Great news for Android phone users who want to try out the Sailfish OS experience. Next week Jolla starts a community testing for the 'Jolla Launcher' alpha version. In addition Nexus 4 users will get a new Sailfish OS imagine (possibly 1.0.7.16) by next Monday.
Jolla Launcher community Alpha testing
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| Sailfish Launcher on Android (Source: Twitter) |
owners get an opportunity to try out the Sailfish OS experience in a simple and risk-free way. The launcher which works on top of Android OS shows the possibility of a gesture-based swipe user interface. The so called 'Jolla Launcher' can be used the same way like popular Android launchers "GO Launcher Ex" and "Nova Launcher". That means you still use Android applications and don't need to re-install anything - but you get a new user interface and different icons.
The Jolla Launcher can be seen as a creative publicity for Sailfish OS - there certainly are Android users who will hear the name Jolla for the first time thanks to the launcher. Those who like the launcher might be interested in using the real Sailfish OS at some point.
If you are interested in testing the launcher, you can sign up with a valid Gmail address till June 27, 2014, preferably being a Nexus 4 or 5 owner.
The Alpha testing phase is targeted mainly for Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 devices. The Jolla Launcher Alpha can also be installed on many other devices running Android 4.3 or later.
- Send an email to jolla-launcher@jolla.com from your Google account
- Include the following information: your name, and which device(s) your using
- Wait to receive the Google Play installation link and further instructions
For more information and original announcement: together.jolla.com
New Sailfish OS image for Nexus 4
Testers of the Nexus 4 (Mako) Sailfish OS image are still on version 1.0.5.16. The update has been postponed due to a problem discovered during testing phase (according to Jolla's Chief Research Engineer Carsten Munk via IRC).
Version 1.0.7.16 should be available by next Monday with instructions on how to replace the existing Sailfish image. Nexus 4 owners who subscribed for testing will receive an email with the instructions and download link to the image (which seems to be already available here: sailfishos-mako-release-1.0.7.16-EA3.zip - it's recommended though to wait for the official announcement/instructions!).
Source of Sailfish image: talk.maemo.org
