Jolla: Coming soon

Short review to current topics of Jolla conversation going on, soon to be news:

15-Dec-2013 Updates from Jolla

• Another bug fix release for Sailfish OS is promised before end of the year
• New features to Sailfish OS is promised at Q1/2014 (meaning between January and March)

15-Dec-2013 Pre-order customers are still waiting their Jolla phones

• Latest statement from JollaHQ: "Due to tech problems with shipping a number of pre-orders might be delayed. We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience!"
• Few hundred phones are received by pre-order customers outside Finland
• Some more customers have received email and post office tracking codes for their phone
• More that 2000 orders have status "In picking", first ones standing unchanged for 4th day
• Additional to that, about 2000 orders outside Finland & over 2500 orders in Finland are still pending with status "Paid"
• Jolla has contacted their waiting customers nicely. Community seems to be forgiving for possible delays after the company's informing policy showed some undestanding towards customers.
• More than 300 customers have been following their orders on a community worksheet 

13-Dec-2013: DNA Stores running out of Jolla phones

The new product is either very limited or very popular. First DNA store to run out of Jolla smartphones phones was the most popular one at Kamppi, Helsinki. Finnish people who haven't orderd Jolla yet should now hurry up and find a DNA Shop to ensure having a new finnish phone for Christmas. Next shipment to the empty shops is expected to be delivered at Tuesday.

Despite that, DNA has started selling Jolla to finnish customers also in their web shop

• No orders outside Finland allowed via DNA - Not even to Åland (part of Finland).
• Price for the phone in Finland is 399 EUR. Contracts are also possible. Phone is not SIM locked.
• Foreign customers are hoping for Jolla to start a new campaign or to enter their own country How about Åland?
• Only country informed to start selling so far is Portugal. Estimated start there on Q1/2014
• Jolla has plans to go wider in Europe, and enter China, next year.
• Link to DNA shop - Jolla (For customers living in Finland only)

The First One - On My Ground (updated)

Screen capture, DNA Store in Finland telling Jolla will be available soon

Updates 12.12.2013:

• Jolla has officially apologized for the delays at their webshop support site
• Shipping to outside Finland is starting. Yesterday 800 of these pre-orders were updated to "In picking" status, today the number has been growing. There are at least 4000 customers waiting for their new phones outside Finland. In additoin to that, most of the finnish 1st pre-order customers are still in the waiting queue, while 2nd wave customers in Finland are picking their phones.
• DNA shops have received only a limited amout of phones, but enough for all their shops in Finland. Some have been already sold to public, some are reserved for 2nd wave pre-order customers until Saturday morning.
• Jolla hasn't officially informed the amounts of orders or sales, nor how many phones are delivered to DNA. A longer while ago, the latest official statement of amounts was that pre-order campaigns have gathered about 20 000 interested customers in 136 countries. How many of these have actually ordered the phone is unknown, but by the information I've received from other customers, I carefully dare to estimate that Jolla has sold mre than 10 000 phones by now. 
• Customers are busy tracking what's happening at the back door of Jolla, more than 250 orders are followed on an online worksheet. Only a Jolla community can do something like this!

Original article:

Jolla Smartphones come to the DNA Shops in Finland. From DNA:

• Jolla phones are available to public in Finland starting 11-Dec-2013
• Finnish 2nd wave pre-orderers, who have chosen a DNA Store, can have their phones too
• Jolla starts shipping phones to 2nd wave customers at the same day
• All first wave pre-order customers, both in Finland and outside Finland, haven't yet (10-Dec) received their phones, or tracking codes for the shipment. Some finnish first wave customers have the phone In Hand, many see it shipping at the moment. Jolla is currently shipping as many first wave phones as they can (each worker only has two hands here in Finland).

Jolla Smatrphones outside Finland are shipped on this week. From JollaHQ:

@Florian_Si @JaarkDS @qrosh @HelinaT @SimoRuoho @JujuDHighlands EU shipments go out this week, please stay tuned. Thanks for your support.
— Jolla (@JollaHQ) December 10, 2013

I personally understand that Jolla must prior things in Finland, as Finland is the only country with an operator agreement between DNA and Jolla, but I'd wish them to inform their customers better in this matter. Outside Finland, customers are obviously expected to be satisfied for "The First One - On My Ground". This has caused some whining and few ugly posts around the community, and not without a reason, as Jolla hasn't been totally open for their customers  in each country and each pre-order wave. In my opinion, the whole mess could have been avoided with a simple, open minded message to all 1st and 2nd wave customers: "We are sorry, we can't ship all the Jollas in the true prority order, due to an important operator agreement in Finland. However, your Jolla is arriving in a time promised to you. Please have patience... Please contact... etc."  As simple as that. Hopefully this is the future.
Tweet from JollaHQ, concirning customers outside Finland:

@JujuDHighlands You will be the first ones to receive it on your home markets. Thanks for your patience.
— Jolla (@JollaHQ) December 10, 2013

Well, I suppose that the  community just hopes all the best for Jolla - this was a small mistake, compared to all possibile walls which a startup company might have run into. entering the mobile market. First wave customers are, however, getting their phones shipped before other 2nd wave customers outside Finland. In a way, they can be seen as the topic here state: "The First One - OMG"

Press release DNA Finland 10.12.2013:

Jolla smartphones available from DNA Stores from 11 December

Jolla smartphones will go on general sale in DNA Stores from 11 December. That is also the day when the 'second chance' pre-bookers can collect their phones if they have selected a DNA Store as the collection point.

"At this point, only a limited number of phones will be available, but they will be shipped to DNA Stores all over Finland, and, in addition to pre-bookers, will be available to the general public, as well" says Cedric Kamtsan, DNA's Business Director in charge of the Jolla project.

The first batch of Jolla phones went on sale at a launch event arranged by DNA in Helsinki at the end of November. At the launch event, DNA offered the fastest pre-bookers the opportunity to buy their phones among the first 450 owners of Jolla smartphones. Deliveries to all other 'first edition' pre-bookers are in full progress.

Second phase pre-bookers from Finland can collect their phones from a DNA Store or by post from Jolla, according to where they have chosen the delivery in advance. Deliveries to second phase pre-bookers will begin on 11 December, both by post and from DNA Stores.

Phones due for collection from DNA Stores will be held at the DNA Store selected by the customer until 13 December - byers will get an SMS confirmation today. Any phones not collected will be placed on general sale on Saturday 14 December, but pre-bookers will naturally have a chance to collect their phones, subject to availability.

DNA has played an integral part in the product development and commercialisation of Jolla smartphones and is the operator with the exclusive right to sell Jolla phones in Finland during the launch phase.

Jolla is powered by Sailfish OS, a truly open and distinct mobile operating system. Navigate effortlessly with the gesture-based user interface and load the phone with top Android (TM) apps. More information on Jolla at www.jolla.com.

Pictures of the Jolla phone and DNA's product launch event in Helsinki on 27 November 2013

More information:
Cedric Kamtsan, Business Director, DNA Ltd, tel. +358 44 906 2377, cedric.kamtsan@dna.fi 
Jolla media contact: press@jolla.com  
Riitta Luhtala, Communications Manager, DNA Ltd, tel. +358 44 044 1040, riitta.luhtala@dna.fi 

DNA Ltd is a Finnish telecommunications company providing high-quality, state-of-the-art voice, data, and TV services to private customers and corporations. DNA’s 3G network reaches five million Finns and is constantly expanding, and the 4G networks are reaching new cities and urban areas all the time. In 2012, DNA recorded a turnover of EUR 769 million and an operating profit of EUR 56 million. DNA Ltd has more than 3 million mobile communications and fixed network customers. DNA and WELHO are registered trademarks of DNA Ltd. The Group includes also DNA Kauppa, the largest operator retail chain in Finland. For more information, please visit www.dna.fi.

About Jolla: Jolla Ltd., headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, is developing mobile devices and the open operating system, Sailfish, based on the heritage of MeeGo project. In addition to its R&D sites in Helsinki and Tampere, Jolla has offices in Hong Kong. Please see jolla.com/press for further press and media materials.

Could Jolla drop Beta sign with Sailfish Laadunjarvi?

Sailfish Laadunjarvi 1.0.1.10
- picks from the changelog

HowTo: Settings --> About product --> pulley menu, check for updates

Important note: The release date of the next Sailfish OS, or its changelog is not officially informed by Jolla. Other updates are possible, and we might also see another release, either with less or more fixes. It's also common in an OpenSource community to walk several paths, developing several versions at the same time and compiling them together to make a new distribution (See the amount of different Linux distributions, image at right.

• Beta related bugs fixed in Sailfish Laadunjarvi

• WLAN password input improvements
• WLAN connection possible to change directly from one hotspot to another
• Notification banner visible when checking updates without internet connection
• USB MAC address does not change anymore between connections in developer mode
• Mobile data switch status (toggle on/off) is shown on the Settings cover
• Application downloads are now more resilient to failures
• Improvements in Bluetooth pairing
• DTMF tones are not skipped when user rapidly presses keys
• Fixed a case when incoming call is silenced and there is still sound played after call ends
• Active cover shows contact names
• Support for sms: URL in Messages
• Facebook notification will not appear repeatedly anymore
• IM accounts now connect without needing to reboot device, after adding them
• Audio and video are now in sync while playing youtube videos
• Browser does not crash when playing multiple video
  More at the full changelog
• Remaining bugs and other issues reported by users
  (not stated to be fixed, but before the official release is here, it's still possible)
• 4G/LTE connection.
  - Official statement: LTE supporten countries and operators will be published later
• Social media feeds missing some posts.
  - No news about development
• Battery usability hours, reported poor by some users
  - Under development
• Landscape mode for some sailfish apps missing
  - No news about development
• Navigation feature to the HERE Maps
  - No news about development
  - UPDATE: Navfree (Android app) reported to work better now. Navigation with open maps is finally possible, and the app can even be used offline.
• Synchronization issues (contacts/events/emails)
  - No news about development

Sailfish Laadunjarvi ?

So, we have an update named by a lake. This name translates as "The lake of quality". Jolla has stated that they are using lakes of Finland in naming updates of Sailfish OS. There are 187 888 lakes in Finland, including the small ones, so we might have more than few updates coming. Looking at the size of Laadunjarvi, we could speculate that this is not a remarkable update - I'm holding my breath for Sailfish Saimaa ! However, having first changelog visible is something I wasn't expecting yet. Great work!

Näytä suurempi kartta
Google map link

User Report Tool: Jolla smartphone Apps

Reports so far (filtered)

This result table is filtered to show only app name, rating and comments shared to users. For more detailed results, or sharing the report tool, please contact (see DIT)

Android and Sailfish Apps running on Jolla

Jolla smart phone, powered by Sailfish OS, aims to be fully compatible with Android Apps. However, Sailfish OS is still in Beta stage and some Android Apps doesn't run properly.

Here you can find a User Report Tool, updated by Jolla owners. If you have a Jolla already, please join us and report any Apps you've tested, or the ones you haven't seen available for Jolla but you'd like to see.

Above you can see a simple preview of already reported Applications. As there are plenty of Android Apps available, and the number of Jolla owners grows too, this preview is kept in a simple table form for faster page load. This preview shows all the rows, but not all the columns. Latest user reports are added to the last row.

Bloggers, contributors, forum moderators and software reviewers:

List above comes from a feed, which is free to use. List could be easily sorted and filtered for multiple purposes, and for example average rating for a single app is easily calculated. Make use of the feed! I have no intention to be selfish with the tool or the user reports - I'd love to see both in use in several countries, serving several Jolla users, just like any open community project. Please contact me for the embedding code of the tool and the feed in desired format, and please feel free to copy the link of App listing above.

The purpose of this is to serve Jolla users, not to advertise or otherwise try to make money with the idea. I hope you share this ideology if you want to embed the tool to your own environment. However, if you happen to use e.g. blog advertisement already, let's not make that a barrier - reaching as many Jolla users as possible, working with a common list, is the essential goal.

Jolla phones on their way to pre-order customers

Jolla phones are beeing delivered to the pre-order customers in several countries, and Jolla celebrates Finland's independence day with opening another prebooking campaign for finnish customers. That gives another chance for new finnish customers to receive the phone by Christmas directly from Jolla, instead of hoping there are any left in a closeby DNAshop. DNA has not started selling quite yet.

UPDATE 6.12.2013 Jolla wishes happy independence day for their finnish customers and opens a new pre-order campaign. The campaign seems to be only for new, finnish customers. At http://jolla.com/fi/#prebook: "Jolla on nyt saatavilla Suomessa! Liity ensimmäisten joukkoon jättämällä sähköpostiosoitteesi. Saat kutsun verkkokauppaamme joulukuussa."

International customers are welcome to leave their email at http://jolla.com/#prebook, and they will also get notified when Jolla is available. No more information about the "when" word available now.

ORIGINAL NEWS 5.12.2013 Several pre-order customers have seen their order status changed from "Paid" to "In picking", and I've heard that few people have already received email with the packet tracking code. Jolla phones are beeing delivered to pre-order customers.

Tomorrow, 6.12. is the Independence day in Finland, so the deliveries here will be delayed to the next week - and if your orderID is a bigger number, you might need to wait for a little while longer still.

But it's coming! You can check your own order status at https://shop.jolla.com/

More status updates to orders are unlikely to happen before Monday because of the holidays in Finland. If your order status is "In picking", you will propably receive email form Jolla during next week, and after the email you should have your Jolla posted in 1-2 working days for Finland, few more days outside Finland.

Let's all have patience and let's avoid sending extra emails to Jolla, as each one takes time to answer and there are many customers waiting for their phone. However, in any issues concerning your order you can contact care@jolla.com.

Jolla towards new markets: Portugal

Jolla Oy, smart phone designer and manufacturer & Sailfish OS owner and developer, is opening sails in their home harbour Finland and is about to start selling their Jolla phone in Portugal. A long sailing from ice covered lakes to deep seas and sunshine.

Pre-order campaign is starting, and distributor Smarteki9 (which has obvioysly herited some web style from jolla.com) has stated that Jolla phones will be available during the 1st quarter of 2014. Smarteki9 is a new company founded just 3 weeks ago, possibly by Jolla itself (not confirmed).They are located in Lissabon (Lisboa) in a nice looking office building Latino Coelho. Among Jolla, smarteki9 is cooperating with at least Booxmedia.

And why Portugal? Not just for the weather. Here's five facts from the local mobile market there
(Source: ACEPI, IDC)

• Between April and June 2013 more than half a million (570.000) smartphones were sold, a growth of 25% compared to the same period of 2012
• In total 1.44 million mobile phones were sold in Portugal, a decrease of 3% compared to the same period in 2012
• Nokia has taken the lead again in the segment of traditional phones
• Android continues to dominate consumer preferences of the Portuguese, having achieved the highest market share ever, representing 82% of total sales of smartphones
• Three operator giants in Portugal have all invested heavily on LTE network. Pt covered 90% of population already in the end of 2012. The giants are:
• Pt (Portugal Telecom) and its mobile device unit TMN
• Vodafone (doesn't currently sell phones)
• Zopt (Zon Optimus) with its mobile device unti Optimus

We can see a pattern here: Traditional Nokia's are soon to be changed to Smart Phones. Nokia has changed to MS Software. A company from Finland (Jolla) might be a perfect choise for a company from Finland (Nokia). Newcomer will support LTE networks, and even the market share of Android could be seen quite full. Operators can be seen competing in the LTE environment, surely welcoming new devices with ability to make use for it.

However, entering the markets could become an issue. Cultural aspects can be handled, and Jolla might know how Nokia did it there earlier, but the competition will be tought - Finland, with a lot of home team supporters, were sheeps compared to what's coming up. It's like leaving clear, cool winter weather of Finland and entering, barefoot, the sun heated sands. Android has builded castles to these beaches some time, Microsoft eagers to have previous, traditional Nokia users to go on with the Brand, and Apple - well, it's Apple. Those fruits just love sun.

If Jolla repeats the tactic they used in Finland, they have an agreement with just one of the three big operators. I'm not speculating too much which one, Jolla has kept this information well hidden. I  make only a tentative guess that it's Pt, with the largest LTE network and some agreement history between TMN and Nokia back from 2005, when they chose Nokia's video sharing services to their 3G network. Vodafone is currently not selling phones.

Jolla, as a Startup company, will not hit the portuguese market with huge or expensive campaigns. Advertisement is probably left totally to the operator, and Jolla will just try to make a difference with what they have, advancing step by step with their ability to react faster to the market happenings. Pricing is a tough question at the Portugals current situation, considering both economics and competing offers between the three giants. For example, TMN (Pt) currently offers Nokia Lumia 625 for 189,90€. I suppose this is one of the cheapest 4G/LTE phones available there. Also Nokia Lumia 920 has a lower price tag than what Jolla had in Finland.

What is interesting, is that Jolla is entering the market pretty soon, but I couldn't find information about Jolla in any of the operators sites. In Finland, DNA published a press release over five months before the sales of the first Jolla phones. This might mean that hasn't agreement with any of the giants, taking just small step to the portuguese market, handling everything just via the distributor. Interesting to see how it'll be, at least Jolla has a lot of plans about the distributor to find partners for branding The Other Half. This coiuld mean e.g. football teams who have strong support among citizens.

"Essa do Suporte de aplicações android…..hmmmm vai dar que falar" (David Ferreira, forum post)

After Portugal:
Jolla's fleet is advancing to other parts of  Europe (early 2014), followed by China (no estimates on when).
More to come, see you.

 by Simo