2 days with SailfishOS "Suomenlinna" 4.3.0 - a feedback
Jolla has released 2 days ago the latest Sailfish OS version - 4.3.0, nicknamed "Suomenlinna" - to Early Access subscribers - what does it bring?
Suomenlinna?
Alright, let's start with my first (and only) complaint about this new version: it's (once again) something I can barely pronounce - whereas the 3 previous occurences (Verla, Kvarken and Koli) of Sailfish OS 4 were a lot easier to pronounce.
Anyway, so what is Suomenlinna?
If we look at this picture:
we see a kind of fortress, and indeed
Wikipedia confirms that Suomenlinna
is "an inhabited sea fortress built on eight islands about 4 km southeast of the
city center of Helsinki".
And most probably the picture you see in the Sailfish OS "updates" page in
Settings is this
one.
Changes
The release notes is here, and the full change log here.
As always, I'll focus on the most interesting features (at least for me); if you want to see all the details, use the links above.
Android App Support
Previously Alien Dalvik, the Android App Support is getting better with each release, both in terms of features and also updates (e.g. Security updates, API level etc).
- It's now possible to open files and web links in Android Apps
- and also have them appear in the new "Sharing menu" (introduced in SFOS 4.2)
- I tried sharing a picture into Jopplin, and it just works :)
- Android system image is now signed, meaning that it should fix the problem
of Android apps complaining about rooted phones (e.g. banking apps)
- However this won't work for if this app requires Google Play Services (I tried with my bank and still no luck :(
- the issue with Android App Support losing network connectivity (when switching back and forth between Wifi and mobile network) is now fixed
Browser
Still no update to ESR78 (hopefully with 4.4), however a lot of improvements:
- History settings now display the website icons:
- Camera setting added to browser permissions
- A few tweaks to the Browser settings, which got a lot of bad feedback in 4.2, so Jolla is experimenting here to improve the situation.
Applications boosted
- Startup time of the Camera, Browser and Email apps have been improved
- This was caused by the App Sandboxing introduced in 4.0
Misc
- Media indexing now uses Tracker3
- I have not seen yet any difference, speed-wise
- Phone: fixed the bug where the History was hiding the last call and you had to manually scroll up to see it
- Security: a lot of security fixes, and especially support of OpenSSL 1.0 removed, which has broken some applications (e.g. Whisperfish)
- Predictive Text input now works correctly for French, Spanish, etc on the 10 ii
- Sandboxing is not enforced by default but can be used in 4.3
- It will be used by default on 4.4
Wrap Up
Not a lot of new features with Suomenlinna, but rather tweaks and improvements, Android apps start a lot faster, being able to share to Android apps is super nice.
Reminder 1: you must have enabled the "Early Access" checkbox in your Jolla account to be able to download this version.
Reminder 2: only install this version if you know what you're doing!® It may contain bugs, so be ready to raise tickets/issues on the SFOS forums if needs be!
Otherwise just wait for the final version to be ready :)
And as usual, Leszek has published his review on Youtube here, if you're more into videos.
Tags: SailfishOS