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Sunday, May 29, 2016

Jolla launches a community device program for a Sailfish mobile OS

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