The absence of eSIM is a deal breaker for me. I need to travel to the US for work and last time I was there I was having a hard time to find a physical SIM for the phone I had then.
I really wish them success, but I just can't see it anymore. I had the first version and it seems it didn't move much forward from that time. And there were also many screwups, as poisonborz reminded a bit earlier.
Their UI looked novel, but wasn't that great in practice. It wasn't stable (hopefully that changed) and the lack of real apps was killing it before and now even more, as more banks/govs require some "trusted" apps
Americans/Canadians (and I guess Asians since they won't ship there) don't waste your time reading this, they have a Mediatek SoC and made the choice long ago to not touch these markets. The devices will not carry the band support needed for these markets.
Europeans, I guess good luck, have fun. I followed them in the early days and ran early builds of Sailfish on the N9, had high hopes but have long given up on them.
EDIT: I will say though I'm still impressed by the libhybris project which went on to make it possible to run linux distros on android SoC's, but the guy who did that for Jolla I think is not with the company anymore for some time.
Jolla / Sailfish is a 13 year old project and through all this time they couldn't make a foothold, or even sustain some small motivated community around them. During this time:
- company folded and changed hand multiple times, including russian ownership
- the tablet scandal leaving users with lost funds
- closed source parts
- locked bootloader
- charging a $50 device reset fee
- not much change in Sailfish OS since ages
- buggy Android compatibility and near zero native devs, all jumped ship
At this point I think they are just one of the grifters preying on naive "EU first" supporters shoveling whatever they still have in a new casing.
I'd love the idea of a greenfield EU Linux mobile OS, but I don't think it should come from this company.
Realistically building a production quality database takes 10 years. Building a production quality game engine takes 10 years.
They're building a mobile operating system and the hardware it runs on; that's harder and a moving target.
How long do you think it takes to build a supply chain of hardware that doesn't suck (if it takes 2 years to get moving: you need to start with hardware specs for 2 years from now) and an operating system that doesn't suck when you're also trying to catch up to a major duopoly cranking out devices at an unfathomable volume, with more money than most nation states?
Your standard is "succeed against Google and Apple within 13 years on a shoestring budget with no volume discounts." How can any project clear that bar?
> Your standard is "succeed against Google and Apple within 13 years..."
Absolutely not. My standard is the many other AOSP-based ROMs communities and companies that were founded around them, having success within a few years - yes, they could lean on the ecosystem compatibility and didn't produce their own hardware, but maybe that's a more viable way to start?
"shoestring budget with no volume discounts" does not explain the points of criticism above.
AOSP is just a totally different destination, it's not a faster route to the same one.
Sailfish is spiritually MeeGo: actual Linux on the phone, not a custom skin on Google's foundations. Obviously it's faster to build a kit-car than a car factory, I don't see how that's a rebuttal, it's an entirely different conversation.
An AOSP fork on Qualcomm hardware isn't independence. Jolla are actually trying to build the factory.
The $50 fee and tablet scandal are fair hits- but fuck-ups don't make you a grifter, and we've forgiven larger players far worse.
> but I don't think it should come from this company.
Could*, maybe than should, unless you believe that all those things will apply to the phone they plan to release in September. Otherwise I don't see the issue with a company keep trying until they get something right (or give up). Why not?
True, but I also wanted to signify that I find any user trust (eg as a result of this new marketing campaign) is misplaced and steals air from a better alternative.
on the other, I really, really loved my original jolla phone back in the day. I happily used it as my daily driver and only phone for 2 years. Until it had a hardware fault which I could no longer repair via the company.
This is why i keep saying the Jolla management neds a rethink. Its 2026 GraphenOS is in a partnership with Motorola while Jolla is still doing early 2K style kickstarter campaigns.
The market is there , product is loved and ppeople have proved they are willing to take some pain adopting the product.But still the execution to serve that market is shambolic to say the least.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but they're aiming to serve the EU and UK (and Norway and Switzerland) markets only. Although, with that said, the page for the September 2026 phone says this (https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-sept-26):
> But I have no idea if that means it'll work for you in the US/elsewhere.
Yeah, that's a fun part of the crazy bandplan for lte/5g where it's just a little here and there without global coordination.
But a look here [1], says it has all 5G bands for AT&T, 2/4 bands for TMo, and 4/5 for Verizon. Seems maybe a bit iffy for TMo, one of the missing bands is n71 (600 MHz) which is extended range that helps fill in coverage.
I used to use a Sony phone with Sailfish but stopped when US shifted to voice over LTE and phones I used were not supported by the networks. If this phone works on US networks, I can't wait to get rid of my Android phone for sailfish. I vibed with Sailfish so hard.
They should have collaborated with GrapheneOS like Motorola instead of starting from scratch with Linux and a proprietary user interface. As it stands, this phone will have worse security than a Pixel with Graphene or the upcoming Motorola phone.
It's not an improvement over common closed source Android varieties either, and will certainly have worse app compatibility than Android. Hardware switches are irrelevant if you can't trust the software.
Their entire raison d'être is to make Sailfish OS (non-Android Linux) phones. I'm happy they're doing it. Graphene OS is great but it's just another Android ROM and still dependent on Google.
This is part of the (spiritual) lineage of Meego/Maemo, it's much older than GrapheneOS and the latter is older than Android itself
Anyway, it's as secure as any Linux distro as it uses the same standard stack as servers and desktops and does sandboxing[1], which is also really nice from a development perspective. You can harden it like you would a Linux box using standard Linux tools + kernel features.
To my knowledge you have some proprietary firmware blobs, drivers, HAL and the Trusted Execution Environment shipping with GrapheneOS. But replacing Pixel's stock Android with GrapheneOS doesn't expose you to more proprietary components but instead reduces it (by sandboxing Google Play Services for example) and improves upon Android security overall (memory allocation, etc).
So yeah, GrapheneOS isn't 100% OSS, as far as I'm aware. But it doesn't expose me to more proprietary stuff like Jolla would.
Did GrapheneOS even exist in 2012? There is history at play here, they are still building forward from the Nokia Linux phones.
Also, what's up with all the sour grapes from people who use or develop GrapheneOS? There seems to be a general force dismissing Sailfish as insecure, without ever explaning how. Can't we just be friends in a de-googled world? Are people from Graphene feeling insecure about Sailfish as competition? It feels to me like infighting in small churches. It turns me off from ever considering GrapheneOS before I even looked into it.
> They should have collaborated with GrapheneOS like Motorola
Well, Motorola is already doing that :)
I for one is happy that there is at least someone out there not happy with the status quo and go with something completely different and homegrown instead of just going with customizing Android and calling it a day.
The absence of eSIM is a deal breaker for me. I need to travel to the US for work and last time I was there I was having a hard time to find a physical SIM for the phone I had then.
Are these non Google non Apple phones viable any more?
Considering you almost can't do banking, and in some places interact with the government, without a locked down phone...
Afaik there is an android compatibility layer but I don't know if it allows banking apps to works
I would like it to have also hardware video output.
Then I could become a PC in our pocket.
I really wish them success, but I just can't see it anymore. I had the first version and it seems it didn't move much forward from that time. And there were also many screwups, as poisonborz reminded a bit earlier.
Their UI looked novel, but wasn't that great in practice. It wasn't stable (hopefully that changed) and the lack of real apps was killing it before and now even more, as more banks/govs require some "trusted" apps
Americans/Canadians (and I guess Asians since they won't ship there) don't waste your time reading this, they have a Mediatek SoC and made the choice long ago to not touch these markets. The devices will not carry the band support needed for these markets.
Europeans, I guess good luck, have fun. I followed them in the early days and ran early builds of Sailfish on the N9, had high hopes but have long given up on them.
EDIT: I will say though I'm still impressed by the libhybris project which went on to make it possible to run linux distros on android SoC's, but the guy who did that for Jolla I think is not with the company anymore for some time.
So many years and they can't(or refuse to?) ship to Asia, ridiculous.
Previously:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47216037
Jolla / Sailfish is a 13 year old project and through all this time they couldn't make a foothold, or even sustain some small motivated community around them. During this time:
- company folded and changed hand multiple times, including russian ownership
- the tablet scandal leaving users with lost funds
- closed source parts
- locked bootloader
- charging a $50 device reset fee
- not much change in Sailfish OS since ages
- buggy Android compatibility and near zero native devs, all jumped ship
At this point I think they are just one of the grifters preying on naive "EU first" supporters shoveling whatever they still have in a new casing.
I'd love the idea of a greenfield EU Linux mobile OS, but I don't think it should come from this company.
> Jolla / Sailfish is a 13 year old project
Realistically building a production quality database takes 10 years. Building a production quality game engine takes 10 years.
They're building a mobile operating system and the hardware it runs on; that's harder and a moving target.
How long do you think it takes to build a supply chain of hardware that doesn't suck (if it takes 2 years to get moving: you need to start with hardware specs for 2 years from now) and an operating system that doesn't suck when you're also trying to catch up to a major duopoly cranking out devices at an unfathomable volume, with more money than most nation states?
Your standard is "succeed against Google and Apple within 13 years on a shoestring budget with no volume discounts." How can any project clear that bar?
What would you do?
> Your standard is "succeed against Google and Apple within 13 years..."
Absolutely not. My standard is the many other AOSP-based ROMs communities and companies that were founded around them, having success within a few years - yes, they could lean on the ecosystem compatibility and didn't produce their own hardware, but maybe that's a more viable way to start?
"shoestring budget with no volume discounts" does not explain the points of criticism above.
AOSP is just a totally different destination, it's not a faster route to the same one.
Sailfish is spiritually MeeGo: actual Linux on the phone, not a custom skin on Google's foundations. Obviously it's faster to build a kit-car than a car factory, I don't see how that's a rebuttal, it's an entirely different conversation.
An AOSP fork on Qualcomm hardware isn't independence. Jolla are actually trying to build the factory.
The $50 fee and tablet scandal are fair hits- but fuck-ups don't make you a grifter, and we've forgiven larger players far worse.
You still haven't said what you'd actually do.
> but I don't think it should come from this company.
Could*, maybe than should, unless you believe that all those things will apply to the phone they plan to release in September. Otherwise I don't see the issue with a company keep trying until they get something right (or give up). Why not?
True, but I also wanted to signify that I find any user trust (eg as a result of this new marketing campaign) is misplaced and steals air from a better alternative.
Which is?
on one hand you're not wrong
on the other, I really, really loved my original jolla phone back in the day. I happily used it as my daily driver and only phone for 2 years. Until it had a hardware fault which I could no longer repair via the company.
This is why i keep saying the Jolla management neds a rethink. Its 2026 GraphenOS is in a partnership with Motorola while Jolla is still doing early 2K style kickstarter campaigns.
The market is there , product is loved and ppeople have proved they are willing to take some pain adopting the product.But still the execution to serve that market is shambolic to say the least.
Jolla does have an arrangement with Sony, so there are a few other device options: https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Supported_Devices/
What network connectivity does it have for US?
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but they're aiming to serve the EU and UK (and Norway and Switzerland) markets only. Although, with that said, the page for the September 2026 phone says this (https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-sept-26):
> LTE FDD: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28AB, 66
> LTE TDD: 34, 38, 39, 40, 41
> 5G NR: n1, n2, n3, n5, n7, n8, n12, n20, n26, n28, n38, n40, n41, n66, n77, n78
But I have no idea if that means it'll work for you in the US/elsewhere.
> But I have no idea if that means it'll work for you in the US/elsewhere.
Yeah, that's a fun part of the crazy bandplan for lte/5g where it's just a little here and there without global coordination.
But a look here [1], says it has all 5G bands for AT&T, 2/4 bands for TMo, and 4/5 for Verizon. Seems maybe a bit iffy for TMo, one of the missing bands is n71 (600 MHz) which is extended range that helps fill in coverage.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_5G_NR_networks
Also missing Band 13, which is Verizon’s main band for coverage
I used to use a Sony phone with Sailfish but stopped when US shifted to voice over LTE and phones I used were not supported by the networks. If this phone works on US networks, I can't wait to get rid of my Android phone for sailfish. I vibed with Sailfish so hard.
They should have collaborated with GrapheneOS like Motorola instead of starting from scratch with Linux and a proprietary user interface. As it stands, this phone will have worse security than a Pixel with Graphene or the upcoming Motorola phone.
It's not an improvement over common closed source Android varieties either, and will certainly have worse app compatibility than Android. Hardware switches are irrelevant if you can't trust the software.
Their entire raison d'être is to make Sailfish OS (non-Android Linux) phones. I'm happy they're doing it. Graphene OS is great but it's just another Android ROM and still dependent on Google.
This is part of the (spiritual) lineage of Meego/Maemo, it's much older than GrapheneOS and the latter is older than Android itself
Anyway, it's as secure as any Linux distro as it uses the same standard stack as servers and desktops and does sandboxing[1], which is also really nice from a development perspective. You can harden it like you would a Linux box using standard Linux tools + kernel features.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS#Software_architect...
They cannot, because for some reason GrapheneOS is shitting on them
https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/2029651838975328512
Graphene OS really like to shit on competing projects, it seems. Maybe they're right, but it seems a bit obsessive.
/e/OS: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1946269698498105813
iodéOS: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1892555359656534284
CalyxOS: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1953856218931376421
Unplugged: https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1861593971685798351
More projects:
Kicksecure: https://forums.kicksecure.com/t/grapheneos-attacks-kicksecur...
Purism Librem 5 and Pinephone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47260196
Is there anything inaccurate in that post by the Graphene devs however?
Seems fair given that it was in response to a tweet referring to the phone as "ULTRA secure!"
Agreed. Also, the second I found out that their entire UI stack is proprietary I lost all interest in that platform.
Don't the security hardware features of the GrapheneOS phones also rely on proprietary software/firmware?
To my knowledge you have some proprietary firmware blobs, drivers, HAL and the Trusted Execution Environment shipping with GrapheneOS. But replacing Pixel's stock Android with GrapheneOS doesn't expose you to more proprietary components but instead reduces it (by sandboxing Google Play Services for example) and improves upon Android security overall (memory allocation, etc).
So yeah, GrapheneOS isn't 100% OSS, as far as I'm aware. But it doesn't expose me to more proprietary stuff like Jolla would.
Did GrapheneOS even exist in 2012? There is history at play here, they are still building forward from the Nokia Linux phones.
Also, what's up with all the sour grapes from people who use or develop GrapheneOS? There seems to be a general force dismissing Sailfish as insecure, without ever explaning how. Can't we just be friends in a de-googled world? Are people from Graphene feeling insecure about Sailfish as competition? It feels to me like infighting in small churches. It turns me off from ever considering GrapheneOS before I even looked into it.
They didn't start from scratch, the first Jolla phone was released in 2013. The Sailfish OS continues the Maemo/MeeGo lineage that Nokia abandoned.
> They should have collaborated with GrapheneOS like Motorola
Well, Motorola is already doing that :)
I for one is happy that there is at least someone out there not happy with the status quo and go with something completely different and homegrown instead of just going with customizing Android and calling it a day.