Home 2015 March Hands on with Jolla Phone Running Sailfish OS 2.0

Hands on with Jolla Phone Running Sailfish OS 2.0

Before I begin: The featured image is taken by Alexandro from JollaES at MWC 2015

Back from the busy weekend and off we go for a nice post from the MWC 15 days now that it is “after the buzz”.

Now, before watching this video I’ll have to point out that this is NOT anything final and it is definitely not the software that is going to hit your phones. This is just a showcase of what Jolla has been working on and what changes they have planned to bring to their Sailfish OS! They are still gathering feedback and Jolla being Jolla, they will take feedbacks positively and make things work!

I’d have to admit that no Jolla owner is happy with the absence of swipe down to close on this iteration of their software and I’m definitely among that group. Though I have personally delivered my feedback alongside some other community members who were or were not present at MWC, Jolla seem to be taking this seriously and they probably will include it as a unique feature, even though it might become an optional one which I’m completely fine with it. Just leave the option on, as you do now in the current software.

About the cover actions that are non-swipe-able right now all I can say is that they might be a bit less intuitive but they could not remain in their current interactive shape while Jolla has implemented their new homescreen setup. It would really be awkward to to use and you’ve got to trust me on that!
But in the end, who knows? They may come up with another neat idea in their design meetings and get it right as the older more loyal users want.
I’d also have to comment that I personally don’t have a problem with non-swipe-able action covers and buttons are not half bad. But that’s subjective, and the swipe down to close is becoming kind of objective!

But enough chitchat! Let’s just watch and enjoy the new animations and more logical moves in some areas!

Enjoyed? No? Let us know in the comments below!
Also subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Jolla videos!

Cheers.

Sepehr James Noori

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Comments: 40
  1. madness
    3 years ago

    with the cover actions, currently in sailfishOS the swipe cover actions work fine along with swiping to the left or right to access the ambience favourites, so technically i dont see why they cannot keep swipe cover actions in SailfishOS 2.0 with the new interface.

    ReplyCancel
    • Sepehr James Noori
      3 years ago

      Because in the new version you don’t have to swipe from the edges to access other pages on home screen. More like Nokia N9. You can swipe from anywhere and that is more convenient for newer users coming from other OSes.

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      • madness
        3 years ago

        Ok i could see how that could get annoying, but there does seem to be heaps more screen real estate on the the tablet. on the phone version of 2.0 they can keep it the same so swiping from the edge of the screen.

        or perhaps as I read on TJC a two finger swipe cover action, or a better fit would be two finger swipe left and swipe right, i dunno i hope they give us Swipe settings so we can customise

        ReplyCancel
        • Ben Opp
          3 years ago

          I am against two-finger swipes on the phone. It doesn’t work one-handed, you need to use 2 hands for it!
          If at all, IMHO they certainly don’t make sense for cover actions: two fingers on the tiny little cover? They’ll cover it completely, and the display might have a hard time telling if there’s one or two fingers touching, bcs you’d have to put them together in order for both to hit the cover…

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  2. 3 years ago

    You noticed? can’t shut down applications : ( instead of it is motives panel.

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  3. Abhishek
    3 years ago

    ok , it looks good ,
    why do away with the music player in right swipe as present in the tablet version.
    i wonders if the app menu will look good with transparent background, jolla should really give it a try.

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  4. Simakuutio
    3 years ago

    If they are about to remove this swipe to close app – feature, It’s gonna be quite painful for many Jolla users (like me) who use that feature all the time. My workflow is often: Open app -> do the stuff -> close the app. And for that, closing it by swipe is essential. Can’t live without it anymore.
    So it SHOULD be at least an option.

    ReplyCancel
    • Sepehr James Noori
      3 years ago

      I agree! it should!

      ReplyCancel
    • 3 years ago

      I agree too, that’s the feature which made me return to Jolla after long warranty repair (“long” because I was to lazy to send it…)

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      • Plaristote
        3 years ago

        @bat0u: must be a Jolla user thing. Took me one full year to send my Jolla to warranty repair. Despite that, I still can’t use any other phone than Jolla… once you’ve tasted something other than the regular mediocrity of Android, iOS or WP, you can never go back.

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  5. Niju
    3 years ago

    Have I missed something, is it no longer possible to swipe up from the bottom to see notifications? I loved that!

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  6. dridk
    3 years ago

    It looks good!
    But Animation transition ( apps to cover) should be redesign !
    Either you use “opacity” transition, or you use “Page” translation animation ! But don’t use both!
    Blackberry10 use translation animation ! And there is no problem .

    ReplyCancel
  7. Ben Opp
    3 years ago

    To me the cover action swipes are one big important selling point of the current Sailfish UI, and it would be just sad to lose them.
    You wrote that “they could not remain in their current interactive shape while Jolla has implemented their new homescreen setup” – let me go more into detail here and just tell me if I’m wrong or not:
    The reason why they are currently replaced by tapping is that homescreen-“carousel” swipes are now horizontal (as opposed to vertical moves from lock screen to home and app menu in Sailfish 1). The old cover action swipes being horizontal as well, it would be hard for the UI to tell a horizontal cover-action-swipe apart from a horizontal swipe meant to go to the next screen (one of the 3: events view, home screen and partner space).
    If that is correct, I think the solution could be rather simple:
    *Make the new cover-action-swipes vertical*!
    That would be a problem in Sailfish1 in the same way as explained above, but should work fine in Sailfish 2 in the same way that horizontal swipes work fine now.
    Right?
    Vertical cover-action-swipes would have the added benefit of not requiring to aim as carefully as with horizontal ones when user is on the move, because the cover rectangles are in portrait orientation and thus higher than they are wide.

    ReplyCancel
    • Sepehr James Noori
      3 years ago

      You are right and you’ve got a point! But that requires a learning curve as well (Which I’m completely up for and has no problem with!) if that small learning curve is okay by others too then just go with it BUT there’s another issue as well. While in Home screen, user can swipe upwards from almost anywhere and access the app drawer (there is no swipe gesture/edge gesture needed to trigger the app drawer on home screen). But hey, that could easily be not-the-case if they remove this feature and add the vertically interactive covers! I personally am up for it and I’ll vote on TJC if there was any thread.

      ReplyCancel
      • Ben Opp
        3 years ago

        That learning curve is slightly steeper than the one for just tapping, and no steeper than the one for the horizontal-swipe cover actions. However, it seems totally worth it when contrasted with the steep decrease in erroneous taps meant for triggering cover-action (as opposed to taps meant for bringing the app to the foreground – 1mm off and you’re wrong!) – keep in mind here how much smaller the phone screen is.
        That swipe up for drawer not being from the edge, but anywhere, could indeed be a show-stopper though.
        Question: Is it the same from event view, from partner space, and from inside an app?
        Certainly from inside an app, it must be an edge swipe, yes?
        Because in that case, I see no reason why that shouldn’t be the same for everywhere else.
        If swiping up from anywhere (not just from the edge) will always bring up the app menu, that also means: number of running apps is limited to number of covers that fit on the screen (not possible to “scroll up” to reveal more covers be dragging up…).
        So, if app menu is brought up by *edge-swipe* up from exactly anywhere, that would make a lot of sense and my idea would still work, right?
        Will make a thread for that on TJC! also need to let Jaakko Roppola know, see what he has to say about the matter…

        ReplyCancel
  8. TFO
    3 years ago

    Only thing we do not have in Sailfish 1.X is the redesigned notification area! and the timer-ambiance.

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  9. Yaseen
    3 years ago

    Pretty cool.. Disappointed that swipe down to close option not availabe. Rest all look pretty nice.. As you mentioned, few gestures reminds me of N9.

    One quick question, event screen look pretty long.., does 2.0 introducing N9 like event screen? which is, detailed facebook, twitter and RSS updates..!? Would love to get that option on my Jolla.., loved it on N9..

    ReplyCancel
    • Sepehr James Noori
      3 years ago

      The events screen shows only your notifications as far as I could see it. And about swipe down, it may come back since everyone is giving negative feedback on its absence.

      ReplyCancel
  10. merlin29
    3 years ago

    swipe down to lock and active covers missing and some features of N9 in new update?, Sailfish has improved since launch but this OS 2.0 is less appealing so will not update and keep it on 1.0, i have a Blackberry phone and it has just been updated with improved OS and they have ruined the whole user experience, jolla should have a feature in new OS so you can reload OS 1.0 if you wish to or many unhappy owners as there are with Blackberry phones.

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  11. GuilhermeAC
    3 years ago

    New interface looks a lot like the N9’s. I thought they were trying to avoid that old interface for some reason(legal, maybe).
    James, I have two doubts about the behaviour and location of the app tray.
    -what advantage have you noticed(or have the Jolla guys told you we’ll have) in the app tray coming from the bottom of the screen, instead of having it as one of three screens like in the N9?
    Of course having it as a separate screen would make it 4 screens counting the partner space, but I imagine most users will deactivate partner space as soon as they get the system running, so… 3 screens. It really makes no sense to me… if it had horizontal scrolling I’d say its advantage is appearing/disappearing with just one swipe no matter which part of your infinite list of apps you’re looking at(much like the N9’s app screen works), but your video shows it scrolling vertically.
    -why is it invoked with a swipe up from anywhere in the screen and not from the bottom edge? Isn’t it inconsistent? Wouldn’t we access it by mistake while scrolling inside another application? What if I want to access it while at the top of a long webpage? Of course I could return to the homescreen and access it from there, but then I wouldn’t need the option of accessing it from inside the apps.

    ReplyCancel
    • Sepehr James Noori
      3 years ago

      The first doubt: It is useful because it is accessible from anywhere and that’s the whole point to have all of your apps under your fingertips with ease
      The second one: It’s only accessible from home screen with “swipe up from anywhere”. otherwise it is only accessible via a edge swipe gesture.

      ReplyCancel
  12. dave
    3 years ago

    how can i have it on my jolla right now? xD

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  13. ns
    3 years ago

    new UI looks cool. but can we access to notification area when we open an app ? notification centre should be accessible whenever you want.

    lots of talks about swipe down app closing action. isnt it possible to activate the gesture only you open the app and work ambient switcher at home screen? isnt it more handy ?

    anyway I’m expecting 2.0 a lot 😉

    ReplyCancel
    • Sepehr James Noori
      3 years ago

      The notification area is accessible via 2 swipes rather than 1 when you’re inside an app, which can be an inconvenience but still very beautiful and an extra swipe does not really add much 😉
      about swipe down I can’t comment since I think Jolla is working on changes as they said we’re taking it seriously!

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      • TheInvisible
        3 years ago

        An extra swipe means you lose the ability to peek at the events. It’s not that much of an inconvenience for me, but others might disagree.

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        • GuilhermeAC
          3 years ago

          If an extra swipe isn’t a big deal, there’s no gain in making the app tray accessible everywhere. 😛

          ReplyCancel
        • Sepehr James Noori
          3 years ago

          You can peek but the catch is that you’ll get to see only how many notifications you have (from how many apps) but no content is shown!

          ReplyCancel
  14. Dr. Elektronik
    3 years ago

    Hi. I want to battery life test results by jolla. Sample; LG G2 Talk 25:15h Web 11:42h Video 9:28h Custom rating 81h (Talk 1h Web 1h Video 1h ) http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_g2-5543.php (Battery life Endurance rating 81h) . All phone result http://www.gsmarena.com/battery-test.php3?idPhone=6074#show

    ReplyCancel
  15. 3 years ago

    Apologies James for dropping this here, but I had a small post cooking up that might answer some concerns people have had with the SFOS2.0 design shown on MWC videos 🙂

    http://jaakkoroppola.blogspot.fi/2015/03/sailfish-os-growing-pains.html

    If there’s any comments, let’s continue the discussion in this comment section. Thanks 🙂

    ReplyCancel
  16. 3 years ago

    I read thiѕ piece of writing ϲompletely concerning the difference οf hottest and preceding technologies, іt’ѕ awesome article.

    ReplyCancel
  17. 3 years ago

    I love the flow, the feel, the speed, the caroussel and app drawer is brilliant. But how the hell do I close an app, from within the app itself ?

    ReplyCancel

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Sepehr James Noori
Sepehr James Noori

Hi! Sepehr James Noori here! A geek living in Sweden.
Maemo/MeeGo/Mer/Harmattan/Sailfish & Jolla enthusiast who is keen to share knowledge with friends.
Proud N900, N9 and Jolla owner!
Hope you guys enjoy my writing.
Feedback is appreciated!

3 years ago 40 Comments News, , 8,188
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