Just
when you notion Finnish mobile OS maker Jolla had given up on making its own
mobile or portable hardware, given its recent financing troubles which produced
it having to shutter a good planned tablet, it gets assistance programs were
the game - albeit by using a limited run of 1, 000 smartphones just for
developers and enthusiasts of its platform to use the latest and beta launches
of its Sailfish OS.
The
community handset is Jolla C, and has long been priced at €169 - with shipping
limited by Europe. All 1, 000 handsets had sold out concerts yesterday, on the
day the course was announced to any Sailfish community. Jolla says it’s hoping
to see if it can expand how large the initiative. Devices happen to be slated
to ship that will buyers in July.
Specs
wise the 4G handset looks simillar to Indian OEM Intex’s Sailfish electric Aqua
Fish smartphone by using a 5-inch display, 2GB for RAM, a 1. 3GHz Qualcomm
processer and Sailfish 2. 0. With regards to platform is compatible utilizing
Android apps, the Jolla C intentionally ships without having third party
content - to offer the “purest” OS experience.
To do
this developer-focused device Jolla is abandoning And the second Half hardware
feature found on its debut smartphone - which were an attempt to recognize a
handset by together with swappable back plates and an interior connector that
could support powered add ons on the rear within the device, such as keyboards
or e-ink screens.
The
hardware is generally not the point at this point though. The program may be a
move by Jolla minimize the stress foster the Sailfish maker community to pull
during energy and ideas, as community manager James Noori notes from a blog
about the step: “With this program and also Jolla C device, we are going to
focus on the software side of things and encourage the community to cultivate
more for Sailfish OS itself. ”
Jolla
has been continually pushing an OS licensing business strategy these days, and
has signed away OEMs in India and Africa that can put out devices running
Sailfish. This also has interest in Russia.
As
part of a community device program, which happens to be slated to run before
May 2017, Jolla C buyers shall be invited to live online community sessions. A
limited group of first registrants as well be invited to attend a worldwide
Sailfish Community Event in Helsinki next month.
Jolla
announced it have finally closed a $12 thousand Series C round early this
month, having struggled to locate the necessary funds at a back corner end of
last year or so. The developer program does risk raising a handful of eyebrows
among Sailfish enthusiasts due to the fact Jolla had to cancel a planned tablet
- as well as being running an extended refund program for the majority of
pre-orderers who won’t obtain slate. Some of whom is going to wait until next
year thus to their refund. Yet it’s now enjoying more pre-order money with
backers.
Responding
to this issue and another about the price the Jolla C on its community forum,
Jolla’s head of comms says it had “very much” hoped so as to give devices free
that will developers but its financial circumstances “just does not make it
easy for this”. He added that Jolla has got “set the price as far as we could”,
and is not really making any profit over the Jolla C.
“Using
the second an area of the tablet refunds for this [i.e. to fund a free Jolla C
developer device] is not going to really work, since came across finance our
operations so that the next financing round when they get home of the year -
unfortunately right here is the reality we live during, ” he adds.
Techsourcenetwork