Amen! You have answered the question posed in the thread title. Thus the thread can be closed.

Thanks. But I think you guys have brought forth far superior points than myself.

My grievances are sprinkled in my post; but let's be honest. Jolla led off on such a strong note, could have capitalized on privacy concerns very early on while the rest of the operating systems were seemingly full of holes and backdoors.

Jolla could have grown past a curiosity but do so by building a few bridges that just didn't congeal or happen. None of us here want a lot of the popular apps. But we're a minority.

And if I hear "soon" once more...

Another big difference is that Apple concentrated on ease of use since from the beginning and it came their main ethos against PC-world. Then they added the "fancy factor" by distinguished styling, so it was "cool" for people who don't care that much about technical superiority and disliked the clone-like grey boxes. Thus their fan base was already in the mode of "ease of use first, everything else is secondary"-kind of mood when iPhone was launched. Apple had notoriously tight QA for external app developers to keep the experience pleasant, which was also well received in user base, which led to positive cycle.

Comparing to Jolla, we got:

- people who desire replacement for N900, a geek device with efficiency and power being the first and most important factor even at the expense of UI having steep learning curve or even being unsuitable for average users
- people who desire ease of use and powerful multitasking in the spirit of Harmattan, for average users (sometimes referred as "toys" by former group mentioned)
- people who desire FOSS without much regard to anything else

Thus the community is divided within by conflicting ideals.

Jolla then tries to enter mainstream market, which means that UX cannot be tailored for experienced supergeeks only, which results in negative remarks about UI being "too restricted", "ineffective" etc. On the other hand, first iteration of UX was more powerful in some areas, but had steeper learning curve which alienated many since from the start. Add in problems with delivering the phone, the Tablet debacle and other delays, dividing lines have got even deeper.

So, instead of being Apple, doing things in a way that their fan base respected from since the beginning, Jolla is fighting an uphill battle to please community that in itself is unable to decide what it wants and that is very vocal to point every single piece they don't like (be it in a sake of "development", "improving things" or whatever). When some Joe the Average hears about Sailfish OS and Jolla, they search for information and find out that the community is mostly infighting and seemingly displeased about everything Jolla does, it's easy to see him going away and buying another Android-device. So... if there is no heavy lifting done by OEM's, chances for success are unfortunately quite slim.

Apple got pressure sensitive screen. It's genious hope to see that for android and Jolla. Is it really hard to implement. On the bad said Apple do not include multi app view for iPhones. They should

Jolla wanted something more commercial than what they did at NOKIA. And that is quite understandable. Unlike NOKIA at Nxxx time, they didn't and still don't have any other product that will bring some money. NOKIA had symbian and 1/3 of the market and yet they failed. And they did have everything a long before Apple or android but they refused to market it. Instead, they were forcing symbian (which was great, but not with S60 on top of it) without touch support. Unlike Ericsson with UIQ. After first iphone they implemented touch but that was terrible user experince. It did more bad than good at that time.
Jolla on the other hand had a solid future user base for a startup but the manged to alienate most of them/us by keeping things in the dark and trying to get some new users instead of capitalizing on what they had in maemo community and then go forward from that. And a lot of us were willing to accept something that wasn't N900.

the N900 has a pressure sensitive touchscreen many years before the iPhone..... (although it is resistive)

This proves the marketing points brought up in this thread.

Pressure sensitive screens are not new. Just the marketing jargon has become specific and relevant (see above)

Why do people talk of Apple as if they are the rule? Apple are the exception, not the rule. Microsoft and Google are the rule in this business. Network externalities are far more persuasive than 'silicon art', something that Bill Gates understood when he was just a kid negotiating with IBM. Steve Jobs only begrudingly acknowledged it later, which is why he would always develop a face that looked like a smacked arse whenever Microsoft were mentioned in interviews. Even he had to admit that most people don't care about 'art' if the platform doesn't have the software that they need to share data with friends/family/colleagues/clients.

Apple's continuing success depends entirely on their ability to manufacture wants and persuade people of them. They are very good at it, but it's a pretty fragile business model to attempt to emulate, especially if don't have a bottomless pit of cash.

I hate to say it, but I have to disagree on this point. Apple did come up with a UX that takes noobs completely seriously. But it does so by leaving out the hackers.

When you choose to implement a user interface, you need to face an inherent contradiction in user requirements. If you provide a great deal of functionality and the ability to access that functionality quickly and easily, you make the device more powerful and flexible; this is desired by the technophile users. On the other hand, if you limit the functionality to a core set of frequently-used functions, and erect barriers between the user and any features that could be dangerous (or even just embarrassing), you make the device simpler and easier to understand. This is desired by technophobe users.

In short, you simply can't make a universal UI. Every compromise made towards one group of users alienates the other group.


To my mind, there is really no point in making an open-source novice-friendly mobile user interface. How would it be maintained? Nobody who writes their own UI is going to contribute to an open-source version of iOS, because nobody who writes their own UI would ever use iOS; for someone who knows what they are doing, iOS is more of a hinderance than a help.

In this sense, Jolla is (in my opinion) hitting a sweet spot; they've got a very powerful open-source framework (Mer on top of Android using Hybris), and a very user-friendly closed-source interface (Sailfish) on top of it. Open-sourcing Sailfish would be, I think, stupid -- who would spend weeks and months of work tweaking the UI to help a newbie navigate making their first phone call? Open-source advocates don't need something like Sailfish. But they do need something like the Mer infrastructure. I still have hope that Jolla can continue to straddle this divide.

However, I believe that a different UI should be built on top of Mer, a totally open-source UI that focusses instead on functionality and ease of access to features. You can't make a single universal mobile UI, but you can make two opposing UIs on top of a single universal mobile infrastructure. This, I think, is the optimal way forward...

I'm not saying they are first. I know n999 was ahead of its time. But it's an extremely useful feature since every app can show many shortcuts and also launch app if a regular tab. It's much faster than pullymenues and folders. The bad thing is that few ups using the potential yet so I don't understand why so few OS implement it.

It's also very useful to in browser at tmo. Can do a sneak peak at thread without loading it browser tab.

Jolla need some strange but cool features like n900.