Some interesting news today has surfaced that flailing Taiwanese handset maker HTC are looking to gain market share in China which is currently dominated by Samsung (who hold a 19.4% share in the Chinese smartphone market) by developing their own operating system specifically for the Chinese market, according to the Telegraph article.
The article further states:
Development of the new smartphone operating system is part of an attempt by HTC to tap the growing demand for smartphones in China, as sales of its Android-based devices dwindle in other parts of the world.
HTC who are expected to announce their first ever losses in the 3rd quarter of 2013 are eager to get a firm foothold in the China market by, for example, offering “deep integration with Chinese microblogging service Weibo” according to the Wall Street Journal.
HTC One: Latest Flagship from HTC
The Telegraph article also states that “In March, China’s technology ministry said that the country’s mobile industry is too dependent on Google’s Android operating system” which would be a good sign for Jolla and indeed HTC if they can jump through the appropriate hoops and restrictions.
Jolla and Sailfish we already know have positioned themselves for a launch into the Chinese market amongst other things. Garnering a strong presence in China with offices located in Hong Kong and having already signed a lucrative agreement with China’s largest smartphone retail chain, D.Phone, could Sailfish be the answer for HTC ? Or could Sailfish already be the operating system that HTC are partnering on with Jolla ? With so much ‘hush, hush’ in the mobile industry, I suppose anything is theoretically possible at this stage.
Aside from Nokia, HTC are a company who have mostly excelled in making great hardware from designs like the latest HTC One or the slide-out qwerty Desire Z.
Would you like to see an HTC/Jolla partnership ?
Sail On…
Article Inspired by a tweet earlier from John Kneeland:
Apparently HTC wants to make their own OS for China. Here's a better idea guys: use @jollaHQ's #Sailfish http://t.co/Rfc8TAvpvb
— John Kneeland (@SirKneeland) August 29, 2013
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A htc sailfish phablet baby!!!!!!!!
More choices is better apples model of 1 phone per year sucks and 1 jolla phone is no good competition is good and community picks best sailfish phone for them
Well if this happens Sailfish is definitely going to have the ecosystem to compete with android/ios/wp soon.
WP has an ecosystem? Microsoft is throwing huge amounts of money at WP, Windows 8 and Windows RT and it is not working. If they stop the money, their “ecosystem” will die.
No, thanks …
Maybe it’s a little off topic, but I’m having some doubts about the gestures of Sailfish OS for a while now.
In this video the guy tries to manipulate some sliders. Although it looks like he is trying to move the 3rd slider, Sailfish OS recognizes his swipe as a flick to go back to the previous page.
That’s just inside of the app, but what if Sailfish OS can’t distinguish app gestures from OS gestures? For example: you’re playing your (ahem…) “favorite” game fruit ninja (or something similar) and you’re slicing all kinds of fruit like a real maniac. Suddenly the app gets pushed to the home screen, because you were slicing a piece of fruit near the edge of the screen. Sailfish recognizes this as an OS gesture, but actually it is meant as an app gesture. This is just an example, but I can imagine a lot more situations where this could happen (a video player with the time indicator near the edge).
If such mistakes happen a lot it would be very frustrating. I know this because the ipad suffers this problem all the time. I DON’T WANT AN IPAD EXPERIENCE ON SAILFISH! Please Jolla don’t make the same mistakes as Apple does!
This is another video I came across. It shows the user using the OS gesture for pushing the app to the home screen, but instead of swiping from left to right or from right to left, the guy swipes from the top to the bottom, which I thought was the gesture of the pulley menu (although there isn’t any at that moment). This is a little weird, but it will also be a good thing. This would mean that the gestures of Sailfish OS will be configurable.
Nevertheless I’m sure the people at Jolla have thought of a solution for this problem (maybe the OS gestures can be disabled while inside certain parts of an app or maybe even with the power button).
I don’t know if the time is set right on other devices, but on the Ipad it starts at the beginning, so here’s some additional information:
First video: 0 minutes and 56 seconds.
Second video 5 minutes and 10 seconds.
P.S. DAMN YOU IPAD!!!
AFAIK the swype system worked well with harmattan so I wouldn’t worry about that. I’m sure that they’ll be able to fine tune it before release.
I wouldnt be too afraid of that. The within app side swipe works ok in WP and should be fine with Sailfish. Afaik one can turn off the OS level gestures within an app.
To me the pulley menu seems a nice feature, but the usability is limited to special cases.
Also, the test what the Mer guys have been doing with different hw have always had adaptation issues with them. Hence, I wouldnt put too much emphasis on those.
The biggest question marks to me are:
– how fast is Alien Dalvik
– how is the battery life?
– general fluidity (so far everything has looked fine)
– Core apps (mapping etc)
– camera performance
I believe applications have the capability to turn off edge gestures, just as in Harmattan. So that for example, going back to home screen inside a game does not work unless you pause said game.
maybe it is a good idea or maybe not. As long as it will go parralel with Jolla Sailfish will have a strong appearance in the mobile market.
Actually I wouldn’t mind HTC as a SailfishOS buddy – even though my money is on Replicant.
As a former owner of htc phone (and friend of people who own htc phones) I say NO NO NO to htc.
Their phones are, especially compare to nokia (symbian) phones I owned, just terrible. Poor reception, battery that can’t make you the end of the day just after 6 months, slow interface.
Hopefully jolla will be more like Nokia, if is like HTC i’ll return my phone on day 1.
I think maybe some people are missing the point here. Jolla will always make their own hardware ie. the Jolla handset. But from day 1 they are also looking to collaborate with other handset makers to license Sailfish and get more exposure for Sailfish OS.
Licensing Sailfish to other handset makers (as long as they have a good reputation which overall I think HTC has) can only benefit Jolla and Sailfish overall, no ?
PS. I have owned 2 HTC phones both of which had excellent build quality and no problems with calls etc. Battery life was on a par with similar handsets which was admittedly bad (android = heavy drain). Overall as I’ve said many times, I much prefer Nokia hardware.
So you mean Jolla is to Google and the Jolla phone is to the Nexus and Sailfish is to Android which can be taken by manufacturers to bake into their own devices with whatever bloatware the wish to put, while Jolla keeps chugging out it’s own pure Sailfish phone? Too androidy eh? Just way too better though ;)
Yes in a way that was what they have always intended…. although I think Sailfish will be a little bit more exclusive or select working closely with their chosen partners whereas Android is more a ‘free for all’.
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I say: YES!!!!!! I love HTC devices, with Jolla would be a perfect understanding!!!
Why don’t Jolla contact HTC and cement the deal.
I personally hate HTC. Please Jolla, at least don’t sell your company to Taiwanese for few million euros.
My experience with HTC is with their (sadly, now older) qwerty phones. They seem quite nice, good quality (esp. the Vision / Desire Z) and no real issues.
The more interesting question is whether Jolla can take advantage of the Chinese interest in “not Android”, whether with or without HTC. Sounds like some serious market opportunity there.
“Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC is reportedly planning to launch its own mobile operating system for the Chinese market before the end of the year.” Pretty sure its some modified version of android. They can’t be developing their own OS (and release it in less than 3 months).
Anyway I’ll buy the handsets made by Jolla, not by HTC and that’s final cause I am very very much interested in The Other Half and also I’d like to hold the ORIGINAL company’s phone e.g. Jolla-Sailfish, Nokia-Symbian, Nexus-Android etc. By the way I won’t buy android if I get a Jolla soon in India :) :)
I’ve a very very good suggestion for jolla. If they’re looking for a perfect partner for entering in Indian market, then Micromax will be that perfect one. :) just suggested. Micromax mobiles are good but it’s using android which I hate just because I’d like to have a device that must have the great multitasking feature. Anyway, Micromax will be better not only in India but anywhere in the world as it is an international company but you can say it is a small company. But it’ll be nice no doubt. And please it’ll be very good if they can provide phones with different other halves :) :) think over it please Jolla. Remember, you’re unlike :)