Sailfish OS Gains Two-Way Android Compatibility

DeviceGuru writes "Jolla announced (PDF) that its Sailfish OS is now fully compatible with Android, letting the Linux-based mobile OS run Android apps, as well as operate on hardware configured for Android. This makes the MeeGo-based Sailfish OS the first alternative mobile Linux OS to achieve the feat. Jolla also announced that a second batch of pre-orders for its Sailfish-based Jolla phones will open later this week, after having sold out its first batch in August."

no thanks

[frovingslosh]

They can call it "fully compatible" all they want. The real issue is that, unless devices that use it as their OS also have the Google Play Store app, then the experience will always be second class or worse. I've had devices that run real Android, but only get apps through alternative app sources like Slide or Getjar. This makes the experience awful or even dangerous. I don't see it likely that hardware running Sailfish OS will have access to the official Google play store, not when so many devices that run real Android don't. So this belongs more on a site of "news for chumps" than on a site for "news for nerds".

Re:Shame

[Teun]

And what is on a world scale relevant about a single market?

Besides, what stops you from doing like the Rest Of the World and buying your own phone?
Between the first Motorola I bought nearly 20 years ago and my present Nexus 4 I've never had one with a contract.

Re:no thanks

[Teun]

I don't care one cent about the Android compatibility, I want an Open Linux phone, a device that'll run things like Thunderbird. or Kmail and doesn't make me an entry in Google's or MS database for exploitation.

Re:no thanks

[mwvdlee]

Manufacturers need to pay Google a fee for Play Store. It is just an app, which they could install, and it would work fine, showing all the apps.
It's just that the store would see the device as incompatible with every single app in the store, so you couldn't actually use it to install anything.

For Nokia it is a tiny market

[dbIII]

No, Elop is what killed nearly Nokia but it's not quite dead yet. Just last quarter they sold 53 million phones in China using the Sybian system that Elop tried to bury and halted all development on. Even hamstrung they sold more phones in a single market than Apple did in the entire world (new Apple record of 31 million phones in one quarter).
Now do you get some idea of why people are taking the Nokia takeover so seriously? A company that has been utterly gutted in a blatant corporate raid is still selling more phones than Apple despite people being told by the CEO of the company selling them that the platform is doomed.

Re:Shame

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Besides, what stops you from doing like the Rest Of the World and buying your own phone?

I've noticed that US folks tend to think that you can only get a phone from a carrier . . . and just assume that the whole world also works like it does in the US.

Re:Why, isn't that just peachy

[ladoga]

meego is just as much linux based as android is. To me it amounts to changing the colour of the bikeshed a bit.

Oh, so Android now ships with GNU/busybox userland and X (or Wayland in case of Sailfish) out of the box?

Dice is a U.S. company

[tepples]

And what is on a world scale relevant about a single market?

Slashdot is operated by Dice, a U.S. company. There will usually be a U.S. slant to stories. That and the coinventors of the telephone in the first place (Bell and Gray) were both U.S. residents.