Nico's blog

SailfishOS 4.1.0 "Kvarken"

Jolla recently released SailfishOS 4.1.0 to Early Access (EA) subscribers, so let's have a quick look at what it brings!

Kvarken?

As usual, Jolla names its SailfishOS releases following Finnish places, and this version is no exception: Kvarken is "the narrow region in the Gulf of Bothnia separating the Bothnian Bay (the inner part of the gulf) from the Bothnian Sea." (Wikipedia).

Following 4.0 (Koli), that's the second time in a row where I can actually pronounce a SFOS release name :-)

This is a minor version, so while it doesn't bring a lot of new features, there are nonetheless interesting ones, as well as some improvements.

For those who like video reviews, Leszek Lesner has reviewed it here.

New features at a glance

As usual, I will not list all the new stuff, but rather the ones I find interesting.
You can look by yourself the release notes or the detailed changelog.

• Apps can now use custom URL
  • e.g. twitter.com URLs can be opened with Piepmatz (SFOS Twitter client)
• Android App Support upgraded to the level of Android 10 (API level 29)
  • applies to Xperia XA2, Xperia 10, and Xperia 10 II
  • allows installing latest Android apps
• Audio recorder SFOS native app
  • comparable to the ones you'd find in iOS or Android
  • nice useful app from Jolla, available in the Jolla Store
• VPN: support for Fortinet VPN
  • New Jolla app available in the Jolla Store
• Location services:
  • Added support for MLS (Mozilla Location Services) offline data
  • Apps per region (e.g. Western Europe) can be downloaded from Jolla Store
  • This is supposed to improve the time to get a GPS fix; I have tested it quickly and indeed it seems the initial fix is quicker - it uses cellular towers locations so the fix is a bit rough, the final fix still uses GPS so requires some more time.

Improvements

• Browser
  • CAPTCHA fixed in sailfish-components-webview
  • (This caused issue in previous versions, e.g. with Whisperfish, SFOS Signal client)
  • "Show Desktop site version" now available
  • A lot more search engines options are available, using OpenSearch
• Calculator
  • Scientific mode now available in portrait orientation.
• Calendar
  • Fix for various issues with Google Calendar and MS Exchange
• People
  • SFOS using Google People API (instead of Google Contacts API, deprecated in June 2021)
  • Signal apps can now get contacts from SFOS
• In total, 26 issues reported by the community are fixed in Kvarken

Supported Devices

NEW! Xperia 10 ii

The wait is over! The Xperia 10 Mark 2 is now officialy compatible with "Sailfish X" - just as a free version as of now (meaning no Android support/Exchange/Predictive input), but it will be there for the final release of Kvarken.

I do not own this device myself, but some friends do, and I got some feedback:

• Battery life seems much better (on par with the one under Android),
• System is snappier than on a XA2,
• First SFOS device to run only 64 bits apps
  • this also means that some apps are not compatible today, e.g. SailOTP or ownKeePass.

Other devices

• Kvarken supports the Jolla C, Xperia X, XA2 (and variants), 10 and 10 ii, as well as the Gemini PDA.
• The original Jolla phone (aka Jolla 1) is not supported anymore since SFOS 4.

Conclusion

I have used Kvarken in the past 2 days, and overall the system is a bit more reactive.
It's a minor version so don't expect a huge change if you're already running Koli, but nevertheless it's nice to see yet another SFOS release just 3 months after the previous one.

If you're not on the EA program, you'll have to wait a bit to get it (usually a few weeks), or you can sign up for EA in your Jolla account - just bear in mind that EA is meant for squashing any remaining bug, so if you prefer a more solid system, just wait! :)

With that, as usual let me know on Twitter if you have any feedback/question!

Tags: SailfishOS