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| Jolla launches 'mobile alliance based on MeeGo' |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-10-02 18:23:24 |
| After a few months of relative silence and vagueness, we're finally getting something tangible from Jolla, the promising mobile phone company which came forth from former Nokia employees. It's ambitious - they're not just going to create a mobile operating system, not just a mobile phone, but an entire ecosystem, including cloud services and data centres. At its heart? The beautiful city of Hong Kong. The prime target market? China. |
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| Can't wait... |
| By satsujinka on 2012-10-02 20:23:35 |
| for them to come state side. My N900 is getting a little long in the tooth and I'd really like a supported upgrade. |
 - Score: 3 |
| Thoughts |
| By drcouzelis on 2012-10-02 20:25:57 |
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I wonder if Jolla will have an awesomely powerful, open, and nerdy phone available by the time my Nokia N900 dies... I wonder how many models of phones Jolla plans to market. Is the Maemo and Meego community so strong because everyone that wanted to use ended up getting the same phones? I wonder if someday Jolla will buy Nokia... :P |
| - Score: 2 |
| Jiihaa! |
| By AnXa on 2012-10-02 20:26:36 |
| So, Let's set out to the sea... |
| - Score: 1 |
| Open hardware & open software ? |
| By PieterHog on 2012-10-02 20:52:50 |
|
If the hardware specs are open and the software is open source I would love to have it. That way you would'nt be dependent on factories for upgrades, or on complicated workarounds ...... I must also be able to run Android apps though - |
| - Score: 1 |
| Developing for China |
| By Alfman on 2012-10-02 21:00:12 |
| I can see why China makes sense due to it's huge growth potential. However I wonder if that decision was influenced at all the over-the-top patent litigation going on in the west? If they are determined to build the best products they can, then it certainly makes sense to do so in a region which is beyond the reach of western patent holders who are willing and able to exercise their government granted monopoly controls in the market. |
| - Score: 13 |
| sort of open |
| By PieterGen on 2012-10-02 21:44:10 |
| What I read, the OS will only be partly open...bummer. bndustry. "Licensed to industry" indicates closed source, open to community participation indicates some sort if openness. We'll see ! |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: sort of open |
| By leech on 2012-10-02 22:16:43 |
|
Well, the problem with all of these "Open" platforms is that they can't ever truly say it's an Open platform, just like most Linux installations aren't 100% open source. Drivers are the main issue. A lot of the drivers for mobile devices simply can't be open sourced (for example, GSM stuff that doesn't really belong to the manufacturers.) I don't have a problem with closed source drivers. My problem is from closed source applications. I think for the most part all of the default apps should be open source. At least then if you lose support from the manufacturer, you can still update the base OS of the device, by which I mean the base install, not necessarily things like the kernel, etc. Jolla has some awesome potential, but I think at this point the pick up rate for it will be slower than if Nokia hadn't been idiotic and let Elop's memo and announcement slip out... All but killing a project that had immense potential and tons of big corporate backing. The problem is the same issue that 'Desktop Linux' has. People can't really say "it's so hard to use" anymore. Hell Windows 7 looks like and functions like a KDE4 clone (which is funny since earlier versions of KDE were an attempt at cloning Windows, but it started to look / act much better). The real reason 'Desktop Linux' hasn't had it's 'year' is because of the applications. Way too many people already have a large library of software that doesn't work in Linux, or if they even have a native version, most companies make a person repurchase it. It's going to be the same with a new mobile platform, so many people have already sunk some cabbage into the mobile OS that they use most. People aren't going to want to repay for their fart apps! Some sort of way to hook into the various app stores would be awesome. Unfortunately I don't see that happening... I do think there needs to be a third major player though (I don't and probably never will count WPx). Go, Jolla go! |
| - Score: 6 |
| RE: sort of open |
| By gan17 on 2012-10-02 22:20:55 |
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We probably won't see a mobile OS with the same "open-ness" as your regular Linux distro for quite a few years. At least until the market gets saturated enough that handsets stop evolving at the current rate. A fully open-source OS (think something like OpenBSD) is probably impossible outside niche sectors (think Geeksphone). Edited 2012-10-02 22:26 UTC |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE: Developing for China |
| By gan17 on 2012-10-02 22:26:05 |
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Patents are definitely one reason. Market size is another. Then there's the untapped developer potential (sheer number of graduates) and bigger availability of future sponsors/backers. It remains to be seen whether this will serve as a double-edged sword with regards to applications. The Chinese software/app market is kinda like the US sports market. Rest of the world doesn't get it. Jolla might end up being kick-ass like Meego, or it might end up as Baidu's version of Android... or something in-between. Either way, best of luck to them. Edited 2012-10-02 22:27 UTC |
| - Score: 5 |
| RE: Open hardware & open software ? |
| By Bill Shooter of Bul on 2012-10-02 23:46:46 |
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Not sure what you mean by hardware specs, From what I understand Jolla is only doing the software. There isn't much open hardware for smartphones out there. If they really wanted to do it right, they'd be starting from scratch for all of the hardware ( cpu included). Also, how exactly would you be independent of factories for upgrades of your phone's hardware? Even if it were all open hardware, someone would have to actually make the danged thing. |
| - Score: 2 |
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