My Jolla phone and SailfishOS experience

Mehrad Mahmoudian published on
31 min, 7276 words

Categories: Jolla Phone Sailfish

Tags: post Journey story

Abstract

I ordered Jolla Phone in early 2026. In this blog post, I'm going to write my experience in this journey, from ordering to first impression of the hardware. This is my experience, and as usual, your mileage may vary.

NOTE: This is the first version of the post. I want to add some photos and some more text, but I wanted this post to go out early so that some of my friends can also read it. I will update this post later and add those. Sorry for the inconvenience in advance.

All the links I have in this article are time-stamped by the Archive.org. The main reasons that I'm heavily using the Archive.org are:

  1. websites change
  2. Jolla is a for-profit company, and they can go bankrupt and their website can get inaccessible
  3. There is a bit of drama around the project, and I'm sure certain actors will try to delete their public posts

Just be mindful that the Sailfish forum uses Discourse, and the graphics cannot be properly captured by Archive.org. The text will mostly be there, but the website graphics will be partly captured. I suggest trying to open the forum, make sure the content is not altered modified, and then see the post. I would personally keep the Archive.org links as the main reference.

Please also mind that this blog post was written across several weeks while I was experiencing different stages of this journey. The content is what I wrote then and I have not and will not update them later. If there is any updates regarding my experience, it will be appended to the blog post under its specific subheading, or alternatively in a new blog post.

First things first

Considering the attitude I have seen from certain community members in SailfishOS forum, it seems I have to emphasize the following point:

This is a blog post, and more importantly, my blog post. Constructive and polite comments, feedback, corrections, and updates are most welcome. If you want to be nasty, please send your valuable messages to /dev/null. Rest assured, it will be read in a timely manner.

Now, let's get to some background information before we dive into my experience. Feel free to jump to the "Journey" section if you are already well informed about the subheadings below. :)

What is Jolla phone

Jolla Mobile Ltd is a Finnish company that has various products, ranging from SailfishOS to various smart phones and also an "AI Computers".

In 2025, Jolla noticed that there is some interest in the community for a new phone, so on 2025-08-01 they asked the community on the SailfishOS forum about the specs of the phone people were interested in. They got the votes, and they tried to put together a phone based on those specs.

The phone's naming issue

Jolla never created an official distinctive name for the phone that they released in 2026. Some community members are calling it "J2", some call it "Jolla Phone 2026". I think this is a major marketing mistake from Jolla's side, and in the future it also makes it harder for people to search for device-specific issues (e.g., hardware issues).

In this blog post, I try to use the term "J2" as it is easier to type and kinda sits well beside "C2", which is Jolla's Community phone 2.

SailfishOS software stores

There are at least 3 types of app store for SailfishOS:

  1. The official Jolla Store, shipped with SailfishOS by default and called "Store".
  2. Chum, where anyone can put their software, but the things there are built from source, so reproducibility is somewhat guaranteed.
  3. OpenRepos, where anyone can create an account and upload the binary of their software.

1. Jolla Store

To my utter surprise, there is no web interface (to the best of my knowledge) to the official store. So unless you have a SailfishOS device at hand, you cannot know what software is "officially" supported! (Yet another thing that Jolla might want to improve).

When I opened the store, I quickly realized that the number of apps they have in store are minuscule. At the time of writing, there are 284 apps in their store. Some are country-specific or language-specific (e.g., Germany, Italy).

2. Chum

Chum is somewhat doing what Copr does, or to some extent similar to AUR, or Homebrew. Basically, it builds software from source in an automated way.

As far as I understand, there is actual vetting and auditing of the software source before building. And considering that anyone can submit an application to Chum, you should use it at your own risk.

I have been told that Chum is relatively new, and therefore some of the apps predated Chum are only on OpenRepos. There are also some build-time constraints, and the main dev of Whisperfish, which is the SailfishOS native unofficial Signal client, mentioned on Mastodon that one of the libraries they use takes quite a while to compile and is one of the reasons Whisperfish is not on Chum.

Also, one thing I expected from Chum was to list the permissions that each software requires. This is because they have access to the source code, so fetching such information is quite easy compared to OpenRepos.

3. OpenRepos

To the best of my knowledge, at the time of writing this, OpenRepos is a place where anyone can put any SailfishOS app with zero oversight. There is much safe and good software here, but it can also be a wild-wild-west. So use the software at your own risk.

Please note that these are my personal understanding at the time of writing this blog post. Software and policies tend to change over time, and there is no guarantee that my understanding is 100% accurate. What I can guarantee is, to the best of my knowledge, based on several months of trying to make sense of SailfishOS ecosystem.

Controversies

Jolla and many community members have made certain claims that have caused controversy. Here I list them, but I don't dive deep because this post is about my journey, not about debunking or fact-checking. The reader of course, should do their due diligence and decide for themselves whether these are false or factual. Here, I try to add enough content so that the reader can search for it more easily. I also add some personal notes here, but none of it are "just opinion" and are accompanied by references.

SailfishOS is the only truly European mobile OS

Jolla has repeatedly stated that it is the only European mobile operating system. For example, in a post on 2026-04-09 they have stated:

There are only four mobile operating systems in the world: two American, one Chinese — and Sailfish OS. The only truly European one.

Right away, there are major issues with this statement:

  1. There are way more than 4 mobile OS that are actively maintained.
  2. SailfishOS is not the only European one.

Here are some from the top of my head without searching online:

I'm sure there are more. Among the list above, some are European, and some are even for-profit European companies (e.g., Manjaro).

SailfishOS is OpenSource

Note: Considering that the status of these parts can change, please consider that these are valid at the time I'm writing this section: 2026-07-16T10:39:10+03:00.

Many in the SailfishOS community claim that SailfishOS is OpenSource despite the fact that even on Wikipedia it is categorized as "Source model: Proprietary, with open-source components". In 2015, Sailfish had a webpage explaining the licensing situation, but that page is long gone, and I couldn't find a similar page on their new website. Many claim that the source code is on their Github, which is not true and they only have some documentations, their browser, and their office suite on Github. Some further searching got me to a page which claims that the "SailfishOS core" is OpenSource:

This is correct, but for an obvious reason: none of these are SailfishOS software. All these components are FLOSS because they are components of Linux! The only OpenSource code they have according to this figure is the "Sailfish Browser" and "Sailfish Office". Nothing more!!

Update: After a discourse on Fediverse on 2026-07-17, Frank Paul Silye pointed out few things:

I personally take these as steps in the right direction, although personally I would refrain from saying that the SailfishOS is "mostly" or "entirely" FLOSS, even though quite a lot of the SailfishOS community is standing firm behind such statements. I believe you, the reader, can decide yourself after going through all the links, and hopefully, reading a bit more beyond what I'm presenting here to better understand the situation.

Journey

For a few years, I have been looking into moving away from Android and using a proper Linux distro on my phone. I have tried installing PostmarketOS on my old phones, and at some point I even bought a Fairphone4 hoping to install either Manjaro or in worst-case Graphene or /e/OS. I had PinePhone in my radar and I was monitoring their forum quite closely as well.

Getting to know about the phone

I heard about the phone in December on Fediverse. I think it was this post from Jolla that caught my attention. Some oneline searching didn't turn up red flags, and the fact that it was a Finnish company (I live in Finland) gave me more confidence that this isn't a scam.

Ultimately, on 2025-12-08 at 12:19 EET, I paid the 99€ down payment to Jolla. They called it "Jolla Phone Pre-order Voucher". Basically it meant that with this 99€ I am in the queue for the 1st batch of the phone, and when Jolla finalizes the product, I pay them the remaining of the cost of the phone.

When I paid the down payment, I started poking around the forum and watching YouTube videos, etc., to learn a bit more about the previous Jolla phones, SailfishOS, the App ecosystem, etc. The community seemed relatively active, with vibrant discussions about TOH (the Other Half). In short, TOH is a brilliant concept: they expose some GPIO-like pins on the back of the phone, and the back cover can connect to these pins to communicate with the phone. For example, these are some of the ideas that resonated with me:

  • add wireless charging support using a back cover with a wireless charging module
  • physical keyboard like the good old Nokia N900
  • an E-ink display to show some statistics (unread emails, time, battery%, etc.) without the user needing to use more battery or the phone's display.

Most of my time on the forum was spent reading ideas and suggestions about TOH, but every now and then I stumbled upon threads where people had heated arguments. The more time passed, the more I saw the presence of people like me who were new to Jolla and SailfishOS. never logged in or posted in the forum at this point.

Final payment

On 2026-03-27 at 14:08 EET Jolla posted on social media that "the Jolla Phone pre-orders are now ready to complete" and "check your email for your personal order link". I was super excited and jumped behind my computer to complete the order, but my mailbox was empty.

On 2026-03-30 at 19:42 EET, I received an email from noreply@jolla.com to "complete [my] order" and complete my purchase of my phone. They were also offering screen protector and phone cases, etc., that we could order. Up until this point, on all Jolla webpages, the delivery was set for June 2026, but the email stated that the delivery would be "for July-August". The following is the verbatim copy of the email with some personal parts redacted:

Dear Mehrad Mahmoudian,

We'd like to remind you to complete your Jolla Phone order - if you haven't yet - or if you fancy to order cool Jolla Accessories!

YOUR PERSONAL PRE-ORDER DISCOUNT CODE JOLLA-PHONE-BATCH1-XXXXXXXXXXXX

HAVEN'T COMPLETED YOUR ORDER YET? By completing your order by April 30, your Batch 1 is locked and your delivery is confirmed for July - August.

Here is how to complete your purchase:

Click your personal link below Choose your accessories Fill in your delivery details Remember to apply your personal pre-order discount code! Complete the remaining payment You can also defer to August 31 (delivery September-October, though note the memory configuration will shift) or cancel at any time for a full refund. No questions asked, no hard feelings and always welcome back. ♥️

ACCESSORIES Want to shield your precious new Jolla Phone from drops and scratches, or just fancy changing the colour of your phone every now and then? Don’t worry, we got you covered!

In case you missed adding accessories when you completed your Jolla Phone order you can still make your purchase. We will bundle everything together with your phone for delivery - we will refund any duplicate shipping costs.

SHOP ACCESSORIES

COMPLETE MY ORDER

For questions, the Sailfish OS Forum is the best place to reach us and the wider community. Your questions often help others too.

Please bear with us with emails and keep in mind there is currently a long backlog for our small team to deal with - it will take 2-3 weeks for us to process these. If you have requested a refund you will get it, no worries!

Sincerely, The Jolla Team

Waiting in the dark

I kept reading multiple threads on the SailfishOS forum (more about this later), checking out jolla.com web pages and social media, and searching online to learn more about SailfishOS. Unfortunately, there was a lot of fighting on the forum, total radio silence on the Jolla.com website and their blog, and some posts here and there on their social media that did not reflect anything about the progress of the product or the project.

Pushing the shipping deadline

When I pre-ordered the phone in December 2025, the Batch #1 delivery estimated by end of 1H/2026. After the very good reception of the phone and thousands of people queuing up, I believe Jolla had to revise their strategy of selling and production, and I want to believe they also revised the specs of the phone to better match the hardware market. Alas, the shipping deadline was moved, but not in an honest and transparent way:

On 2026-07-15 at 18:50 they opened a thread on the SailfishOS forum titled "Jolla Phone update - deliveries started and other next steps". In this post I noticed these issues:

  1. The post was posted on July 15th, and July 8th was "the Day1" when we delivered the very first phones for backers who had chosen to come pick up their phone in person from Helsinki". Meaning this post was made one full week after the show.
  2. They stated:

Back in December we gave a target to start shipping the Jolla Phone by end of July 2026. We set a target that was very ambitious and we can think many doubted whether we’ll make it in time or is the project once again one of those promises by a tech company making an unrealistic target for itself and an over-promise to its customers.

But we did it - with professional excellence, with utmost stretching by many from the Jolla team and with a trust & support from the Jolla community we delivered!

The point is that on December or even until the July 14th, the official website stated batch#1 "delivery by end of 1H/2026". July is the 7th month of the year, and end of 1st half means end of month 6 which is June! As a matter of fact, pick any day between Dec 2025 to Jul 2026 to see if their statement changed. See, delivery changed but not in an honest way! 3. They stated: "[if] you in the Batch #1 so this will take some time, expect it to take 2-3 weeks". 4. This statement was very nice: "We’re targeting to roll out the first SW update within a week. It will be a minor release addressing mainly production-related issues, and some end-user features. The next update is targeted to the end of July - early August". This means they are actually trying to iron out some of the software issues. As an Arch Linux and Emacs user, I love updates.

Shipping happened

I got a notification on 2026-07-29 at 18:32 from Posti (Finland's postal service) with the following content:

We have received information about an upcoming delivery from the sender. The item has not yet arrived to us. Tracking view will update once we have the item.

At the same time, I also got another similar notification. Same exact information but a different shipping tracking ID. My guess is that this second one is for the Inari Blue back cover for the phone that Jolla gracefully gifted everyone who participated in the first few batches of this phone.

Over 24 hours later on 2026-07-30 at 18:54 I received the next Posti update that "the item is sorting" in Lieto.

By this time, it meant that Jolla had given the parcel to the postal service, and it was now out of their hands and in the postal service's.

Receiving the phone

A few updates later from Posti, I received the notification I was waiting for:

31.7.2026 17:29 Item is ready for a pick up

Later that day, I went to the post office and picked up the package. Upon opening the postal box (I mean not the Jolla phone box, but the cardboard box that the parcels are shipped in and has my address on it), I noticed that the second shipping label is placed inside this one. This meant that Posti has no clue that this second package has also been delivered. Not my problem, but the postal service will still expect a package to be delivered by Jolla. I'm still not crystal clear on why Jolla made two labels and yet practically used only one. I assume creating labels is not monetarily free.

I noticed a few things immediately upon opening the box apart from that label:

  1. The box was 1/3 full with the phone and back cover, and the rest were filled with packaging paper. My guess is that they didn't find a smaller box to ship the phone in.
  2. All the packaging for the phone and the Inari Blue cover was made of cardboard or paper, except for the plastic adhesive seals and the sleeve the Inari Blue cover was in.

With the second point, Jolla actually gained more respect in my head. They "almost" used plastic only and only when necessary. The cover didn't need to be in a sleeve, and the cardboard box could have been enough. Both the phone box and the Inari Blue cover are well-made, sturdy and are designed beautifully. It somewhat gives off a minimalist vibe, though it is not minimalistic. This level of attention to detail and material is something that I highly respect. Well done Jolla!

The first thing that caught my attention when I held the phone for the first time was how good it felt in my hand. The weight distribution and phone balance are very nice, the plastic back and body feel really good, and the display doesn't sound hollow. I don't know how to explain this, but some phones feel hollow when you tap on the screen, for example the FairPhone4. Regarding weight, in this day and age, with phones having large camera components, the weight is typically not well balanced unless you are dealing with high-end phones from large companies. The J2 phone felt very nice overall. As a personal preference, and as others have mentioned in the forum, it could have been a tad smaller, but it is definitely not something I complain about.

<< TODO add a photo side-by-side of Google Pixel and one OnePlus phone >>

I also looked for scratches on the phone and bubbles under the screen, because at least in one instance it was reported on the forum that their phone arrived with a couple of scratches, and in one case they had bubbles under the screen after removing the factory-installed plastic protective cover. Mine was clean, and there was a small oily smudge with maybe a small partial fingerprint right next to the USB-C charging port, but nothing to be concerned about.

Initial phone setup

I already bought a spare SIM Card to give this phone a real fair try and then decide if I want to use it as a daily driver. This J2 phone has one compartment at the bottom of the phone near the USB-c charging port that can fit two SIM Cards and one miscroSD card. This compartment has a nice design: you don't need a pin or special tool to open it. Using your fingernails would be enough. I tried to use my guitar pick to open it, but the gap is about 0.8mm and my 1.5mm pick didn't fit. Regardless, it is very easy to open it and fit the SIM Card.

Before I turn the device on, I also opened the back cover (a.k.a., TOH). One thing that caught my eye was that the battery is bolted to the phone's chassis with screws. This is not bad, but it means the battery cannot be swapped for example while you are at an airport or walking on the street and need more juice. You need to have the correct screwdrivers and a place to store the opened screw so that you don't lose them. The benefit of bolting the battery is that it will not move around and get loose. Some of my old Nokia phones had this issue, and I had to put a few layers of paper between the cover and the battery.

I then put the Inari Blue TOH and turned on the phone. It took a while (maybe 10 seconds) for the phone to boot (it does this on every reboot), but it booted up without any issues. The first thing I noticed is that I don't know the SailfishOS gestures that were useful to know during the initial setup. It asked to accept the Terms of Service, then for the LUK encryption password, which was a nice default setting. I recorded the initial setup on my other phone, but I need to find some time to go through the video and clean it up before posting it online, because I had to pause a few times to type passwords.

Here are the annoying bits during the initial setup, in case a Jolla UX person is also reading this blog post:

  1. It was also surprising that I couldn't use certain characters in the LUK password, such as @.
  2. The screen orientation was not locked, so while setting up the fingerprint, the display rotates.
  3. The buttons during the setup are located at the top of the screen. It is way more ergonomic to have them at the bottom where users' fingers, especially the thumb, can reach.
  4. The setup wizard uses a red background. It is a bit too agitating, and a calmer color scheme would have been kinder to the eyes.

First few minutes

After the initial setup is complete, J2 opens the Tutorial app. It is designed to help/teach user to learn the SailfishOS-specific gestures and Pulley menus. For a someone like me, who is new to SailfishOS, this was an essential step. The gestures are relatively easy to get used to, but the Pulley menus are a bit hard to master, imho.

Pulley menus are a way to add what typically goes on a hamburger or kebab menu in Android UI realm. This is how the Pulley menu works: 0. The top part of the screen will get a bar (in my case blue) that indicates that this page has menus: << TODO add photo >>

  1. When you pull down from anywhere in the application window, the entire application will slide down to show the menu.
  2. If you pull slowly, the topmost visible item will be highlighted. You can pull down until the item you want is highlighted, then stop pulling and lift your finger from the screen. That item will be selected.
  3. If you pull fast, it will show all items without selecting any, even if the menu has only one item. Then you have to manually tap the item you want to select.

The pulley system is a bit weird to use because:

  • It only is at the top of the screen. So you need to use two hands to work with the phone if you have "fast-pulled", or you need to hold your phone in a vulnerable position to tap the items.
  • If there is only a single item there, a fast-pull should, imho, select that item, since there are no other choices.
  • If you are in a scrolling UI, let's say your email or a chat window, pulling down (or up) is very confusing, because pulling should either scroll the contents or open the Pulley menu. Perhaps the best to demo this is the Mæp app.

In addition, the absolute majority of the "back", "next", and "cancel" buttons are located at the top of the window, which is not ergonomic. If the phone was shorter, it would be more convenient, but I believe that, for the same reason the Browser's address bar is located at the bottom, such buttons should also be located closer to where the thumb is.

I also accidentally realized that there is a hidden button (that I can unhide) to control the Inari Blue cover. But I realized this after I switched back the TOH to the default orange one.

Apart from these ergonomic issues which can easily be fixed through a software update, everything else about the phone felt and looked great.

One of the nice touches of the phone was adding the Jolla YouTube Short videos regarding their ringtone project. It also is shipped with some nice "ambiances" (i.e., what we generally call theme to accent in Linux UI circles.

I recorded a 30-minute voice memo for myself about what I'm impressed by and what the issues are. I'm glad to report that I'm praising the phone about 80% of the time. Well done Jolla!

First few hours

When the phone was working, instinctively I went to see how I can have some of the services/apps I need and those that I want on the phone. I have read it before that there are alternative native apps for various services, and there is also the possibility of installing Android apps (considering that microG, Aurora store, and F-droid are pre-installed). I also know a nice website called SailfishOS.app that is trying to see which software works nicely in SailfishOS (Android apps and their SailfishOS native apps). This is a very handy collection and already answered a log of my concerns.

I listed the apps and services that I need and want to have on my daily-driver phone and the apps I use on my Android (after the arrow is what I use on my Android phone):

  • Need
    1. Signal → official Signal app (version 8.21.6 from Aura store)
    2. DeltaChat → official DeltaChat app (version 2.57.0 from F-droid)
    3. WhatsApp → official WhatsApp (version 2.26.30.97 from Aura store)
    4. Barcode scanner and generator → Binary Eye
    5. Email with local spam filer rules and PGP support → FairEmail
  • Want 6. Mastodon client → Fedilab 7. Matrix client → FluffyChat 8. Decent map → OrganicMap 9. KeePassXC → KeePassDX 10. Metronome → Metronome

Among these, I found some alternative native apps:

  • For Signal there is Whisperfish but it is not in the Jolla Store.
  • For barcode scanner, there is CodeReader in Jolla store. It is a very good solid app and it has 1837 thumbs-up in Jolla Store. The only feature missing for me is generating barcodes from a given text (e.g., from clipboard).
  • For Email there is the official email app developed by Jolla, but it is the most minimal email application I've seen. It lacks all features I need apart from IMAP and SMTP. This is a very unpleasant feeling when a privacy-focused OS does not have a privacy-friendly email application. Hopefully this gets improved drastically in close future.
  • For Mastodon, there is Tooterβ from Jolla Store which as far as I saw is feature-rich and ready to use.
  • As for a good map, there is Pure Maps and also Mæp with 399 and 507 thumbs up respectively in Jolla Store. I need some more time reviewing them, but the first thing that caught my eye is that the last commit in Mæp's git repo dates back to 2022-08-17. I also tried to find Jolla company using Mæp but it didn't witch the map view to the location I selected in the search.
  • For Matrix I haven't tested any application.

Something that I was hoping to see in SailfishOS that I don't see in the current state is control over permissions that apps get. User can either revoke all permissions, or allow all permissions. There is no granular permission system. I was hoping that I can at least control camera, microphone, and network access per application. On Android we have three things that I want to see here too:

  1. showing when microphone and/or camera is in use by an application. Android shows a green dot near the battery sign to indicate microphone use, and blue for camera use.
  2. being able to remove access permissions of each app individually (at least camera, microphone, disk access)
  3. using NetGuard one can manage network access of each app individually.

For example:

  • A barcode reader app does not need to access network, microphone, GPS, or disk (unless reading a file from disk)
  • A map app does not need to access camera or microphone or disk (real example: the Pure Maps asks for "Play and record audio" with the explanation "Play and record audio, and show audio controls on lock screen")
  • A camera app does not need to access network

This fine-control over app permissions is the thing that I expected to see in a privacy-focused company and privacy focused product.

Why I think they are marketed as privacy and security focused

The following is a direct quote from the first sentence of the first paragraph of jolla.com:

Jolla is a Finnish company specializing in privacy-first OS and Edge AI solutions.

This is direct quote from SailfishOS.org under "Security":

Sailfish OS has a host of modern security functionalities developed specifically for corporate and governmental environments. In Sailfish OS user data is fully encrypted and apps are protected by Firejail sandboxing. Connectivity is behind a firewall and protected with in-built support for VPNs, and automatic backups always secure your data.

First few days

I think at this point it is best if I split the experience into two parts: software and hardware

Software

After several days of using J2 and SailfishOS, I only had one instance of glitching, which Signal Android app was getting terminated before it even show me the Signal Client UI. I rebooted the phone and never had similar issue since.

Apart from watching YouTube, banking app, surfing web, and podcasts, I did everything else with J2.

As for podcast, I checked some of the apps in the Jolla Store, but they all are missing two major features that I want: 1) playback speed. I normally listed to podcasts with 2.55x to 3.05x speed depending on the podcast. 2) Statistics about how much time I've spent on listening to podcast. On Android I use AntennaPod which has these features. This has been a major issue for me to use J2 exclusively.

As for surfing, the SailfishOS browser is good for looking at Wikipedia, but:

  1. I use Kagi as my search engine and I haven't yet configured it in J2
  2. many of my online surfing would end up opening other apps, like GitHub through URI scheme which this browser does not support. There is no other browser on Jolla Store at the time of writing this.

For banking, I didn't move because it would require some work to authenticate another phone, and I maybe opened the banking app twice or so during this time.

One point of confusion is that some app-specific settings are accessible via system settings, while others are inside the app. Perhaps PureMaps is a good example that has settings in both places, but not the same settings. So this dichotomy have cause confusion for me, as I don't know where to look for a particular settings.

Luckily, most issues I have for daily-driving J2 are software issues, which can be improved and updated.

Hardware

The battery lasts for over two days, although I don't exclusively use J2, but I try to do majority of my daily communications with J2. The J2 feels very nice in hand and in the pocket and I have no issues with it. The only thing that I have found suboptimal are:

  1. Once or twice a day happens is that I accidentally unlock my phone using fingerprint when trying to hold my phone or putting it on table. I think if the fingerprint scanner was sitting a bit deeper into the chassis, this would have been avoided

  2. Not having contactless payment is a bit inconvenient

  3. The back camera's are on the side and are out of the chassis, which makes the phone sit on the edge of the camera when it is on the table. That worries me about wear and tear.

  4. Taking screenshot is close to impossible. I believe the shortcut is holding both volume up and volume down at the same time. Every time I did that, I just saw the volume change.

Open questions

While using it for about 5 days, there are things that I have questions about:

Question1: Why SailfosOS does not support Flatpak? It would immediately open up the possibility of installing thousands of apps without Jolla needing to do much about them.

SailfishOS forum issues

Forum is the biggest down-side of the entire experience. There are many good, knowlegdable community members, but the loudest ones are the most empty one. Three words to describe it: Toxic, messy, mal-moderated.

Considering that this is my personal blog post and I don't want to waste more of more time on this issue, I just veeery briefly explain these three points:

Toxic

Nasty towards newcommers, calling names ("couch CEO", "moron") [many examples, but well, two instance here and here]

Messy

The forum, unfortunately, is trying to act as a knowledge base, but because it is a forum rather than Wiki or any other form of knowledge base, nothing is easy to find in this spaghetti of threads. It actually amplifies the nasty behavior because a user will search something, wouldn't find it, create a post of comment, and will immediately get attacked by a bunch of people hiding behind an avatar and a nickname!

If you wonder why I used the analogy "spaghetti", it is because moderators very often branch out comments mid-thread to create new threads. A lot of context is lost/misplaced.

mal-moderated

It seems some of those who have the moderation power are the trolls themselves. This is not something new. Others have discussed this in length (example) and neither Jolla nor the community did anything about it.

It least twice I saw in the forum that some loud community members claimed that the forum is a community forum and Jolla is not managing it! But here is the confusion from my side: when Jolla do official public announcement in the forum and their employees have administrative rights, plus it is under the subdomain of the company, then how come this is not managed by Jolla?! This brings to mind the classic Duck Test: "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck".

Suggestions

After following the forum for over 8 months and using the phone for few weeks, I have the following suggestions for different aspect of Jolla. I hope someone in their management read this part, if not for improving the status quo, but at least for the betterment of their brand.

SailfishOS

This is an interesting OS. Many parts are already functional or semi-functional. I believe the following are things that can be improved:

  1. Go full OpenSource. It also helps app developers to learn a thing or two from Jolla developed apps.
  2. Add fuzzy search in the settings page.
  3. Move the buttons closer to the thumb.
  4. When the volume change bar appears, please prevent taps to go through it and click whatever is underneath that bar. Actually, make the bar clickable, so that user can drag their finger on the bar and change the volume.

J2

The phone is actually a solid phone and I don't see so much hardware issues. This is the only suggestion I have:

  1. Moving the power button a bit deeper in the phone to avoid accidental unlock.

Innovation and Delivery process

This was not my first rodeo. I have participated and pre-ordered in few other products. The best experience I have had was Wooting HE2 keyboard campaign by Wooting. Wooting were also selling a hardware through pre-order and they were also releasing software and firmware for their hardware. They are also a European company. But here are the kickers: 1) their team at the time was much much smaller than Jolla (only 3 people), and 2) they did it through COVID lockdown!

From that experience I can suggest the following. Similar to Wooting:

  1. have weekly video (or blog post) about what have happened about the manufacturing of the new product
  2. answer emails promptly
  3. be honest about delays, product defect, and their reasons
  4. help the community to to help you building a better community

Forum

I'm pretty sour about the forum, but here is some ways to improve the situation:

  1. Create a blog under jolla.com and announce your official news there. Not in a random thread on SailfishOS forum.
  2. create a knowledge-base similar to Gentoo, Arch Linux, PostmarketOS, etc. so that people can use them to understand your product better and find the information they need.
  3. Regular blog posts about software updates really can go far.
  4. If this is official forum (which apparently some of the louder people there believe is not), spend good time vetting moderators. Trolls cannot be moderators themselves! If it is not official forum, detach it from your own domain and brand.