I did write several times to Jolla that they should work together with Fairphone. Having a Sailfish like for the Sony devices would be great. I had it for my xperia and would again pay 50$. In my eyes it is worth it.
Sadly Fairphone and Jolla just state to open threads in their forums. Which apparently does not help at all. Why cant they just talk to each other and figure out a license plan. Would be win win for both sides I think.
And I would get a non Android system wich I do like very much. Miss the times when I had a Jolla phone. But I like the concept of the Fairphone much more.
Combining two niches probably results in an even smaller niche – and that does not pay off. The smartphone market is largely about economies of scale.
There is/was a community version of Sailfish for the FP2.
I don’t know if there is somebody working on a Version for the FP3.
Manufactures can’t official support all Operating Systems so that’s a community effort.
Right now there is the stock android, lineage in different versions and some work towards postmarketOS.
The latest Sailfish update looks really good and I would definitely give it try .
If you look at phones like the computer they are its understandable.
Its like if dell would offer support for every flavor of linux
Only difference a vendor can make is to design it open for other OS.
I hope that the future outside of walled gardens are devices where you have the same options you have with home computer.
This will be rewarded by the consumers
“Its yours to flash”
I am with you JeroenH. I know there is a community port but I want to have the possibility to install a few android apps I need for special things. And therefor I need a licensed version.
Thats the point why I asked them to collaborate. And I dont agree that Fairphone is a niche product. Yes they only have about 20000 sold devices or even more now. And I dont agree that it would result in a niche product and if so, it does not mather if the costs are covered and you can even earn a little out of it its for sure better then selling nothing.
Well need in case of banking app or equal. Not anything for pleasure. But this was a statement from the past where I did not know how you handle the apps. I know now that I can inform you and that you then look into it. Nothing more I need.
Banking Apps are problematic even on “real” but non-stock Android, since most of them try to make sure through various system checks that they run on a non-rooted Android with a locked bootloader for security reasons. Furthermore most of them require Google services on the phone, so you would need to invest some time into getting GApps (preferrably) or microG to work …
You may get your banking App to work, but it’s better to not expect this, and due to updates to either Sailfish, to your App or to Google services (on Google’s side, not on the phone even) it can stop working any time anyway.
No, it simply cannot result in a big thing. It might result in a good thing that a handful of people would buy. Which won’t work out due to the economies of scale (= you need large numbers) thing. Sorry, I have seen too many ideas and efforts like this in tech failing during the last 25 years.
Appreciate your work but my banking app works fine. It was meant as example. And for my creditcard app i am in contact with them to see if they can do something. Prior to two or three days ago it worked fine so I assume they updated something.
Yeah and there are lots of such projects where it went big. Dont be so pesimistic. Hope and hard work pays often out but it needs to be done by the right people.
Every industrial product “is largely about economies of scale”.
Still, this does not mean niche products are non-viable, much less impossible.
Your sentence sounds like a flat-out rejection of anything that is not mainstream and massively produced, sold and used/circulated. Was this true, Fairphone would not exist. Instead, many great projects started as niche products (like Linux) and many more keep existing in all their glorious “nicheness”.
Just like all the non-Android Androids, like Fairphone, like the vendors of non-Windows laptops, workstations and servers,
They cannot scale as much as the large, world-class produces of hardware and software, sure. They tend to cost more (the hardware) and to only have community support. They are not as easy and straightforward to use as the Big Industry devices and services, they often require personal installation, tuning and servicing. But they are far from irrelevant, they constitute in fact a precious way out of the mold Big Tech has been corralling most of people into, they are an adaptation of a small but thriving organism into the small ecosystem that was left by a devouring, invasive species.
Niches are not just odd possibilites, they are sometimes a solution to systemic crises, to wide-scale instabilities and unsustainable, complex organizations. Mammals were niche species in the Cretaceous. Today, the only way to live a digital life out of the clutch of Big Tech and it’s rapacious, exploitative, mass control culture is through the adoption of niche products.
Niche are more difficult and generally not as comfortable solutions as the mainstream’s, true. But they are something very precious and enjoyable. At least they are in the eyes of those who do not like living in a mold.
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