I think they did support Android apps at that time, but only on the official devices (which is the same situation as now).
I flashed 2.x back then, too, back in the glory days of flashing ubuntu touch and firefox os, etc. I loved the UI of Sailfish. Fatal flaw for me was the inability to group text. As far as I know there is still no group texting. The European users/devs claim this isn’t an issue, because they all use third party messaging apps.
I had the original jolla phone. Fun device and great for starting out developing simple apps.
Back then they had a 3rd party whatsapp client called mittäkuuluu (litteraly what's up in finnish) in addition to the official one running through the android layer.
Since then whatsapp has blocked 3rd party clients and i believe youre not able to run whatsapp on the consumer version of sailfish.
Something really cool they had was integration with whatsapp and the facebook messenger with the sms app with contacts synced across the three.
There were even two apps, Mittäkuuluu by coderus, and Whatsup from older Symbian and Meego times. Both worked fine and were lovely to use, untill the company Whatsapp sent threatening letters from their lawyers to the developers.
Whatsapp also often blocked users using those apps (I had it happen multiple times) and you could reactivate your account if you logged in with the official whatsapp.apk again. A few days later the Sailfish apps were updated and I would switch to one of those again :)
So now there is no other option then use the whatsapp.apk, or just not use it and switch completely to Signal.
On that topic, are there any desktop-oriented Linux distros that support Android apps? Seems like that could fill some gaps in some places where a native Linux app sucks but an Android equivalent would be sufficient. (obviously in a few but perhaps not most cases)
Maybe emulation would be needed for most current machines and be really slow, but with more ARM laptops coming in the future it seems like something GNU/Linux would need to do to compete in that space.
It can be done via Anbox or WayDroid, but additional steps (e.g. via QEMU) are needed to run ARM-based apps on a typical x86 desktop, and performance might be a bit underwhelming.
As someone who considers the Nokia N9 the greatest phone ever made, I’d love to pick up an Xperia 10 ii and pay for a license… but apparently because I live in Australia, I’m not authorised? What’s up with that — seems like an odd restriction.
It has to do with bureacracy and regulations. Even the UK fell off after the Brexit. The most common advise is to use a VPN or your own VPS to download the free image for trying out and also for buying the license in the shop.
In all those years I haven't heard of even one situation where this happened. I think the Sailfish X licensing exists since 2017 and many people have gone this route.
I've been using Sailfish for years as my daily driver including the the new 4.1 version. Support for Android apps is great. They don't officially sell a license in the US but I am using it in the US. Up until recently it has been fine but with mobile carries now turning off 3G, I can't use for SMS or phone calls in the US anymore (I have AT&T).
I am hoping the next version, which is coming out soon, will support VoLTE, but until it does, Sailfish is useless as an actual phone in the USA in the very near future.
I am currently tethering my Sony Xperia 10 II with another cheap android phone so I can keep using it outside my house. Yes, I don't want to use iOS or Android that desperately. I enjoy using Sailfish that much.
I wonder if Sailfish or a scrubbed Android (GrapheneOS?) would be worthwhile to give a test run for. Hard passing Apple is going to be painful, but I’m having trouble stomaching the direction where they see implanting end-user devices for LE purposes, so I might need to give it a spin. Any experiences on what would be the biggest pain points as a daily driver?
Please do not take this as me being flippant, but it is also an option to reclaim your independence and not use a smartphone, or any phone at all. Since I started doing this, the effects on myself were as expected, better focus, etc, but the secondary effects on my social circle were unexpected. People take more care to be on time when they say they are meeting me places, no more calls as I arrive saying "oh okay, youre there? Im walking out the door". No more "drive by" social interactions that spawn new storylines and gossip that I dont need to be a part of.
What was most unexpected is how, unprompted, a lot of the most ardent phone abusers in my social circle started gradually releasing themselves from their phones, putting them in a drawer, or just outright turning them off for weekends.
I have a single prepaid phone that my wife has the number to, it has no apps, no email, no scrolly things. When we are apart, it is turned on, otherwise, my time is otherwise occupied.
There are some real-world issues with that, all of which a friend recently encountered (they don't even use a credit card). Firstly, if you don't set up internet/mobile banking, it does leave you open to someone doing it "for you." Luckily money in the bank is insured, but that doesn't help the stress experienced by a 70 y/o (who was doing all the right stuff, as she's retired intelligence). Secondly, you're going to struggle if you're forced into some situation away from your landline, such as a hospital visit.
I was able to repurpose my Pixel 4 with GrapheneOS for her: no app store, no email, no scrolly things, data disabled, no e-waste, nothing but phone calls over LTE.
Thanks, giving it a thought. I might be too in love with tech to go to the deep end, but it’s never a bad idea to consider that option either. I’d need to learn to use a paper calendar and to carry it with me at that point for sure :-)
There’s definitely going to be a market opportunity in publishing the James Joyce’s Ulysses in a limited edition shampoo bottle format. The perfect vanity gift for that special someone who already has everything, but tends to forget their phone when heading to the ministry of magic :-)
I run LineageOS with zero Google services (no microG either - no need for it) as my daily phone, and have been for several years now across a series of devices (currently, a Moto z3 Play and an Essential PH-1).
I prefer to use FOSS apps where I can, and as such, most of my installed apps come from F-Droid. When I do need something from the Play Store, I simply use the Aurora Store to grab those applications (which are really just Paypal and Slack for work).
Potential issues you might run into are some apps like banking and such not functioning thanks to SafetyNet. For banking, I just use the browser anyway, have never had the need to use my local bank's mobile app.
It really depends all on your needs, but you will find that using a de-Googled device is very doable as a daily driver, and I have been doing it for a number of years now - I can't tell you when the last time I signed into a "Googled" Android device was.
I also have a few PinePhones (my first testing grounds for Sailfish, interestingly enough) and am a huge proponent of Linux phones. I throw my SIM in my Pinephone sometimes and use it often for testing development stuff. For daily driving, however, my de-Googled devices are still what I reach for the most.
My friend's been running LineageOS with Microg[0], I'm waiting on a Pixel so I can run CalyxOS (with Microg) because I'm not keen on the security downsides of Lineage. He says it's been an incredibly stable set up. GrapheneOS is a great alternative to Calyx from what I've read, if you rely less on play store apps that require google Android APIs (that Microg also implements). GrapheneOS vs CalyxOS is a trade between convience+pretty good privacy (Calyx) and better security+privacy (GrapheneOS, as when you do use proprietary apps relying on Gapps it's all sandboxed).
Guess I could give a shoutout to fellow people in Oulu with their handset marketed to government use mostly I guess(?) https://toughmobile2.bittium.com/
Meaning the price for a consumer is steep and dunno if some of the features are useless without the matching backend. But I guess the level of security should be good. At least the folks from Bittium I’ve interacted with seem to know what they’re doing, for what that counts for :-)
GrapheneOS is great as a daily driver. The only breaking point might be the incompatibility of certain apps that depend on google play services, but this is a highly subjective matter and depends on how far you go in restricting yourself. (Strict with only FOSS apps vs loose with some privacy invading apps from the play store via Aurora)
But since there are plenty of apps in the froid store there are plenty of free alternatives...
Big difference between the business people that want to have site visit numbers for their pitch deck, and the engineering people making the OS. That said, I totally agree that using the most notorious tracking website out there on your landing page for a privacy product is a bad choice.
What's strange is that the very first impression I got from this is that it's OSS - and it's not - which doesn't make it particularly attractive for me as an 'alternative'. Anyone else feel this way?
It is mostly OSS and can easily be used as a pure OSS solution (perhaps minus some blob drivers from the device manufacturer, but that is true of most Linux distributions with much hardware support). There are some extra features available which require a license, but those are optional and you have to actively acquire a license if you want them.
The main features which require a license are:
* Android emulation
* Predictive text
* Microsoft Exchange support in the email application
Yup. Considering my Android ROM can reach thousands of various phone models, from 30$ devices to 1000$ deviecs, and I can upgrade devices stuck on 3 years-old Android to latest Android versions, I believe I have a good basis to monetize it.
And so far, I haven't seen any path towards monetization.
Most people won't give you directly money, unless maybe you target very specific niches, like privacy or FLOSS (And I don't believe I can address either of those).
As you mentioned, another possibility is to get revenue through app store (or other revenue sharing sources) possibilites. There is the obvious one, Google Play Store. I simply can't bear Google's bureaucraty, and if I were to try that, I'd have died of old age.
Other actors would be much more willingly to discuss to 3rd parties, maybe Aptoide or Amazon Store would be interested? But then, you can't have Google Services, and usage would be much more limited. Also, I believe that the revenue from people out of Amazon Store is much lower than Play Store, because people have less trust towards it (but I could be wrong there).
5$ per install is imo far from enough, because it barely pays for the bandwidth to download OTAs for one year. Unless you mean 5$ per install and per OTA, but I don't like the idea of having the user pay for security upgrades. Also, it lacks an important property to replace revenue sharing, which is adaptability to users' money (if the user has a lot of money, the revenue sharing will give more money, and it's better for reach to still have a place for low income people, notably indian peoples can give you a lot of advertisement "for free" but they don't have much money)
You have fair points and much more experience than I have in this domain.
Yeah, $5 even at a 1M users is probably not that much, having to maintain drivers, and as you mentioned serving updates, that would require a team.
With regards to the Google apps, I think a company would be better off trying to make something of their own, or collaborate with some app makers, at least for difficult stuff like maps, camera, gallery, browser(not sure about the paid codecs)
As for the app store, I know that's a big project, but that would have to be custom and a core product of the company.
Hope you'll eventually find a way to monetize your ROM.
For what it's worth, I indeed thought of a a direction where app store would be the major aspect of it.The idea would be this ROM would be a "safe place". With regards to app store, this would mean:
- with "all you can eat" monthly subscription that gets you all the apps included, so no whaling allowed
- and with severe policing against dark patterns
- including a "panic button" so users can report whether they got addicted to some app.
But when I tried to design that, I very quickly ended up into a rabbit hole of "how to compute which app deserves which share of the revenue". And then, how to define "dark patterns".
And here I am, still haven't actually tried anything.
Windows is collecting data and milking a declining Enterprise client base, all the early "influencer" companies use macOS. Regular consumers essentially refuse to pay for Windows even if they prefer it.
macOS isn't installable and is subsidized by hardware sales and monthly services.
That leaves you with *nix, which is free. No business plan!
In 2021 I don't think operating systems are a good business to be in! You can make more money selling subscription sleep apps or budget apps which have way less complexity.
Well, Microsoft became quite a big company off the OS and their business suite.
Of course it will be hard to find corporate clients for a mobile os, but may be doable.
But, you're right, aside from Microsoft and Red hat, and maybe CoreOS some time ago, people don't seem to earn money from OSes, unless I'm missing something.
If anyone like me have some vague memory of the name Sailfish OS, here from Wiki:
>The OS is an evolved continuation of the Linux MeeGo OS previously developed by alliance of Nokia and Intel which itself relies on combined Maemo and Moblin
MeeGo. The era when both Nokia and Intel had zero freaking idea about Smartphone.
But I am glad Sailfish is still doing great. It has been a long time since the name appeared in any media.
This is great, I really like sailfish UI, but..... there's just no way it can fight for a real market share, unless.... they go full FOSS, get the huge community behind it to catch momentum. Open it up, and find other ways of making money on it
My phone is soon old enough for not getting proper updates. I'd love to switch to Sailfish on it but there are apps that I rely on that doesn't work without Google's Android API. So I guess I will have to buy a new Android which feels very unnecessary and wasteful.
> Currently, it is available for Xperia 10 II, Xperia 10, Xperia 10 Plus, single and dual-SIM variants of Sony Xperia XA2, Xperia XA2 Plus, Xperia XA2 Ultra, Sony Xperia X, and Gemini PDA.
So, EU-only (and 2 or 3 morecountries) and limited devices.
I like SFOS because it has coherent ui and flexible styling. From meego to here guy, though. I actually like the SDK, even if it's a bit stale. I maintain c , js and pytheotherside apps. It's fun over here.
It has to be said that I find the ties to the Russian government most disturbing for a "privacy"-focused OS, specially after I realized it's not actually OSS.
EDIT: Emphasis on the non-OSS part. I couldn't care less as long as it was actually fully open.
Can you point to references about Russian gov involvement? I see from the Sailfish page that it's deployed widely in Russia, but Jolla themselves are Finnish (https://jolla.com/about/), not exactly the most Russia friendly country around. That their OS is used in Russia isn't the same as it being Russian developed, which it doesn't appear to be(?)
> The product was soon re-branded to Aurora OS. Aurora OS is an independent, “standalone” product and derivative work of Sailfish OS, and property of Open Mobile Platform LLC.
From your link. Is there any evidence of them pushing code back upstream?
The open source part is basically a middleware layer that uses libhybris to work with downstream AOSP kernels and device drivers. This might have been useful at some point, but we have better choices now, like forward-porting these supported devices to work properly with a mainline kernel and userspace.
A great deal is FOSS. Look on github. All my apps are gpl. The move away from libhybris is just a matter of time. And jolla has more experience in the space than anyone.
They promised the world, their management didn't understand what OSS meant. It was pretty bad early on.
Their investors also didn't understand OSS and thus made sure that core parts never became OSS.
That's why there was NemoMobile, it was (is?) a true and fully open source implementation, replacing all the proprietary Sailfish bits.
It could have been great, but many mistakes where made in many places, not just by management. Now it's a fringe OS, with a closed source UI and no noticeable market share. Let alone growth in such.
NB: This is based on my personal involvement up to 2015-ish.
No, you're wrong like I was. It's not just the hardware parts that are closed (what's under libhybris). It's also the entire UI toolkit (the library that they have on top of Qt) and most of the built-in applications that are closed source.
Hmm. Don't use the built ins, but i do use silica. My focus is to do dev, and convince them to open more as the external devs generate more value. See the obs build service... Etc.
Well, i do use contacts and dialer and the broken settings interfaces. Yep, it us all just one grand experiment. I rdcdntly had to ask where in qml land to hack my event screen. Well, that was hackable. I dint buy marketing bull from anyone. I wasnt and am not interested in the privacy angle as long as google and apple are the norm.
The ui bits atop qt, silica, is indeed closed. But you can develope for sfos without silica. I have a pure sdl app. Still, they are trying to find a way without going the data hog way. As they are doing license foo in automotive space, i'd guess it'll take time. But it is also the value in jolla. Excellent industrial design.
"The ui bits" is an understatement, because UI & builtin apps is actually where the meat is, and they know it. The kernel, Qt, the standard desktop stuff, etc. they are _forced_ to open, unless they want to violate the GPL. But whenever there is anything they're not forced to open, and someone else could potentially have an interest to actually see the source, then they keep it closed. It's actually less open than Android!
You can also have pure SDL apps on WINDOWS, out of all platforms, so what is the point? And sure, there is also value in that, but "privacy" value?
The point i was making us that you can build apps without silica. That will result in your apps looking like they do on apple, ie whatever. I could fake most of silica if i wished, but i hope jolla finally turns the corner and can stop being so tight fisted. I believe they will. Othwise i would not develope there. I will of course work to make my apps run everywhere. Quite a few do.
So guess we're left with librem then? Ubuntu touch, plasma, mobian, etc are not useable. For my part I'll keep working on opening it up. Like my local school system, city hall, etc. All of which have lock in with private companies that hold the ip close to the chest. It's a lot if wirk, it is.
Russian connection is just the Russian government decision to use Sailfish as the base for their own Aurora OS. China and India are also somewhat interested.
But this is not the problem. I would not have any problem with a 100% russian OS, as long as it was OSS. But Sailfish is also not OSS. That is the problem.
"But Sailfish is also not OSS. That is the problem."
I see this posted as a problem often, sometimes even "the" problem. I do understand it is a problem, but at the current moment there has been no better Linux phone then a Jolla or Sony with Sailfish.
So for people shying away from Sailfish, because it is not fully open source, I wonder what people use instead.
Is it an open source AOSP system (with probably binary drivers)? I would not trust that all Google stuff was removed from AOSP, I don't even trust it for Chromium. Or do people use Ubuntu Touch that is probably fully open source on some systems? Everything right now is a compromise. I do hope that it will change in the near future.
My main argument for the last 7 years was that I want a Linux phone in my pocket, that I can order today and use tomorrow. A Linux phone that serves me, with simple root access, ssh access, compiling apps and installing anything, messing about in /etc.
Because if there's something proprietary running on it, how are you going to "install anything" without breaking the proprietary parts? You will not be able to replace the kernel, you will not be able to upgrade any library (not even libssl when the time comes, and it will come), you will not be able to customize the software to your liking, etc.
You lose half the benefits of having an open system in the first place. I will have exactly the same issues than I do when a run Google Android: no control over the device. You're 100% at the whims of Sailfish.
And as for "OSS Android" still having unknown Google stuff, I disagree.
Up till now I was thinking this seemed very interesting and the price point of getting it wasn't bad at all (quickly searched amzn to see what the Xperia 10 II price was) but if what you say is true then it would be kind of worrying.
Edit: For some reason I missed a bunch of words when I posted.
It's smooth. I'd say more smooth than older Androids (<7). Haven't seen any UI hiccups on Xperia 10ii nor Jolla C. Definitely the most polished Linux smartphone experience (outside Android if you still consider that a Linux smartphone and not a tracking device).
After Qt 5.6 some important parts were relicensed as GPL. Which means that the Wayland compositor and some other Jolla parts needs to be either GPL (which the main investor is reluctant to do) or Jolla needs to buy a commercial license for Qt (which the main investor is reluctant to do).
I understand that the developers at Jolla are ready to flip the switch to a newer Qt and have been for some time, but there is no business decision made yet.
Why is purchase prohibited from the USA or other countries outside the supported ones? You can get unlocked Android phones and SIM cards just fine. Some tax nonsense?
That, or patent licensing issues. Since they seem to be positioning themselves as a privacy-oriented OS for governments and businesses, maybe they decided that their market lies elsewhere, and that licensing IP for the US is not worth it.
I tried to use it a while ago (Sailfish 3) but was driven off it because of the huge gap between the marketing and the actual reality.
The claim that they are privacy and security focused was total bogus (and perhaps someone can comment if it still is).
To use the phone features, a Jolla account is needed, so it will "ping home to Jolla". Privacy policy is pretty standard, so they reserve the right to track you all they want and of course, this is tied to your license, payment method etc. So much for privacy focused...
What fully drove me off was that they launched full disk "encryption", but the LUKS encryption-key password they used was the user's numeric pin (4-8 digits long). So encryption keys could be bruteforced by a kid and they seemed to be fine with it (I don't know if nowadays it supports a passphrase).
Then I also learned that apps in the "app-store" were not signed in any way so impossible to certify that what you are installing is actually coming from the app repository etc. the phone was just lacking basic security all over the place.
I hope they are closer now to closing the "gap" between their marketing and the reality.