[Idea] Cheaper Developer Phone
asked 2015-02-15 19:13:35 +0200
There have been suggestions here that Jolla should explore on how to make it easier to port apps from Tizen and Ubuntu Mobile, as they share some common heritage with Sailfish too. It's a good idea.
I would like to add another element to that discussion and also suggest that Jolla also offer a cheaper, sub-$100 phone. Developers need hardware to test their device, and such devices needn't necessarily be the top of the line. If all of you (Jolla, Canonical, Samsung / Intel) insist on launching your OS's only on expensive hard-wares, it makes it difficult for us developers even if we are interested. (I think this is also one of the strategy being adopted by Samsung for Z1, which is a < $100 phone, for Tizen.)
Ofcourse, with the limited resources at hand, it could be difficult for Jolla to spend time and money on designing a new phone from scratch. An easier way to do this would be:
- Contact Canonical and Samsung, and seek their help to port Sailfish OS, to their Tizen / Ubuntu Mobile phones, and then provide the ported Sailfish OS images to any interested developer for a small charge ($10 or $20). And offer to port Tizen and Ubuntu Mobile to the Jolla phones too, under similar terms and conditions.
(I know this is a bit of a wishful thinking but doesn't hurt to ask them right?)
- Or select an affordable Indian / Chinese phone (< $100) and port Sailfish to that hardware with the help of that manufacturer. Provide an incentive for the manufacturer by holding a kickstarter / indiegogo type funding for developers to pre-order such a phone (like you did with the Tablet).
i think currnt phone will cost 100 euros in a year, when a new Jolla phone arrives
virgi26 ( 2015-02-15 19:38:28 +0200 )edit@virgi26 - I doubt it - pricing is always very subjective, and corporates like to price their phones for the maximum profit it can sell, and not with a simple profit formula of "marking it up" for x% profit.
sifartech ( 2015-02-15 20:23:45 +0200 )edit@sifartech, sure, but when you have players like oneplus (zero profit margins) and xiaomi (subsidised by PRC) bringing out top spec devices for low low prices then the big companies have no choice but to compete.
r0kk3rz ( 2015-02-15 20:41:00 +0200 )edit@r0kk3rz - Agree to a certain extent. Jolla's business model, however, is making and selling software. So it makes more sense for Jolla to release a low cost "developer" phone (or port to such a phone) and market the phone as such. For example, Samsung Z1 and the new Ubuntu Mobile phone mostly gets negative reviews over the hardware specs. But this could can be countered by Jolla saying that that the specs are low to reduce cost to make the phone affordable to developers too (and they could actually have got positive reviews for it too). Many still bought the Z1 or Ubuntu phones, despite the negative reviews of the hardware spec. This implies that even if the phone would have been targeted / marketed at developers, these consumers would still have bought it because they were interested in it.
sifartech ( 2015-02-15 21:56:40 +0200 )editI think the current set of " free " phones we have are awesome . At the lowest end we have firefox os . In the middle layer we have Tizen OS , somewhere next comes Sailfish os and ubuntu. Its choice and they are not competing with each other. My only hope is that they should challenge the apple-google duopoly in the market. Next ofcourse would be cross compatability of apps. Check this thread for firefox os https://together.jolla.com/question/1020/support-for-firefox-os-apps/
pavi ( 2015-02-15 22:37:56 +0200 )edit