Jolla’s Sailfish operating system may not have be ready to topple Android just yet. But the Linux-based smartphone operating system is getting a few major updates this year, and it’s coming to a wider range of devices.

Jolla is providing an early look at Sailfish 3 at Mobile World Congress this week, and the company says the latest version brings a 30 percent performance boost, new APIs, and an updated system for running some Android apps.

Sailfish is also going to be compatible with new device categories including feature phones that lack touchscreen displays.

Jolla is adding support for hardware keyboards and devices with low-spec hardware.

There’s also support for a landscape user interface, which will come in handy if you want to run Sailfish OS on a Gemini PDA (an upcoming handheld PC that looks like a tiny laptop).

Other changes in Sailfish 3 include new themes, menus, animations, and multitasking improvements as well as support for VoLTE (Voice over LTE). And Jolla is adding corporate features including mobile device management, encrypted communications, and an integrated VPN. There’s also a new remote lock and wipe feature, support for fingerprint readers, and enablers for blockchain-based services.

Sailfish 3 should be available in the third quarter of 2018.

For the most part Jolla is still targeting phone makers, wireless carriers, and enterprise customers. But the company can also be downloaded and installed on select devices including the Sony Xperia XA2 smartphone… if you want to pay $60 for a license.

Russian company INOI also plans to launch 8 inch and 10 inch tablets that can run Sailfish OS, but they’re not expected to be widely available outside of Russia.

via TechCrunch and press release (PDF)

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7 replies on “Jolla’s Sailfish OS coming to more devices (including feature phones)”

  1. I know these guys have an uphill battle, especially after the tablet debacle, but I’m still pulling for them and hope they’re able to make a real competitor. I loved Maemo/Meego back in the day and part of me is happy to see it live on in some form.

  2. The smart thing to do would be to get Steam running on Sailfish and build a steamphone with game controller support.

    Arm based so would require ports but it would give Sailfish a community to tap into and in turn could promote the OS.

    1. Honestly, a great suggestion.
      However the onus is upon Steam to provide support, and not Jolla. Its because games are created for Windows OS, using DirectX API, running on x86 system. So for them to even be able to support a Linux OS, using OGL, running on x86 systems is a nice step up.

      They won’t be able to run x86-directed code to run on an ARM system.
      Not unless they run code which isn’t low-level.
      Or a new language which doesn’t care about the significant differences between the two hardware architectures.

      I would say Nvidia is best poised to make a SteamBoy or a SteamFone.
      They could shove the best ARM hardware in there, and have a heavily optimised linux software running. They have the funding. Then price it as high as the iPhone X. And offer it with the full Steam Library by streaming them for free.

  3. Sailfish OS for the Gemini PDA could actually be pretty cool. I realise it’s basically merging two niches but hey.

    1. gemini have wrong keyboard no for Polish, Czech, etc.
      try put ółźż chars

      1. This is a common problem, in general.
        You are better off in the long run to assimilate to the English qwerty keyboard, language, and settings.

        It will make future issues avoidable.

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