Jolla to introduce Android app compatibility and some more news on their phone!
We've covered Jolla mobile quite a few times here on TheTechFella and regular readers will know that the company are in the middle of creating a MeeGo powered phone. One of the fundamental problems with MeeGo or any new OS, is that there is a severe lack of apps. Apps recently have become one of the key selling points to any phone buyer.
Jolla seems to appreciate this and, according to ArcticStartup, the company plans to utilize Android's app ecosystem to ensure there is a lot of apps for their future buyers. This information comes from a recent interview between Jussi Hurmola, the CEO of Jolla and Tero Lehto from Finnish 3T publication, where the latter asked the former how he plans to tackle the problem of building an app ecosystem for a phone. Hurmola reportedly said he plans to use
Android apps (but he didn't want to officially announce that yet)
as well as Qt and HTML5-applications all through OpenMobile's ACL (application compatibility layer).
Hurmola also promised a new UI which is 'more modern' than both Android's and iOS' so if they can live up to that then they may have a challenger on their hands! Another tasty little tidbit was that the device will have a screen larger than 3.5" so everything is sounding promising at the moment!
Given the huge support MeeGo generated when Nokia announced their N9, Jolla may well have a chance. But, it'll be interesting to see what their device looks like when it gets announced later this autumn, that device will literally make or break this company!
In other news:
- As part of the restructuring of OnLive, the streaming gaming provider has laid off half of their workforce and OnLive all of tyheir their assets will now become part of 'a newly-formed company'. This will mean that HTC's infrequently mentioned $40 million investment will be lost and that'll be another round of bad news for the companies accountants!
- 500,000 Android users in China have been infected with a malware called SMSZombie. Thankfully for those of us outside of China this isn't too big of an issue because the malware exploits a vulnerability in China Mobile's payment systems so it shouldn't affect people in other parts of the world!
- Apple and Samsung have almost finished testifying in their cases and the jury is poised to start deliberating, but the pair were given one last chance to talk it out. Guess what! There was no agreement so far, but Bloomberg believes that the CEOs of both companies, Tim Cook and Kwon Oh Hyun, will hold a telephone conference call to see if any resolution can be agreed before we give full power to the jury.
- LG's Optimus Vu will soon be heading outside of Japan and South Korean and will land in the USA and 'select countries' in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. The 'phablet' will be refreshed with a Quad-core Tegra 3 processor for most people but the US version will have a 1.5Ghz Snapdragon S4 processor. All we know about availability or pricing is that these will be ready for September!
- Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Note 10.1 has been taken apart by iFixit and they've decided that should anything go wrong with the device it'll be nice and easy to repair! Unlike the new Retina Macbooks and the latest iPad, both of which iFixit criticised for the low likelihood of a successful repair.
- Netflix has been on a recent world wide march lately as they've rolled out there service throughout some Western parts of Europe and announce Scandinavian availability is coming soon. And it seems that this is coming good for the company because they've announced today that they have already managed to rack up a million subscibers throughout the UK and Ireland! Not bad going!
- On a similar theme Barnes and Noble have announced that they too will be bringing their lines of eReaders and content to the UK starting from this autumn. Their address will be nook.com.uk if and when they get their storefront up and running!
- And finally, the Galaxy S3-esque device pictured below is supposedly te upcoming Galaxy player and a full list of specs is available on the picture below! And hopefully the device will make an appearance at IFA in a couple of weeks!
