Jolla gives first look at Sailfish OS, Sailfish SDK

At the Slush event, Jolla and Sailfish have unveiled the Sailfish Software Development Kit (SDK) to the community. This is the first time that the companies have showcased the user interface (UI) of the Sailfish OS. Sailfish OS supports multiple chipset technologies that are being demonstrated in Slush and further support is continuously being built for all the major chipsets. Jolla has announced that ST-Ericsson is ready to support Sailfish OS in its NovaThor platforms. “We are pleased to add Sailfish OS to the mobile operating systems supported on our NovaThor ModAp platforms. Supporting Sailfish from its inception shows how flexibly ST-Ericsson’s NovaThor platforms can adapt to different mobile OS’es and we look forward to seeing Sailfish powered devices in the market next year,” said Peter Oaklander, senior vice president for sales and marketing, ST-Ericsson. “We warmly welcome ST-Ericsson onboard. It is great that this industry leader is partnering with us and Sailfish. ST-Ericsson’s NovaThor platform combined with Sailfish OS will enable vendors to bring highly competitive mobile products to the market. We welcome other players in the mobile industry to join and contribute to this game changing movement. We also target to announce other chipset provider partnerships soon,” said Marc Dillon, CEO of Jolla. The Sailfish Alliance is a movement that will unite OEM and ODM manufacturers, chipset providers, operators, application developers, and retailers. Jolla unveils the Sailfish OS The Sailfish OS and UI are adaptable and will support smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, automotive, and other device classes. Sailfish offers an opportunity for developers to participate in and build solutions with existing open source projects such as Qt, Mer Core, and the Linux kernel. The new OS will be built through community involvement and participation. The Sailfish SDK consists of Mer Core’s tools, Qt Creator, Jolla UI components, Sailfish UI framework and Sailfish handset application interfaces. The SDK encourages Sailfish friends to extend the tools to support development for their company’s style. The SDK is available and developed at the Sailfish OS website. Users are able to multitask between running applications. Users are also able to interact with the running applications directly on the home view: ending a call or pausing a song without needing to enter the application. The UI features other features, such as the Pulley Menu which enables fast interaction, at-a-glance peeks at status information, and personalisation of the device to match the user’s style and mood. Back in October, it was revealed that Jolla had received $258 million in funding to unveil its MeeGo-based phone this month. The company had raised the funding from “a variety of telecommunications players” including OEMs, chip manufacturers, operators and retailers. Jolla's chief Jussi Hurmola told the Wall Street Journal that the funding comes as part of a new ecosystem alliance based in Hong Kong.