Jolla show off their 'Sailfish OS': Can the little guy make it big?
Today Jolla showed off their elegant new Sailfish OS, they also brought with them a host of other details about what we can expect from their Meego-based operating system. Head on past the break for the full details!
One of the key details announced today is that ST-Ericson will be producing the processors which run these devices. ST-Ericsson's President of Sales had this to say:
“ST-Ericsson’s NovaThor platform combined with Sailfish OS will enable vendors to bring highly competitive mobile products to the market. We welcome other players in the mobile industry to join and contribute to this game changing movement”
Jolla CEO, Marc Dillon, also added that his company is seeking to "announce other chipset provider partnerships soon.”
It also seems the new OS is quite well set up with apps too because many Android apps will run on Jolla devices with few or no modifications needed. Although, it was added that “If you want to take advantage of all UI and other features of Sailfish OS and make your applications fast, you can port your applications to native QT/QML,” there's also HTML5 support.
There's no word on devices yet, but the Finns have signed up their first carrier partnership with DNA, who are a Finnish carrier. They're hard at work to secure a network of partners who will offer their devices at some point next year!
The video below offers a little look at the UI we can expect to see. From the video it looks quite elegant and we're intrigued to see how it'll look on a phone which won't have a transparent background. And if you're interested in more details the SDK and other goodies at SailfishOS.org.
Via Twitter.
In other news:
- Asus are reportedly working on getting Android 4.2 to their high-end Transformer tablets! A customer reportedly called ASUS and was reliably informed by the rep that ASUS is working to get the 4.2 update out. We don't know which tablets could be in line for the update although, the customer who called owned a Transformer Prime which basically guarantees an update for those devices. Other than that we have very little few details and there's no official line from Asus yet. We'll let you know if we ear any more!
- Nintendo's Wii U is already facing a small amount of criticism from certain developers because of it's 'slow CPU'. The devloper who is a bit upset at the moment is 4A Games, who are currently working on a new shooting game called 'Metro: Last Light'. The devs announced that they will be releasing the game on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, but because of the slow CPU, they'll be sticking clear of the Wii U. Hopefully this won't be the start of a trend, we also don't know how many devs feel this way. The fact the Wii U will run Assassin's Creed III without too much bother should mean that it is capable enough for most games, but we'll have to wait and see!Via Slashgear.
- Apple have written a sneaky little clause into their patent licensing deal with HTC, which means that if HTC continues on a downward trend and is bought out by another company, Samsung for example, then the HTC deal will not automatically cover the new owners of HTC. “In the event of a Change of Control of a party,” the clause reads, “this Agreement shall automatically terminate unless otherwise agreed in writing by the Parties, effective immediately prior to such Change of Control.”Via Slashgear.
- AT&T is reportedly letting users use FaceTime over cellular on their iPhones. The rollout is slow at the moment, but check your phone, you might now have a compelling rival to Skype on your iPhone!Via MacRumors.
- Orange have rolled out Libon, which is a new service from the telecoms giant which allows users to make HD VoIP calls, send IM's and Visual Voicemail. This is Skype, WhatsApp and Viper rolled into one! Be sure to check out the video below for more details!
Via Engadget.
- Gizmodo reported earlier today that Virgin have inked new deals with EE and Vodafone which will allow customers if the latter two companies to use Virgin's Wifi on the London Underground!
- When HTC announced the Droid DNA the first thought we had here at TheTechFront was how long is that 2020MaH battery going to last, especially with a quad-core processor and the massive 5" 1080p screen! Well it turns out it hasn't done too bad in testing. GSMArena ran their usual battery tests on the beast and it turns out that it has a relatively good longevity, with the guys rating it like this:
And finally, Archos have announced a new tablet targeted squarely at the family market! It's a 13.3" slate called the FamilyPad comes with a decidedly average, but still capable set of specs.
First up that large screen runs at a resolution of 1280 x 800 and has an aspect ratio of 16:10. You'll be running Android 4.0 on a 1Ghz single-core ARM Cortex A8 processor and 1GB of RAM. There's two 2 mega-pixel cameras, one front, one rear for your Skype and 'annoy the family' snaps and you'll have a host of sharing options to post your pictures around with including; mini HDMI output, USB host for transferring data from the flash drive or hard drive, just in case the 8GB's of internal memory and an SD card aren't enough, and of course there's Wi-Fi. As an added benefit there's a stand included in the package too!
Thankfully Archos promises a good amount of longevity from their tablet too, with the promising over 10 hours of video playback per charge. This can all be yours for the total of £274.99, which works out at about $420 if you live in the USA!
