Jolla has just brought some good news to brave testers of its Sailfish mobile operating system. Starting today, those who have access to a Nexus 4 smartphone can install an alpha-quality preview of Sailfish OS for Android.
Jolla, its smartphone, and its mobile platform is a bit of a weird beast. The company has just launched its first device and the first version of its software, which was met with moderate success, given the size of the company and its resources. Sailfish OS itself is somewhat strange, following in the footsteps of BlackBerry OS 10 which supports installing and running Android apps. Jolla, however, has bigger fish to fry and is actually working to get Sailfish running on Android devices as well. Sailfish and Android are both Linux-based operating systems but Sailfish has its roots in slightly more conventional Linux desktop platform via Nokia’s and Intel’s stillborn MeeGo platform. Perhaps in an effort to spread its platform beyond its currently only device, Jolla has made known its plans to bring Sailfish to Android smartphones, the first fruits of which can now be tried and tested.
Early Adopters, those who have signified their willingness to test the port of Sailfish OS to Android, have just received an e-mail announcing the availability of the software as well as procedures to install it. The Android port is actually based on CyanogenMode 10.1 and will require the Nexus 4 to be flashed with it. This preview is in a very early state and many crucial things are still not working. While 3G data and SMS do work, voice call audio doesn’t. A ton of sensors and connections, like Bluetooth and Camera, are also still not working. Updates fixing those are, of course, promised as they come. Additional devices will also be supported, with the Samsung Galaxy S III being the next target.
Given the raw and almost unusable state of the release, the preview is really meant just to get the ball rolling and to initiate an open discussion with the community. It is quite interesting to see Jolla opening up its doors to the Android community this way and it will definitely be interesting to see how far they can go.
VIA: The Jolla Blog
