Another milestone release by Jolla: The 'Jolla Launcher' hits a limited public testing with version 0.2.0. The first few hundred registered Alpha testing candidates just received an email with instructions to install the Jolla Launcher.
The email contains a Google Play Store link and invitation which is tied to your Gmail account. The launcher is very impressive - have a look at the key features and some screenshots and 2 videos in this post.
Key features of Jolla Launcher Alpha version
- Open phone via Jolla lock screen
- observe time and other indicators
- use pulley menu to quickly mute the device or open phone/settings /camera application
- Start Android applications from Jolla application grid
- Swipe back to home from any application
- See Running applications in application covers (application cover shows partly screen capture of Android application)
- Go back to application by pressing it's cover
- Select Ambience from Ambience menu (some preselected Ambiences are provided)
- With top swipe you can get access to Android events view (Android status bar is normally hidden on the launcher)
- Jolla Launcher UI tutorial (first time when started, there is a tutorial to learn the basics of Jolla Launcher UI)
Jolla Launcher is based on Sailfish OS Update 7 level code. This 20MB big release targets and runs best Nexus 4 and 5 devices. Of course it is possible to run it on other devices as well - but the launcher isn't optimized yet for them. It also runs on a Nexus 7, but there are some graphical glitches with open multi-task windows and background.
More official information and instructions for bug reports here: together.jolla.com - Jolla Launcher
You might wonder why only a limited number of testers are allowed to download the launcher. The reason is that Jolla was surprised by the huge interest (and therefore the amount of potential testers) and they probably can't handle to many testers and input at the moment. In August more signed up community testers will be able to participate tough.
You might wonder why only a limited number of testers are allowed to download the launcher. The reason is that Jolla was surprised by the huge interest (and therefore the amount of potential testers) and they probably can't handle to many testers and input at the moment. In August more signed up community testers will be able to participate tough.
An amazing experience
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| Welcome screen and instructions |
After those few minutes of testing, I can say: Wow, I'm amazed. Android really looks and feels like Sailfish OS. Many animations (Pulley-Menu, 'peek' swiping, etc) are the very same and the launcher runs fluid. The multitasking view looks nice because the launcher creates a screenshot of the upper-left part of an open application (even though that doesn't seem to work yet all the time). If you want to experience true multitasking you naturally have to get the real Sailfish OS (which I can highly recommend btw)...
Jolla's Launcher also comes with some Silica icons and folders, 2 beautiful wallpapers which change the ambience. Your selected main/standard apps like OsmAnd Maps (Open Street Maps) or Google Maps get the native Silica maps icon, same with 'Apollo' music player being decorated with the purple Jolla Media icon in my case.
Congratulations to the 'Jolla Launcher' development team for that brilliant job. Even though this is just the Alpha version, it is already very impressive. Below you have some official screenshots and great first Youtube review.
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| Jolla Launcher screenshots as shown on Google Play |
On-screen recorded video showing features of Jolla Launcher:
