10 ms·

They seem to put a lot of effort into telling you things other than "what is this thing?" It sorta looks like a phone. Is it a phone? "Jolla is powered by Sa

They seem to put a lot of effort into telling you things other than "what is this thing?" It sorta looks like a phone. Is it a phone? "Jolla is powered by Sailfish OS." Sweet. How is that relevant? It must be important because it spends the rest of the page telling you about the OS. I'm back here, with honestly no idea what it is. Probably not the impression they want to leave on people, assuming (as a guess) that this is a consumer product of some kind. It seems they put the engineers in charge of designing the website.

jggonz 13y ago
On the homepage "Jolla.com" it says: Jolla is powered by Sailfish OS, a truly open and distinct mobile operating system. Navigate effortlessly with the gesture-based user interface and load the phone with top Android™ apps. So it is a phone since they call it a phone. :)
- millerc 13y ago
  Beyond that simple statement, I'd agree with Jason. My first impression upon reading their webpage was "why?" Scrolling through I didn't find an answer. No differentiator in apps, function, power, memory or price. I've often been wrong when I wondered that about a product, for this once I genuinely would like to know if there's an answer to the question. Why a new phone called Jolla?
- jasonkester 13y ago
  Imagine the difference had they said "Jolla is a smart phone powered by Sailfish OS, a truly open and distinct mobile operating system. Navigate effortlessly with the gesture-based user interface and load it with top Android™ apps." rather than bury the most important point on the whole website as a single word at the end of a long paragraph full of technical jargon. That would qualify as calling it a phone. Better still would be "Jolla is a smart phone", dispensing with 28 unnecessary words. Hopefully somebody at their end has the homepage up in an editor and can make the fix.
  - tixocloud 13y ago
    Agreed although I would push them further to communicate the value proposition for me as a potential customer. Why do I care? Why do I need a Jolla smart phone? What makes it so different? Skip the features and tell me how it's going to change my life and the way I do things for the better.
  - jggonz 13y ago
    I totally agree with you... and my comment was in no way a praise for their marketing team. I actually couldn't tell from the image if it was a phone or not. I had to actually hunt for the word phone. It could have been an 'iPod Touch' clone.
  - jemeshsu 13y ago
    My first impression, thought Jolla is a user interface skin build on top of Sailfish OS due to the highlight of "gesture based".
- 001sky 13y ago
  Right now there are 50+ comments that all seem to be some variation of 'WTF'. Whose hardware is up & running sailfish? Or is this more vapourware? The page looks pre-launch still... We'll notify you when Jolla is available to order... [?]
- pseudometa 13y ago
  I'm confused too. I don't understand if they are a manufacturer selling the phone directly to customers, or if they are an OEM selling to carriers. It looks like it is different than android, but it runs android apps? Is this another skin for android that is tied to the physical device?
  - xerophtye 13y ago
    Here, use this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6809444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6809444
- Angostura 13y ago
  Not all, it is perfectly possible to read this as saying that a phone running Jolla is capable of running Android apps. It's entirely possible to interpret the blurb as saying that Jolla is some kind of framework running on an OS called Sailfish, which adds Android compatibility and a gesture-based UI.
mortenjorck 13y ago
For comparison, Nokia's N9 / Meego Harmattan (Jolla Sailfish's predecessor) site from 2011: http://swipe.nokia.com/design/ http://swipe.nokia.com/design/ Nokia made a clearer case for the OS. Jolla's video shows a bunch of rapid-fire tasks that are too hard to follow, and doesn't really showcase the simplicity of the swipe system like Nokia did. There's not enough that's surfaced here to show why you'd choose Jolla over Apple or Google.
- pekk 13y ago
  We all know how well N9 did in unseating Apple...
  - Mikeb85 13y ago
    Might have done better if MS' trojan horse hadn't cancelled it on release...
    - shooper 13y ago
      I find this kind of comments very funny. If Microsoft had the ability to install their moles as CEOs, why don't they do the same thing to Samsung, Apple, Google, HTC, etc. etc.? How exactly does one company go about installing their moles as CEOs of other companies? Bribe and blackmail the board members? You're ascribing Microsoft the powers of a comic book supervillain while they cannot even sell a few million Surface RT tablets. For reference, this is the profile of the chairman of the board. Do you think a bribe from Microsoft is likely to influence this person's decisions? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorma_Ollila http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorma_Ollila >Jorma Jaakko Ollila (born 15 August 1950) is a Finnish businessman, since 1 June 2006, Non-Executive Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell. He was Chairman (1999–2012) and CEO (1992–2006) of Nokia Corporation. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Ford Motor Company (2000– ), UPM-Kymmene (1997– ), and Otava Books and Magazines Group Ltd. (1996–). >For Nokia, he was credited with turning the company into the then world's largest handset maker.[1] >As CEO of Nokia he has led the strategy that restructured the former industrial conglomerate into one of the major companies in the mobile phone and telecommunications infrastructure markets. So you're telling me that Microsoft somehow bribed that guy, who no doubt would've made tens of millions from turning Nokia into a $100+ bilion dollar company, made him risk everything including national shame and prison time if exposed and seeing the company he built destroyed and hand over the reins to a Microsoft mole? Or perhaps the Nokia board evaluated their options and wanted Nokia to have the bags of cash from Microsoft which Google reportedly was not willing to supply and save Nokia jobs instead of turning it into another slowly dying RIM and wanted to go Windows Phone, and hired Elop to do the transition. Now, the merits of the decision itself is subject to analysis, doubt and discussion, but the accusations of Elop being a mole derail the discussion that can be had about the Symbian and Blackberry burning platforms. My conclusion is that a number of people who so strongly seem believe in this idea on tech forums either a) Don't know how CEOs are hired or what a Board of Directors of a company does b) Listen to the conspirational ideas on Slashdot, Groklaw, /r/Android and /r/linux and take it as gospel without thinking it through because the story fits the "Evil M$ kills a Linux OS" victim mentality narrative they want to believe in and they want a 41MP Nokia Android phone real bad c) Jump on the popular anti-MS bandwagon without any rational thought, oh hey, free and easy karma points! d) Believe in the NASA moon hoax too. That comment says more about the writer than what it says about Elop, how can otherwise smart people succumb to such group thinking?. I haven't found one remotely plausible explanation about how Microsoft installed Elop as the CEO of Nokia. Maybe someone can help me and explain it here, but I am not holding my breath. Edit: Why the downvotes?
pekk 13y ago
You might as well complain that they are launching in Finland. You don't seem to understand anything about the context or audience for this phone at the present time.
- eric_cc 13y ago
  > You don't seem to understand anything about the context or audience for this phone at the present time. Neither do I. Since the website didn't, do you care to explain?
  - pekk 13y ago
    It is launching in Finland, do you think it is meant for you to buy it for Mom instead of an iPhone today?
    - jaredmcateer 13y ago
      If we don't understand the context or audience it's the fault of the site not the people confused by it.
Brakenshire 13y ago
For the people who are genuinely confused, Jolla is a company that sells smartphones, their first smartphone is also called Jolla; it runs Sailfish OS, which is effectively a fork of the Meego operating system which Nokia used in its N9/N900 phones, before they switched to Windows Mobile. This is not very surprising, because Jolla is a Finnish company principally made up of ex-Nokia engineers, including a lot of the people who created the N9 in the first place. Sailfish OS stays closer to Linux than Android, using Wayland, Qt/QML, PulseAudio etc, and adhering to the Linux Standard Base specification. It also comes packaged with an Android runtime based on Alien Dalvik, so that it can run Android applications (similar to Blackberry 10), although it won't have access to Google Play or the Play Services APIs. The phone is being launched this week in Finland, and there are plans for release in the rest of Europe, and in China, though not so far in the US. Edit: Some more technical details about the OS: https://sailfishos.org/about-technology.html https://sailfishos.org/about-technology.html
- msvan 13y ago
  How refreshing it is with a tech product that doesn't launch in the US first! I'm quite happy that there are more non-US non-China competitors popping up in the mobile market.
  - Brakenshire 13y ago
    I think that might partly explain the advertising, they seem to be modelling themselves on that Central/Northern European, Berlin counter-culture, Girl-with-a-Dragon-Tattoo, techy-savvy hacker kind of thing. Problem is, at least from the other side of Europe, that seems like it would represent a fairly tiny demographic, and I'm not sure deliberately avoiding the mainstream, and going for semi-obscurity, is all that great a marketing idea! But, in any case, regardless of the marketing, the phone does seem promising. Seems to be the most credible of the open source challengers to Android/iOS, much more so than Ubuntu Touch, for instance, because of the direct experience of the staff and the fact that a phone is actually being sold. Also, personally speaking, it's nice to see an open source OS made by a company apparently looking to make money from selling hardware and software, as a product, rather than from leveraging user data.
shmerl 13y ago
It's important because it's a unique OS. Hardware while innovative, isn't radically different from the rest (except for the other half idea).
emilsedgh 13y ago
Considering the choice of images on their front page, their current target seems to be more niche. Number of open source, Nokia, Maemo/Meego enthusiasts is probably big enough to give their sales a decent start. Best wishes to Jolla. We truly deserve to have free-as-in-free-speech phones.
anigbrowl 13y ago
I agree. I guessed quickly that it was a phone but all the networking junk it was sitting on top of in the top photo made me wonder if it was supposed to be something else. The first two questions I ask about anything technical (consumer product, programming language, branch of mathematics, ...) are 'what is this?' and 'when would I use this?' and it's depressing how poorly most advertising/documentation answers those.
par 13y ago
do you really need it spelled out that it's a phone??

jggonz 13y ago

On the homepage "Jolla.com" it says: Jolla is powered by Sailfish OS, a truly open and distinct mobile operating system. Navigate effortlessly with the gesture-based user interface and load the phone with top Android™ apps. So it is a phone since they call it a phone. :)

millerc 13y ago
Beyond that simple statement, I'd agree with Jason. My first impression upon reading their webpage was "why?" Scrolling through I didn't find an answer. No differentiator in apps, function, power, memory or price. I've often been wrong when I wondered that about a product, for this once I genuinely would like to know if there's an answer to the question. Why a new phone called Jolla?
jasonkester 13y ago
Imagine the difference had they said "Jolla is a smart phone powered by Sailfish OS, a truly open and distinct mobile operating system. Navigate effortlessly with the gesture-based user interface and load it with top Android™ apps." rather than bury the most important point on the whole website as a single word at the end of a long paragraph full of technical jargon. That would qualify as calling it a phone. Better still would be "Jolla is a smart phone", dispensing with 28 unnecessary words. Hopefully somebody at their end has the homepage up in an editor and can make the fix.
- tixocloud 13y ago
  Agreed although I would push them further to communicate the value proposition for me as a potential customer. Why do I care? Why do I need a Jolla smart phone? What makes it so different? Skip the features and tell me how it's going to change my life and the way I do things for the better.
- jggonz 13y ago
  I totally agree with you... and my comment was in no way a praise for their marketing team. I actually couldn't tell from the image if it was a phone or not. I had to actually hunt for the word phone. It could have been an 'iPod Touch' clone.
- jemeshsu 13y ago
  My first impression, thought Jolla is a user interface skin build on top of Sailfish OS due to the highlight of "gesture based".
001sky 13y ago
Right now there are 50+ comments that all seem to be some variation of 'WTF'. Whose hardware is up & running sailfish? Or is this more vapourware? The page looks pre-launch still... We'll notify you when Jolla is available to order... [?]
pseudometa 13y ago
I'm confused too. I don't understand if they are a manufacturer selling the phone directly to customers, or if they are an OEM selling to carriers. It looks like it is different than android, but it runs android apps? Is this another skin for android that is tied to the physical device?
- xerophtye 13y ago
  Here, use this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6809444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6809444
Angostura 13y ago
Not all, it is perfectly possible to read this as saying that a phone running Jolla is capable of running Android apps. It's entirely possible to interpret the blurb as saying that Jolla is some kind of framework running on an OS called Sailfish, which adds Android compatibility and a gesture-based UI.

mortenjorck 13y ago

For comparison, Nokia's N9 / Meego Harmattan (Jolla Sailfish's predecessor) site from 2011: http://swipe.nokia.com/design/ http://swipe.nokia.com/design/ Nokia made a clearer case for the OS. Jolla's video shows a bunch of rapid-fire tasks that are too hard to follow, and doesn't really showcase the simplicity of the swipe system like Nokia did. There's not enough that's surfaced here to show why you'd choose Jolla over Apple or Google.

pekk 13y ago
We all know how well N9 did in unseating Apple...
- Mikeb85 13y ago
  Might have done better if MS' trojan horse hadn't cancelled it on release...
  - shooper 13y ago
    I find this kind of comments very funny. If Microsoft had the ability to install their moles as CEOs, why don't they do the same thing to Samsung, Apple, Google, HTC, etc. etc.? How exactly does one company go about installing their moles as CEOs of other companies? Bribe and blackmail the board members? You're ascribing Microsoft the powers of a comic book supervillain while they cannot even sell a few million Surface RT tablets. For reference, this is the profile of the chairman of the board. Do you think a bribe from Microsoft is likely to influence this person's decisions? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorma_Ollila http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorma_Ollila >Jorma Jaakko Ollila (born 15 August 1950) is a Finnish businessman, since 1 June 2006, Non-Executive Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell. He was Chairman (1999–2012) and CEO (1992–2006) of Nokia Corporation. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Ford Motor Company (2000– ), UPM-Kymmene (1997– ), and Otava Books and Magazines Group Ltd. (1996–). >For Nokia, he was credited with turning the company into the then world's largest handset maker.[1] >As CEO of Nokia he has led the strategy that restructured the former industrial conglomerate into one of the major companies in the mobile phone and telecommunications infrastructure markets. So you're telling me that Microsoft somehow bribed that guy, who no doubt would've made tens of millions from turning Nokia into a $100+ bilion dollar company, made him risk everything including national shame and prison time if exposed and seeing the company he built destroyed and hand over the reins to a Microsoft mole? Or perhaps the Nokia board evaluated their options and wanted Nokia to have the bags of cash from Microsoft which Google reportedly was not willing to supply and save Nokia jobs instead of turning it into another slowly dying RIM and wanted to go Windows Phone, and hired Elop to do the transition. Now, the merits of the decision itself is subject to analysis, doubt and discussion, but the accusations of Elop being a mole derail the discussion that can be had about the Symbian and Blackberry burning platforms. My conclusion is that a number of people who so strongly seem believe in this idea on tech forums either a) Don't know how CEOs are hired or what a Board of Directors of a company does b) Listen to the conspirational ideas on Slashdot, Groklaw, /r/Android and /r/linux and take it as gospel without thinking it through because the story fits the "Evil M$ kills a Linux OS" victim mentality narrative they want to believe in and they want a 41MP Nokia Android phone real bad c) Jump on the popular anti-MS bandwagon without any rational thought, oh hey, free and easy karma points! d) Believe in the NASA moon hoax too. That comment says more about the writer than what it says about Elop, how can otherwise smart people succumb to such group thinking?. I haven't found one remotely plausible explanation about how Microsoft installed Elop as the CEO of Nokia. Maybe someone can help me and explain it here, but I am not holding my breath. Edit: Why the downvotes?

pekk 13y ago

You might as well complain that they are launching in Finland. You don't seem to understand anything about the context or audience for this phone at the present time.

eric_cc 13y ago
> You don't seem to understand anything about the context or audience for this phone at the present time. Neither do I. Since the website didn't, do you care to explain?
- pekk 13y ago
  It is launching in Finland, do you think it is meant for you to buy it for Mom instead of an iPhone today?
  - jaredmcateer 13y ago
    If we don't understand the context or audience it's the fault of the site not the people confused by it.

Brakenshire 13y ago

For the people who are genuinely confused, Jolla is a company that sells smartphones, their first smartphone is also called Jolla; it runs Sailfish OS, which is effectively a fork of the Meego operating system which Nokia used in its N9/N900 phones, before they switched to Windows Mobile. This is not very surprising, because Jolla is a Finnish company principally made up of ex-Nokia engineers, including a lot of the people who created the N9 in the first place. Sailfish OS stays closer to Linux than Android, using Wayland, Qt/QML, PulseAudio etc, and adhering to the Linux Standard Base specification. It also comes packaged with an Android runtime based on Alien Dalvik, so that it can run Android applications (similar to Blackberry 10), although it won't have access to Google Play or the Play Services APIs. The phone is being launched this week in Finland, and there are plans for release in the rest of Europe, and in China, though not so far in the US. Edit: Some more technical details about the OS: https://sailfishos.org/about-technology.html https://sailfishos.org/about-technology.html

msvan 13y ago
How refreshing it is with a tech product that doesn't launch in the US first! I'm quite happy that there are more non-US non-China competitors popping up in the mobile market.
- Brakenshire 13y ago
  I think that might partly explain the advertising, they seem to be modelling themselves on that Central/Northern European, Berlin counter-culture, Girl-with-a-Dragon-Tattoo, techy-savvy hacker kind of thing. Problem is, at least from the other side of Europe, that seems like it would represent a fairly tiny demographic, and I'm not sure deliberately avoiding the mainstream, and going for semi-obscurity, is all that great a marketing idea! But, in any case, regardless of the marketing, the phone does seem promising. Seems to be the most credible of the open source challengers to Android/iOS, much more so than Ubuntu Touch, for instance, because of the direct experience of the staff and the fact that a phone is actually being sold. Also, personally speaking, it's nice to see an open source OS made by a company apparently looking to make money from selling hardware and software, as a product, rather than from leveraging user data.

shmerl 13y ago

It's important because it's a unique OS. Hardware while innovative, isn't radically different from the rest (except for the other half idea).

emilsedgh 13y ago

Considering the choice of images on their front page, their current target seems to be more niche. Number of open source, Nokia, Maemo/Meego enthusiasts is probably big enough to give their sales a decent start. Best wishes to Jolla. We truly deserve to have free-as-in-free-speech phones.

anigbrowl 13y ago

I agree. I guessed quickly that it was a phone but all the networking junk it was sitting on top of in the top photo made me wonder if it was supposed to be something else. The first two questions I ask about anything technical (consumer product, programming language, branch of mathematics, ...) are 'what is this?' and 'when would I use this?' and it's depressing how poorly most advertising/documentation answers those.

par 13y ago

do you really need it spelled out that it's a phone??