[pxc]

I took a real interest in 6 or 7 years ago, when it was first coming out. I was excited in part by how much it (as a downstream project of MeeGo) resembled Real Linux™ internally: systemd, RPM/zypper, Wayland.

It was awesome. The way it all fit together felt thoughtful and sane. The terminal environment was like a real desktop Linux userland. And the Sailfish UI was really outstanding. It was simple, uniform, and thoroughly gesture-based. That stuff felt decidedly ahead of Android and iOS at the time.

But it's basically been impossible since then to get it on flagship or even just relatively recent hardware, and getting it distributed with the unfortunate but crucial Android app runtime has been very hard to do since it's only available on commercial distributions.

It's never felt like a real option for me, at least in the US. Since I followed it more closely, I don't know where the project stands. Last I heard, they were pivoting to other markets (developing economies, business/enterprise use) that made it seem unlikely I'd ever get to have a decent Sailfish experience.

[mariusor]

I've been running Sailfish OS since they launched. Currently I do it on a Sony Xperia 10 III. It does all the things expected of a phone.

[distances]

I also got the first Jolla phone, but I had a different experience. I found it somewhat unintuitive to use (lots of misswipes, and unclear what you could swipe and when), but my main gripe was the UI style. It was a disappointment after the absolutely gorgeous Meego UI in N9.

I used it for two weeks, switched to Android, and started learning Android development.

I probably started with unrealistic expectations, and I obviously don't want to belittle their work, but I think there are good reasons it flopped even in it's native market in Finland after the early excitement.

In any case it was a small miracle that such a small company managed to create and ship an independent Linux smartphone with their completely own UI to general public, with a full set of basic requirements from a browser and app store to a calculator and email app. An amazing feat.

[jcelerier]

Interesting, to this day I remember the Jolla as the only phone I ever had that I actively enjoyed using