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Jolla 1 running Sailfish OS 1.0 vs. Xperia 10 II running 4.4

May 13, 2022 — Nico Cartron

A fun post: how does a 7+ years ago SFOS compare with today's SFOS?


Why this comparison?

Recently, on the Sailfish OS French Telegram Group, Patrick (one of the members) shared that he just bought a "Jolla 1" (the original Jolla phone, released at the end of 2013) to play with it.

I figured out it would be fun to get some screenshots from a "stock" Sailfish OS 1.0, and see how it compares with the latest version. Thanks Patrick for providing those screenshots! :)

The Jolla phone is running Sailfish OS version 1.0.8.19 (Tahkalampi), and the Sony Xperia 10 II is running Sailfish OS version 4.4.0.58 ("Vanha Rauma").

Comparison

Approach

I will just have 2 screenshots side-by-side: Jolla 1 on the left, X10II on the right.
For each screenshot, I'll add a note/explanation when it makes sense.

Lock Screen

Items have been reorganised:

  • The time is now displayed at the top, with the day and date below,
  • Weather forecast is new, and displayed below time/date,
  • Cellular and Wifi connectivity are now at the very top,
  • Carrier name is at the bottom:

Home Screen

No change at all (apart from the Cell/Wifi connectivity at the top).

You can't see it here, but some of the Jolla apps have only one action in their app cover, compared with 2 before (e.g. with the Mail app, you can only refresh, whereas before you could also start composing straight from the Home Screen).

App Grid

Same thing with the App Grid: it stayed the same - the only thing which changed recently is the "Sticky mode", which gives the ability to pin the App Grid and launch the App directly.

Composing a text

Probably one of the areas where almost nothing changed - basic but it works :)

Browser

If you just look at the bottom icons bar, you may think that the browser hasn't changed much.
But that's not true at all: with SFOS 4, a lot of things were added, and also the UI changed (not always to everyone's liking though ;))

Of course, under the hood, the browser also evolved a lot in 7 years :)

Sharing

The Sharing picture has been recently revamped, and in my opinon is a lot nicer to use now:

Telephone

There are now 3 different sections in the Telephone app: Dialler, History and People.
I like it as swiping between them is a lot easier than using the Pulley menu.

People

  • Adding a contact: the philosophy is the same since SFOS 1.0, however with SFOS 4.4, there are a lot more options and nice "touches", like the ability to add a picture to a contact, or icons reflecting the type of details being entered.

  • Browsing Contacts: a lot of changes here!
    • Ability to search for Contacts at the top
    • Quick browsing using the alphabet is now done on the right (instead of big icons)
    • "Favorite contacts" are shown at the top
    • "Recent contacts" section

No longer there

Presence

This feature allowed setting your status (available/away/offline) in e.g. XMPP.
It is no longer available, although it seems possible to install the needed package (see this Forum post.

Facebook integration

Used to allow synchronising photos, contacts and Messenger, but it's no longer available - probably because of Facebook's habit to keep changing its APIs...

Google Chat integration

Same as Facebook, this is gone - used to allow synchronisation with the People app, as well as with SMS.

Wrap Up

Fun article to write - you can see that the Sailfish OS "UI/UX basics" are still there, but the system has evolved gradually, adding a few changes here and there.

Some people may find that SFOS isn't that unique anymore - I disagree, and I can tell you that when I come back to my professional phone (iPhone) or test an Android phone, I am really missing my Xperia phone running SFOS! :)


Tags: SailfishOS


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