What is the support lifetime for the included Myriad Alien Dalvik?

asked 2014-01-05 00:30:54 +0300

epsilonijk
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updated 2015-02-10 14:41:53 +0300

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I would like to know how the support contract with Myriad for Alien Dalvik on the Jolla phone looks like. How long are we guaranteed to get updates / security fixes? Will newer Android releases be made available for the Jolla phone?

Of course, the goal should be to get as many great apps runing natively on Sailfish OS as possible but in reality, I expect Android to be dominant for a long time and many great apps will probably first or only be released for Android (or iOS).

In fact, I like being able to use many popular Android apps on the Jolla and I fear that that might end maybe in one or two years when Alien Dalvik is not getting a more recent Android release and the app developers "move on" and do not support the earlier releases anymore.

EDIT: Since it is clear that ART will replace Dalvik, what effect will this have to Sailfish?

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1

keep in mind that any phone is not ment to last longer than 2 years, manufacturers try to release a new flagship every year and release new phones of the same category every 3 month... so you are asking them to make phones cheap, last 6 years and even support the old systems for that time-frame, not to mention 3 weeks of stby and sota hardware so you are really sure to be able to actually run new apps in 6 years...

chemist ( 2014-06-22 14:20:59 +0300 )edit

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@chemist This is exactly what I refuse to keep in mind because that is not the kind of product I want or like. Jolla should be unlike the others exactly here, because that means something to people. I don't want to be forced to use something else because I get left behind. And really, I will upgrade when I have more needs but the need shall not be created by artificially limitting support cycles. Look at GNU/Linux: I can run the current software on quite old hardware, if I want to. It's my choice.

epsilonijk ( 2014-11-28 13:39:33 +0300 )edit

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sure, from a user perspective this is more than desirable - I hate Samsung for their device policy (probably wont buy a Samsung product ever again, bought a $1800 TV that has gone obsolete after a year, their apps drop support after 2...)

chemist ( 2014-11-28 13:43:49 +0300 )edit

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@chemist: Not asking them to make phones cheap, not asking them to include Alien Dalvik for free, not even asking them to include the OS "for free" or give away x.0 OS upgrades for free. But I like the option to pay for good software support and upgrades making the purchase of durable , feature complete hardware a good investment.

vandersmash ( 2015-10-05 19:31:34 +0300 )edit

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I agree with vandersmash, I would gladly pay for an upgrade. I already have problems with apps due to the old version of Android that is supported. It's sad that I will probably have to let my Jolla phone go into the drawer just because of this. The phone and especially the OS is great, but app support is not where it should be.

Birger ( 2015-11-05 10:10:03 +0300 )edit

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answered 2014-02-28 03:09:54 +0300

manut
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"Will newer Android releases be made available for the Jolla phone?"

Since Google is more and more depreciating features from the AOSP-tree and moving these into the closed-source tree, it's obvious that Android is becoming more and more a closed source OS. That's why I think we won't see a 4.3 or 4.4 variant of Alien Dalvik very soon (or not at all). Or why for example the Nokia X-series is based on 4.1 Jelly bean and not on KitKat. I'm afraid that it will remain a 4.1.x Android device at best. Which isn't necessarily bad. Also seeing that most (if not all) apps for 4.4 are fully compatible with 4.3, 4.2 and 4.1 and considering how long it takes before a certain Android version becomes the de-facto standard on the market. We won't have a problem for the foreseeable future.

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8

AOSP distributions, Cyanogenmod above all, are becoming more and more important as Google closes the Android sources. These ensure long-time support for Android devices.

Giacomo Di Giacomo ( 2014-03-14 18:54:04 +0300 )edit

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... which means that inevitably there will be 2 forks (or more) of Android. One with the full Google "feature"-set or and one which will end up with nothing more but basic functionality, leading to either incompatibility or more wasted developer time and effort to duplicate features from the closed source. In the end the AOSP will limp behind the Google version as end-users will be spoiled with features and gimmicks from Google's version. This is the beginning of the end for Android's reign.

manut ( 2014-03-14 20:51:45 +0300 )edit

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I don't think so. Keep in mind that official Google Android updates usually do not go beyond one year of the device life, after which either you stick with that, or jump to Cyanogenmod. This is leading to increased diffusion of AOSP usage, which therefore cannot be ignored by app developers.

Giacomo Di Giacomo ( 2014-03-15 13:11:54 +0300 )edit

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Cyanogenmod is not the holy cow of Android. The majority of devices isn't even supported. Not to mention that most users aren't even adept to change their phones firmware. Besides you seem to forget that Google is REMOVING features from the Open source and putting more and more into their closed source fork. This leads to reduced functionality o/t AOSP-tree. Which needs to be replaced by non-google code leading to different forks. this is not a good sign IMHO. Again this is purely my opinion.

manut ( 2014-03-15 13:54:22 +0300 )edit

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How is this an answer to the original question manut?

aegis ( 2014-03-15 16:12:57 +0300 )edit

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answered 2014-03-02 11:36:05 +0300

yves
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http://www.pocketpc.ch/

but I think this is wrong. 4.1 won't let you use Bluetooth LE and stuff, so no wearables can be used.

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5

Qt is unfortunately forgotten but very powerful language. Some time ago, I specially looked for an applications for my linux, which was written on Qt - they had the best UI for my opinion at least.

I believe, that very soon Sailfish will become very popular OS (root and iptables) and we will see enormous amount of applications even better then on android. Open community + open OS is always better. That is question of time only.

SD_Lucas ( 2014-03-02 12:19:21 +0300 )edit

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eh? What has that got to do with the question: What is the support lifetime for the included Myriad Alien Dalvik?

manut ( 2014-03-04 00:49:48 +0300 )edit

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my q was concerning the android version. it was redirected to this

yves ( 2014-03-05 23:26:27 +0300 )edit

What does the JIT to ART transformation in Android means for Sailfish and Alien Dalvik?

BonoNL ( 2014-06-21 00:21:43 +0300 )edit

It means probably nothing as the byte-code stays the same (does it?). ART is just a more performant way of doing just-in-time compilation of the Dalvik byte-code at runtime.

pycage ( 2014-06-22 19:51:39 +0300 )edit

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answered 2014-03-16 02:31:36 +0300

dsilveira
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updated 2014-03-16 02:44:13 +0300

Most Android apps, still support 2.3, our Alien Dalvik is 4.1.2, if I'm not mistaken, but definately > 4.0 which is was the disruptive one, all the other ones after that have been incremental, and has such it is a pretty recent version, and should be supported for a few long years.

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answered 2016-09-12 18:47:09 +0300

epsilonijk
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As kind of an "answer", let's collect useful apps that already don't work with the shipped Alien Dalvik:

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2

? These two apps require Android 4.4, which is the version installed on phones currently on sale.

Sthocs ( 2016-09-13 01:08:45 +0300 )edit

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But not on Jolla 1, there still it is Android 4.1.2, even after updating to Aurajoki. For me it whould be enough to have Android 4.4 on my Jolla 1.

tauchermichel ( 2016-09-17 16:36:16 +0300 )edit

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answered 2016-10-06 10:04:07 +0300

devarshi84
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So, will newer Sailfish OS version get a Higher version or not?

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2

Yes, obviously as Jolla C and Intex already have a newer android version. For the Jolla 1 probably not due to some closed source stuff. It's explained somewhere here in TJC.

mdosch ( 2016-10-06 14:19:48 +0300 )edit

no it's not the closed source stuff. The reason is it will need some money to pay Myriad for a backport of JollaC-aliendalvik to Jolla1-kernel...

lpr ( 2016-10-06 16:33:08 +0300 )edit

What is the support lifetime for the included Myriad Alien Dalvik?

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