Tuesday 17 June 2014

[Edited] Jolla Boss - Big News coming

Marc Dillon at MWC 2014 with Makia and Rovio
The Other Halves,
 image by @myphonegr
Marc Dillon, co-founder and Head of software at Jolla gave a special interview to Iltalehti (Finnish magazine) published Jun-11-2014. Mr. Dillon was interviewed by Outi Järvinen, Kauppalehti. The article was published by Pauli Reinikainen, Iltasanomat and translated to English by Simo Ruoho, Review Jolla Blog

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Jolla boss promises: Big News coming

Next Jolla phone will be introduced no later than next year


After informing about price reduction a while ago Jolla is frantically looking for new partners around the world. The company's co-founder and Head of Software Development, Marc Dillon says to the magazine that the company will soon deliver "big news".

According to the magazine Jolla is opening in sales in Asia, probably in China. This would mean co-operation with at least one Chinese operator.

Instead, Jolla has no plans towards the United States

[edit.note: Jolla shared this afterwards]:

Jolla phone's back cover allows uploading additional features, such as image- and audio files, to the phone with switching the back cover. Jolla is also negotiating new co-operations in relation to these additional features.

According to Dillon Jolla has connected development of new products to their strategy since the beginning. He did not want to reveal the next phone model's release date.
- Not later than next year, he says.
The new model is unlikely to be introduced on this year.*

New update coming soon


- It comes with new content and new features.

Of the update Dillon reveals that there will be a significant improvement in controlling multiple applications at the same time [multitasking, edit.note]. Moving from an application to another will happen more quickly with a ** possibility to drop each Android app into their own cover screens.

[Edit.note:] Cover screen is an smaller interactive block showing the running app or it's selected content on the home screen. At the moment the running Android apps are sharing the same cover screen forcing users to enter the app, tap a virtual Android button, tap another application and swipe the foreground app to the home screen to change the content of this cover screen. On the home screen, there's space for 4 bigger covers or 9 smaller ones.

"Windows Phone is not sexy"


Dillon says that in terms of Jolla, problem in the mobile market is that the user experience between expensive and cheap Android phones is very similar.

- Android is a safe choice, while the Apple is being "cool". I believe that Jolla, in this sense, offers an interesting, different option. Many people want to support Jolla as it's offering something new.

In contrast, Microsoft's mobile operating system is not a formidable competitor to Jolla according to Dillon.

- Windows Phone is not sexy!

Jolla's challenge has been a new kind of operating system with touch gestures differing from other platforms such as Android. The company has strived to make the phone easier to use via updates.

- Different gestures have been challenging for new users. We have tried to make this easier.

Updates have also improved the Sailfish browser and [the phone's] battery life. Dillon says that even in heavy use, the battery should last for more than a day.

Original article (finnish, published Jun-11-2014 at 08:05 UTC, updated at 10:17 UTC):

PAULI REINIKAINEN
pauli.reinikainen @ ilmedia.fi

Translation to english:

SIMO RUOHO
Review Jolla Blog

Updates


Tuesday, 17 June 2014: A tweet shared later by Jolla was added regarding the U.S. markets

Friday, 13 June 2014 at 9:29 UTC: This article has been edited by corrections I received directly from Jolla. The misunderstandings have taken place in the original article, not in the translation, and these corrections regards only this publishment:
* ", because Jolla is planning to deliver, by Dillons words a "massive", software update next fall." is removed and place of the subtopic was changed, as Jolla states that plans about new devices and plans about Sailfish OS updates are not related, and that Marc was answering about updates in general, biggest being June's update without downplaying the fall's updates.
** "new kind of application view" is removed, and more detailed information I received from Jolla is added.

Publish date: Wednesday, 11. June 2014 at 12:59 UTC
Latest update: Tuesday, 17 June 2014 at 18:40 UTC
Sources: iltalehti.fi, Jolla