√-ʇoɾəuɐnɾ (Etaoin Shrdlu)I’ve been trying to figure out how to approach this, both in linking it to previous posts, and in describing a less-than-ideal (but also resolved) customer service experience with an idea that I really hope (some version of which; I’m sad to say, maybe
not this one) works.
I was super-excited when I heard #Jolla was coming out with their newest version of the #JollaPhone to be reserved (with a €99 fee, to be used before reservations cut off, to start paying off the €579 full introductory price of the phone, which has since reservations closed, gone up; if interested, you’ll want to check Jolla’s website for current pricing) by late February, 2026. I reserved it with <24 hours to spare, and was feeling pretty excited about it, having had appreciable (but still not quite daily-drive-able) success on my own hardware with #postmarketOS .
If a company full of former Nokia engineers had come together to make a 2nd-generation phone designed with crowd-requested features and implement #SailfishOS as their own implementation of Linux, with an Android app compatibility layer… that sounded like it couldn’t be beat!
Having happily reserved the rest of my upcoming purchase, I went off to research how it would work. I should be clear, I’m *not* delving back into my notes for the provenance of all the information I found (I’m not providing anything like a bibliography), so it’s up to you to further research if any of what I claim is concerning to you. And I hope that public disclosure and/or software updates prove me wrong, before the phone ships. But those two issues are amongst my concerns:
First, I wanted to know whether standard Linux packages (of which packaging format?) might be possible to install on SailfishOS. In particular, I saw mention of some command line zypper/npm methods to install some packages, but without hardware on which to test (and potentially brick), I didn’t have any further I could investigate.
Why did I want Linux packages? My reasoning was that having Android app compatibility would be great, but I wanted apps that would not necessarily have to work with the system through a compatibility layer, as the maintenance of security on that layer would be an ongoing problem, particularly with Google’s recent AOSP support shenanigans, and with the undescribed nature (nowhere on their website, except that it exists) of the Android compatibility layer (it’s not Waydroid!) that SailfishOS uses. Hmm; smelling a bit proprietary to me.
So maybe they have their own SailFishOS / Linux (?) apps. They do, at least stock ones (phone, email, contacts, messages, camera, etc.), and a bit of internet searching (where again, Jolla’s website was in itself, *zero* help) revealed at least two differently *named* app stores; it seemed that one was community-maintained & one was Jolla’s own… but maybe they were just app stores for different generations of SailfishOS? Unclear, and not described in any documentation I could find.
What was clear, when I looked for versions of apps I could use for daily-driver needs, was that the most recent apps I could find had been updated in 2023. Oh… kayyy. Specifically, the newest Nextcloud client I found was released in 2022, and its release notes had been updated to state it didn’t work with any Nextcloud server release greater than 31.
Nextcloud servers are not known for their downgradability, particularly to suit the whims of one non-up-to-date client. That spells security and functionality concerns for both server and client.
Again, all this might get updated for whatever version of SailfishOS ships on the final Q3~ish~26 Jolla phone, so it may end up as a non-issue. But I’m not holding my breath, for the following reason:
I reached out (as the bottom of my reservation email told me I could, with “any questions”) to Jolla to ask some of the above questions, since they didn’t have anything more than hardware specs and software claims (*without* specs) anywhere on their website.
Crickets, for two weeks.
I decided to investigate the promised refundability of my reservation. Not to act on yet; give them another week. But it wasn’t looking good. Again, this is not exactly the wording or design I saw on their site, but once “logged in” (not by username but by token, I believe) to track the status of my order, they had a fairly standard FAQ at the bottom that included (again) the fact that refunds were possible, but no link to start the process. There was an “Initiate a Return” button, I believe were the words, but that didn’t take me anywhere else, and told me to “Try again later.”
Hmm. Well, maybe they’d answer some portion or all of my questions over the next week, and I wouldn’t have to consider proceeding with a refund. But good to know that the resources they put up to process it were cosmetic at best, at least on the consumer end.
I heard nothing over the next week, and emailed them again. I decided that if I didn’t hear back that time, I really must get my money back.
I’m all for engineers having their heads down to work on the project to get it out the door, and leaving the customer side to a (properly trained with current documentation) customer service team. Having come from the former biggest mobile phone company in the world, that may not be their focus. But they should at least understand the need for it. I’m not talking about having grandma call them up and rant at them because she “can’t get the video of her niece to play on YouTube and who are all these influencers anyway?!?” I’m talking about reasonable questions from tech-savvy enthusiasts who want to support them.
I saw no evidence of their being ready for such. Better get that in line before the release. Nobody wants a €579 (and up) not-quite-brick that they nonetheless can’t daily drive, or has no assurance thereof.
So I tried the “Initiate a Return” (or whatever; I have no access to double-check the wording now) button again, and it again didn’t work.
So I wrote them a third email, this time not re-hashing my questions, just pointing out that I was within their 30-day return policy & was formally requesting a refund for my reservation.
Again, crickets. No communication at all from Jolla, this time for a solid month. Then on 4/15, my payment processor sent me an email saying a refund had been received, and would go back on my card by 4/17. True to the processor’s word, it did. It was a bit shy of the amount in local currency that I had paid, but 🤷 exchange rates.
I *never* heard a word from Jolla. I am simply not among the chosen few anymore, to get an early supporter discount from them on any phone I might buy from them in the future.
Honestly though, with this complete communications blackout, I’m less likely than ever, to buy or recommend them. I’ll look forward to seeing/reading real-world reviews after the new Jolla phone comes out, but I’m left with a feeling that customer service doesn’t matter to them, and worse, a suspicion (lacking any evidence to the contrary… though I admit it is just a suspicion) that in the end, SailfishOS maybe every bit as proprietary as iOS or Android; it’s just built atop an open-source Linux base (that they wisely don’t change; just attach their own possibly proprietary tooling to it; who knows about security updates though? I don’t because they never responded). Also, among apps I could find for it (and again, never download or try, because I didn’t have yet and have now decided not to buy the hardware to do so), all seemed very Europe-and/or-Finland-centric. Mapping, for example, or use of public transport API keys, for the US, were just things they weren’t interested in & I could see no resources for an interested app developer (which to be clear, I am not; but I would have expected a Jolla developer program link or similar *somewhere*) to get started implementing.
This last possible centrism is *not* a problem for me; if a company wants to make their devices/services exclusively for a local market, more power to them. But be clear about doing so, and answer questions if such a statement is nowhere on your website (including the FAQ).
I’m not an EU citizen, and other than being lucky that English is the current *lingua franca* of Europe, I have no right to expect to communicate to do business. But for a company whose website has predominantly English web pages available to me that are better than my Finnish could ever hope to be, the utter lack of communication with a customer who’d already paid them €99 and who had looked forward to paying a €480 balance to receive their product, is deeply concerning. It feels like a throwback to Patreons and GoFundMes that never materialized in the 2010s, and while I’m sure their intent is to be hard at work for a second generation Q3 release, that’s not what it looks like. And for people who came together from the ashes of the world’s formerly most successful mobile phone company that had a sudden decline as tastes and supply chain shifted, the lack of customer service looks concerningly like a repeat.
I do wish them luck. I also wish them the transparency to get enthusiasts truly excited about their product. At least initially and until clarity for the details of what one gets for the admittedly high price comes along, I won’t be among those enthusiasts.
If you get a Jolla phone when the new one comes out, I hope you enjoy it & feel supported. I will be more wary, having luckily at least gotten back (most of; I deem all they could be responsible for, anyway) my initial investment back, but definitely no longer in a “Shut up & take my money!” mood.
Good luck, to both Jolla & their customers. I hope both groups have a good experience.
not this one) works.
I was super-excited when I heard #Jolla was coming out with their newest version of the #JollaPhone to be reserved (with a €99 fee, to be used before reservations cut off, to start paying off the €579 full introductory price of the phone, which has since reservations closed, gone up; if interested, you’ll want to check Jolla’s website for current pricing) by late February, 2026. I reserved it with <24 hours to spare, and was feeling pretty excited about it, having had appreciable (but still not quite daily-drive-able) success on my own hardware with #postmarketOS .
If a company full of former Nokia engineers had come together to make a 2nd-generation phone designed with crowd-requested features and implement #SailfishOS as their own implementation of Linux, with an Android app compatibility layer… that sounded like it couldn’t be beat!
Having happily reserved the rest of my upcoming purchase, I went off to research how it would work. I should be clear, I’m *not* delving back into my notes for the provenance of all the information I found (I’m not providing anything like a bibliography), so it’s up to you to further research if any of what I claim is concerning to you. And I hope that public disclosure and/or software updates prove me wrong, before the phone ships. But those two issues are amongst my concerns:
First, I wanted to know whether standard Linux packages (of which packaging format?) might be possible to install on SailfishOS. In particular, I saw mention of some command line zypper/npm methods to install some packages, but without hardware on which to test (and potentially brick), I didn’t have any further I could investigate.
Why did I want Linux packages? My reasoning was that having Android app compatibility would be great, but I wanted apps that would not necessarily have to work with the system through a compatibility layer, as the maintenance of security on that layer would be an ongoing problem, particularly with Google’s recent AOSP support shenanigans, and with the undescribed nature (nowhere on their website, except that it exists) of the Android compatibility layer (it’s not Waydroid!) that SailfishOS uses. Hmm; smelling a bit proprietary to me.
So maybe they have their own SailFishOS / Linux (?) apps. They do, at least stock ones (phone, email, contacts, messages, camera, etc.), and a bit of internet searching (where again, Jolla’s website was in itself, *zero* help) revealed at least two differently *named* app stores; it seemed that one was community-maintained & one was Jolla’s own… but maybe they were just app stores for different generations of SailfishOS? Unclear, and not described in any documentation I could find.
What was clear, when I looked for versions of apps I could use for daily-driver needs, was that the most recent apps I could find had been updated in 2023. Oh… kayyy. Specifically, the newest Nextcloud client I found was released in 2022, and its release notes had been updated to state it didn’t work with any Nextcloud server release greater than 31.
Nextcloud servers are not known for their downgradability, particularly to suit the whims of one non-up-to-date client. That spells security and functionality concerns for both server and client.
Again, all this might get updated for whatever version of SailfishOS ships on the final Q3~ish~26 Jolla phone, so it may end up as a non-issue. But I’m not holding my breath, for the following reason:
I reached out (as the bottom of my reservation email told me I could, with “any questions”) to Jolla to ask some of the above questions, since they didn’t have anything more than hardware specs and software claims (*without* specs) anywhere on their website.
Crickets, for two weeks.
I decided to investigate the promised refundability of my reservation. Not to act on yet; give them another week. But it wasn’t looking good. Again, this is not exactly the wording or design I saw on their site, but once “logged in” (not by username but by token, I believe) to track the status of my order, they had a fairly standard FAQ at the bottom that included (again) the fact that refunds were possible, but no link to start the process. There was an “Initiate a Return” button, I believe were the words, but that didn’t take me anywhere else, and told me to “Try again later.”
Hmm. Well, maybe they’d answer some portion or all of my questions over the next week, and I wouldn’t have to consider proceeding with a refund. But good to know that the resources they put up to process it were cosmetic at best, at least on the consumer end.
I heard nothing over the next week, and emailed them again. I decided that if I didn’t hear back that time, I really must get my money back.
I’m all for engineers having their heads down to work on the project to get it out the door, and leaving the customer side to a (properly trained with current documentation) customer service team. Having come from the former biggest mobile phone company in the world, that may not be their focus. But they should at least understand the need for it. I’m not talking about having grandma call them up and rant at them because she “can’t get the video of her niece to play on YouTube and who are all these influencers anyway?!?” I’m talking about reasonable questions from tech-savvy enthusiasts who want to support them.
I saw no evidence of their being ready for such. Better get that in line before the release. Nobody wants a €579 (and up) not-quite-brick that they nonetheless can’t daily drive, or has no assurance thereof.
So I tried the “Initiate a Return” (or whatever; I have no access to double-check the wording now) button again, and it again didn’t work.
So I wrote them a third email, this time not re-hashing my questions, just pointing out that I was within their 30-day return policy & was formally requesting a refund for my reservation.
Again, crickets. No communication at all from Jolla, this time for a solid month. Then on 4/15, my payment processor sent me an email saying a refund had been received, and would go back on my card by 4/17. True to the processor’s word, it did. It was a bit shy of the amount in local currency that I had paid, but 🤷 exchange rates.
I *never* heard a word from Jolla. I am simply not among the chosen few anymore, to get an early supporter discount from them on any phone I might buy from them in the future.
Honestly though, with this complete communications blackout, I’m less likely than ever, to buy or recommend them. I’ll look forward to seeing/reading real-world reviews after the new Jolla phone comes out, but I’m left with a feeling that customer service doesn’t matter to them, and worse, a suspicion (lacking any evidence to the contrary… though I admit it is just a suspicion) that in the end, SailfishOS maybe every bit as proprietary as iOS or Android; it’s just built atop an open-source Linux base (that they wisely don’t change; just attach their own possibly proprietary tooling to it; who knows about security updates though? I don’t because they never responded). Also, among apps I could find for it (and again, never download or try, because I didn’t have yet and have now decided not to buy the hardware to do so), all seemed very Europe-and/or-Finland-centric. Mapping, for example, or use of public transport API keys, for the US, were just things they weren’t interested in & I could see no resources for an interested app developer (which to be clear, I am not; but I would have expected a Jolla developer program link or similar *somewhere*) to get started implementing.
This last possible centrism is *not* a problem for me; if a company wants to make their devices/services exclusively for a local market, more power to them. But be clear about doing so, and answer questions if such a statement is nowhere on your website (including the FAQ).
I’m not an EU citizen, and other than being lucky that English is the current *lingua franca* of Europe, I have no right to expect to communicate to do business. But for a company whose website has predominantly English web pages available to me that are better than my Finnish could ever hope to be, the utter lack of communication with a customer who’d already paid them €99 and who had looked forward to paying a €480 balance to receive their product, is deeply concerning. It feels like a throwback to Patreons and GoFundMes that never materialized in the 2010s, and while I’m sure their intent is to be hard at work for a second generation Q3 release, that’s not what it looks like. And for people who came together from the ashes of the world’s formerly most successful mobile phone company that had a sudden decline as tastes and supply chain shifted, the lack of customer service looks concerningly like a repeat.
I do wish them luck. I also wish them the transparency to get enthusiasts truly excited about their product. At least initially and until clarity for the details of what one gets for the admittedly high price comes along, I won’t be among those enthusiasts.
If you get a Jolla phone when the new one comes out, I hope you enjoy it & feel supported. I will be more wary, having luckily at least gotten back (most of; I deem all they could be responsible for, anyway) my initial investment back, but definitely no longer in a “Shut up & take my money!” mood.
Good luck, to both Jolla & their customers. I hope both groups have a good experience.
Moses Izumi
SenderoLinux
postmarketOS
Andrew Graves
amackif
Ajay Iyer
Dawid Mikulski
MarkusH
fooxl