Jolla phone update: Sailfish OS 1.1.0.39 Uitukka

Jolla system update 9

Satellite and night view for Maps, new dotting visuals for the user interface, a lot of bug fixes (248). This update is an opt-in, meaning that your phone will not notify about it unless you ask

Updates: Hotfix 1.1.0.39 available. 2 out of 3 users recommend this update. My experience after a week of use:

Jolla System update 9, October 19, 2014

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Update: According to this poll at TJC, 2 out of 3 Jolla owners recommend this update. This is an opt-in update, to receive it on your phone, read the instructions below. I've also updated this whole post, as promised, after one week experience of using this version.

Update: Hotfix 1.1.0.39 released, fixing connectivity issue in WLAN networks requiring configuration. Read the short release note here

Jolla has, once again, delivered us a great update, this time one month late from the original schedule. Sailfish OS Uitukka 1.1.0.38 was released October 22, 2014 as an opt-in update, followed by hotfix 1.1.0.39 two days later. Reasons for the delay are related to huge Qt 5.2 update, which has been more problematic to Jolla than they thought, and is actually still causing some issues.

This is why Jolla, at this time, suggests you to consider if you really want this update (read the full changelog, linked below). It might have a negative impact to your user experience in situations when your phone runs low on memory. My first impression (personal opinion): Not recommended unless you're a developer or at least familiar with some Linux commands (cleaning cache, balancing the file system etc...)

Updated after a week of use: Experiencing a few "Not responding" messages and some lags, I do not recommend this update for users who have thousands of contacts or almost full storage. In other cases, go ahead! There's a huge amount of bug fixes - Jolla lists 248 of them in the official release notes.

In overall, the phone's STABILITY seems to be great, but it RESPONSES slower on some apps in heavy multitasking. Rebooting, and giving the phone some time after boot to get all the start up processes cool down, have a positive effect if you experience this. Some apps might launch slower in their first launch, but they'll start in decent time on the latter launches. Avoiding heavy multitasking also helps, IF you experience lags (not all users do)

Inquire the update: Send email to update9-opt-in@jolla.com from the same email address which is linked to your Jolla account. Topic and content doesn't matter, just the sending email address - but before doing that, I recommend to read the full release notes carefully

Install: You should get a notification of the available update in 20 minutes after you have sent the email. If not, try Settings > System > Sailfish OS updates > pulley menu, check for updates (WLAN recommended). 

Note: Make sure have enough of battery charge, or keep the charger connected during the update process. Also, I recommend to keep at least 2,5Gb of free storage on your phone all the time.

Top10 picks from the update - full changelog at TJC

• New views in Maps now includes satellite, transit and pedestrian maps. You can find these via tapping "Here" icon on bottom left, then tapping the map type text at the bottom. Additionally, in the street map and pedestrian map you can also switch to night mode.
• User Interface, dotting: Most visible change, affecting in all Sailfish OS applications, is that the content pages on left or right are now marked with a "half dot" instead of line of dots on top of the screen. This might annoy some users in the very beginning, but after a while I suppose it's just nice
• Alien Dalvik, low memory killers: Information about running low on RAM is now available to Android apps. Now some apps are capable to close older processes in the background while they run low on memory, and there are clear limits when an Android apps closes automatic, last one being the one running in the foreground. This should reduce situations where users have experienced a sudden crash of an app with no visible reason.
• Alien Dalvik, several bug fixes: The most visible one is better GPS support for Android applications (network support added)
• Application framework: Qt 5.2 Big, update with not too much to see. This update has more impact on the application development, enabling new features and better coding. Please note that some 3rd party applications might not yet be updated to support Qt 5.2, which might affect on their usability - if you find an issue, please report those to the app developer for example via adding a comment to the Jolla Store.
• Bug fixes: Jolla lists 238 lines of fixed bugs in their release notes! Just a random pick: [BUG] Email signature is not shown in special conditions
• Improvements, Calendar: New meeting organizer, including an option to add attendees (participants) to an event. Also, a nasty bug affecting an event to be saved on wrong day is fixed. 
• Sailfish Utilities (new app): After installing this app from Jolla Store, you find new system maintenance options in your settings 
• Feature, Media: Search for your content added
• Improvement, People: Search field always visible

Images

Maps app, new features:
Satellite view and Street view with Night setting

User interface: Dots on top are moved to the edge of screen.
Together app settings and Jolla Settings/Accounts/New

Known issues not yet fixed on this release

• Browser: After zooming, some pages might dislocate links or buttons. Affecting on some web sites only, e.g. Blogger. Recommended to use secondary browser (webcat, Android browsers) on these sites until this is fixed.
• Turn by turn voice navigation: This feature is not coming up, according to Jolla's answer at TJC. However, several Android navigation apps are reported to work just fine. I'm recommending NavFree from Aptoide Store
• SD card: sometimes the card must be manually reattached to access the files
• Video recording: Audio quality is reduced after few seconds of recording
• Video codec issue: Videos recorded with Jolla camera and uploaded to internet without converting are not played by Jolla's own web browser. As a workaround, convert the clips (e.g. Youtube converts all uploaded videos automatic)

Problems after updating the system?

• Yes, there are. Read the release notes before asking for this update
• TJC search link, tag "bug" & word "1.1.0"

The next Sailfish OS update?

• Jolla has planned the next Sailfish OS update for November
• Follow us at Twitter, Facebook or Google+ - to be among "The First Ones" to know

Previous updates

• Sailfish 1.0.8.19 Tahkalampi (security hotfix 1.0.8.21)
• Sailfish 1.0.7.16 Saapunki (optional hotfix 1.0.7.18)
• Sailfish 1.0.5.16 Paarlampi
• Sailfish 1.0.4.20 Ohijärvi
• Sailfish 1.0.3.8 Naamankajärvi
• Sailfish 1.0.2.5 Maadajavri
• Sailfish 1.0.1.10 Laadunjärvi

Sailfish OS Uitukka - the naming

We've kept you up to date with these Finnish lakes Jolla is using in their release naming. Uitukka is another smaller lake (1,77 ha) located near Leppävirta, Finland. The surrounding countryside is famous for tasty strawberries and very beautiful lake nature. Also the previous update Tahkalampi is a name of the lake in this same area, suggesting that Jolla Sailors might love strawberries?

There are 187 888 lakes in Finland, including the small ones, so we might have more than a few updates coming up. Looking at the size of Uitukka we could speculate that this is a small update, fitting nicely the time after the Sailors summer vacations. Well, visually this actually seems like smaller update, but there might be quite a few lines of code under the surface.

Correction to the map: Uitukka is only the southernmost part of this bigger lake Särkilahti (name dislocated). Also, there's another lake with the same name and similar size located further east. Well, sails up on each lake!

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Photo credits: leppavirta.fi (close to lake Uitukka)
Published: October 22, 2014 19:50 UTC
Updated: October 29, 2014 23:55 UTC