Xperia X & Sailfish OS still unstable - about to quit

answered 2019-04-23 17:41:43 +0300

babo
526 ●5 ●10 ●15

You guys have to understand that we now are just some pocket money for jolla. Just a platform to show their work and their OS to big corporations and governments. We stopped being their focus VERY LONG TIME Ago (specifically when Marc Dillon stepped down).

I removed sailfish from my Xa2 and back to android for the huge inconvenience it brought with everyday usage.And I find it amazing how jolla always slaps the 'Beta' to their OS whenever they need some money knowing that it will take a very long time to get out of IT. This way, they get their 'pocket money' while having an excuse for all their possible FAILURES.

And I bet that it will take them a whole year just to get out of beta, while still having loads of bugs (as accustomed) and while we, their supporters, were promised a very funny 'support for as long as the device is supported'. Another excuse for all possible failures and/or sudden ceasing of support so they could get away with it at their own convinience.

FOR SOME REASON, I still have hope (ironically and sadly) and waiting for their OS to have the very basic features and stability required for everyday use.

answered 2019-09-06 22:35:33 +0300

ExPLIT
4794 ●51 ●87 ●92

http://www.explit.de/

updated 2019-09-06 22:36:18 +0300

I think, this always depends on the curernt needs. I use SailfishOS as my daily driver since day one. And i have no Problems with bugs.

Anything i use: Lot of Email, very little web browsing, some calender, A lot of SMS and Telegram, some GPS Navigation, 2-3 Android Apps, ssh access

It works for me. I can live with this little bugs. I can buy iPhone or every other shiny Android Smartphone, and the User Experience will be much, much better. But i don't want :)

Because they are not really GNU Linux Smartphones. Android is not Linux, even it has Android Kernel. What i want is real linux smartphone. Maybe we will See Pine or Librem 5 Devices with another Linux OSes. Maybe i will switch on it.

But Android and IOS is not an option for ME.

So everybody need to decide, what is importand for HIM.

answered 2019-08-14 10:55:58 +0300

Scurvy Jack
123 ●1 ●3 ●3

While strongly agreeing that all your reported deficiencies are frustrating, In my world, these are only minor deficiencies. Really frustrating is, that there's still no SIP support, and that it's impossible to use that "email app" for anything.
Sent/Inbox separation, introduced by Outlook some decades ago and proven wrong by hundreds of modern messaging apps - even Microsoft integrated a solution to that very wrong decision in their recent versions, can't be changed/overwritten – same for deleting mails; IMAP and moving to trash folder is similar stupid. Any MUA I'm aware of can be configured to not do these tasks that wrong... And it's not possible to use multiple identities... Well, no need to enumarate deficiences of the abysmal email app, that's been done hundred times before...

But next user scaring thing is the layout of the UI. It's missing almost any structure, which results in eye distraction and makes everything hard to read. I have friends + customers, who would accept all the mentioned deficiencies with SailfoshOS in it's current 3.1 version, but as former Blackberry users, the can't get used to that – different – layout of the UI. Not the handling, most people like the swipe handling or at least accept it, but the lack of _unified_ background/boxes/separators/borders - whatever you find on any other human operable software driven divce of this century – is a real problem for SailfishOS. Light ambiences were a very welcome step into the right direction, and also the tabs aren't that bad like written in other postings here, but the graphical implementation make them so bad (simply add a ambience matching (but ambience-independent, _unified_) background and they wouldn't look that ugly anymore).

Jolla, please take any old blackberry, and do some badly needed UI rework – sailfish might look fancy at the first moment – that's a matter of taste (while most people I know have a significant different taste), but the lack of unified backgrounds and, for example, the font blending of important information (soft keyboard lables e.g.!) with the ambience dependent highlight color, makes everything very hard to read and stay focused and do tasks quickly. I'm using SailfishOS for 5 years now, and I'm still not used to the settings menu. Some settings need to be done in the app, others under the App-menu in settings?!?! SailfishOS stands out by inconsistencies all over the place! Like mentioned, you wouldn't need to spend hard work for fixing a single technical bug to gain additional/new customers, but if you ever want to have more than one thousand users, you will have to rework the UI and fix usability resp. readability at first place. People are wondering/laughing/crying when they are faced to open the "calender app". Rellay! There's plethora of examples how to make a human+user friendly UI – not a single one does it all perfectly, but any one does it much less user scaring as Sailfish currently and still does. It's good enough to launch finger term, but everything else is disappointing and doesn't make fun to operate. Which is the major reason that I'm the only one still using SailfishOS in my circle of friends – while every body asking me, what to use best and why they can't also use SailfishOS; giving them a minute with my Xperia X and Hossa (3.0.3.10) answers that question swiftly. If there wasn't PureMaps and OSMscoutServer, my Xperia X with SailfishOS would be completely useless even for me, it was just a toy for testings/moddings – but thanks to rinigus, I can use it as quiet user friendly offline navigation device. And to some extent, for regular phone calls (if I know the number - phone book is unusable too, UI wise and due to it's lack supporting multiple (encrypted) books, with working sync support).

So to my understanding, the real problem is not that even people of the inner SailfishOS core are about to quit due to frustrating user experience, but that current UI will prevent Jolla from gain a bigger/new user base; independent of the technical features/deficiencies. Guess Jolla bets on authoritatives which dicatete the usage of SalfishOS in any incarnation, but in countries where people have a choice, SailfishOS won't be considered as alternative in it's current state – UI wise at first place! 5 years ago, there was the hope that things will change sooner than later, but after 5 years of almost no progress - user experience wise – nobody shares that hope anymore (of the journalists), hence the current dead-lock situation.

answered 2019-09-07 14:58:02 +0300

tobru
5372 ●27 ●33 ●33

https://tobru.ch/

After a long time of struggling with the decision: I changed my daily phone to LineageOS with MicroG. This was not an easy decision, as I'm using and following SailfishOS since it exists and own all devices (Jolla 1, Jolla C, Jolla Tablet, Xperia X and Xperia XA2). Using Sailfish OS as my daily OS on my smartphone was just not a pleasure anymore, there were so many bugs and issues (many of them already mentioned in this thread) in many places. It felt like it was getting less and less usable over time, more and more bugs started to show up.

I'm forced to use many Android applications, f.e. WhatsApp (yes, it's sad), Threema or SBB, all of them not available as native applications. Until last year this was not a big problem with the Android support in Sailfish X on the Xperia X. But as time passes by, many important (for me) Android apps stopped running well on Sailfish X and the Android support wasn't updated anymore for Xperia X (which btw is a shame as it's a very good device!). I switched to an XA2 and bought the Sailfish X license again, but there were so many bugs with the Android support and even with the native apps (f.e. camera not working all the time, apps crashing, calendar sync issues with UTF-8, ...) which disappointed me (and my wife) a lot.

Until the latest release 3.1 of Sailfish OS the default native apps like gallery, contacts, calendar, ... weren't updated since ages and are struggling with usefulness, compared with similar apps on Android. F.e. having 1000s of pictures in the gallery, it's impossible to navigate. Also the updates in 3.1 are not really convincing and the UI get's more and more cluttered and the original idea of the swipe UI is seemingly getting abandoned.

In terms of openness of Sailfish OS: It feels like "the Open Source OS", but it's not 100% Open Source as many components and apps are closed. This is a shame: Why not open everything and let the community help to improve the native official apps? Looking at LineageOS and the community around: This is really Open Source IMHO.

I also miss a real open bug tracker, the Together forum is not a bug tracker. And the missing open roadmap gives the feeling of a closed development of Sailfish OS.

TL;DR: Byebye Sailfish OS, hello LineageOS. I'll continue to watch Sailfish OS, hopefully being able to come back in the future again.

answered 2019-04-23 21:59:10 +0300

tortoisedoc
11414 ●172 ●269 ●287

http://kastlunger.blogspo...

Suggesting #ragequit tag. /ducks

answered 2019-08-13 07:52:22 +0300

aQUICK1
213 ●5 ●11 ●16

updated 2019-08-13 07:56:52 +0300

Sorry to say , I can confirm most of the bugs mentioned in topic, and I already moved on since I could not use my XA2 properly with or without andy. Now using Lineage 16 , and was hoping the latest update would be a good time to come back to SFOS but I read all those comments and stories about bugs and workarounds for basic functions I will not yet move and reflash back.

NOTHING changed for me to do so. ps I do totally agree with the following remarks by TS

About Jolla company No roadmap! No communication! No public bug tracker! So why use SailfishOS in 2019 if I don't have the control on my user experience anymore?

answered 2019-09-04 13:28:34 +0300

WT.Sane
458 ●9 ●18 ●22

But.... Isn't life also full of inconveniences? About to quit? ;-)

Jolla is a small company and fixes take their time. I am using SFOS for 2 Years now and I am aware that Android might do things better. I wanted a mobile that is not controlled by Apple and Google and that is what I got. Beeing happy has something to do with expectations. Maybe you are not the kind of human for something away from the mass market. Buy an iphone instead! Even the bugs on these are feature you fail to see in the right light.

Or reconsider taking the slightly stonyier path.

answered 2019-09-04 00:01:22 +0300

kro
143 ●2 ●6 ●5

Unfortunately, my patience has run out as well. Now that my Xperia X (primary phone) is having its last breaths, I'll replace it (and the Jolla 1 used as a secondary device) by a Fairphone 3. I'd love to see a modern version of Sailfish OS on it one day, but for now it just doesn't cut it anymore, it feels stale and is limiting in too many ways, especially:

• insufficient Android support ("DB navigator" started working again with last update, but many more apps failed since then, for example its french equivalent com.vsct.vsc.mobile.horaireetresa.android or also couchsurfing app)
• deficient browser (try loading twitter.com for example...).You should be honest about it and just drop it altogether, and work on adapting Webcat or any other (ideally native) browser instead.
• I never again want to use a Sony device

It's been an interesting experience (Nokia N9 - Jolla 1 - Xperia X), and I'm somehow sad to have to move on to Android, but at the same time I really want to use a phone that mostly just works, doesn't lose SMS, doesn't burn through a whole battery in a jiffie just because a carddav entry contains a base64-encoded jpg, and doesn't permanently lose all connectivity just because I again crossed a border...

So long, and thanks for all the (sail)fish!

answered 2019-09-08 00:07:31 +0300

johanh
822 ●12 ●27 ●28

Sorry Jolla, but I jumped the ship now and flashed my Xperia X back to android. It has been a long ride, more than five years. I started with the original Jolla phone, bought the Jolla tablet and the Jolla C. I still have the tablet and will check up on Sailfish OS now and then. I'm sad...

answered 2019-09-05 12:15:15 +0300

kumottolo
31 ●3 ●3

I agree on most points, and I would say that I would be able to live with all these bugs IF Sailfish was focused on user privacy, but it is clearly not. The browser is ridiculously vulnerable and does not offer any protection from trackers and fingerprinting and there are no individual privacy settings for the apps. The only reason I moved away from Android is because I care about privacy. I have thrown 50 euros on this and I am still stuck with a glitchy operating system that is unable to protect my privacy while surfing the web. I am a daily user but really tempted to quit and switch back to a google free android. My privacy will be more at risk but at least I'll have a phone that it's working.