SailfishOS

After nearly having a heart attack for each notification my Aqua Fish does I've decided to replace the sounds. Since I've been through a Nokia n900, n9, and Jolla OTH I've come to like being woken up gently - it's effective and doesn't jar me. The Aqua Fish notification sounds are in your face loud and abrasive.

I searched on the Internet for Jolla sounds even though I could have extracted them from my own phone. I found a download link in this forum thread - http://www.jollausers.com/2013/08/jollaringtone2/

Once downloaded I dropped them in the filesystem and went to Settings -> Utilities -> Refresh Media database. I could then choose the sounds in Settings -> Sounds and Feedback. 

This is not how I wanted to do this. I wanted to copy the sounds to the /usr/share/sounds/intex-ringtones directory and edit the stereo.index file and have them show up in the Sounds and Feedback dropdown menus but it didn't work.  If anyone knows how to change out the stock sounds please let me know.

I've changed the menu title of this blog category from Jolla Other Half to SailfishOS because I got my new Intex Aqua Fish from India and it's running SailfishOS 2.0. 

It was really an act of desperation as I didn't want to resort to using Android and my Jolla Other Half had sustained a few drops with no replacements in sight since production had ended. The Jolla website listed the Jolla C (sea, get it?) but they had a tiny production run and were sold out. Come to find out the Jolla C is none other than the Intex Aqua Fish being manufactured in India. 

I ordered my Intex Aqua Fish from ebay India and had to jump through a few really weird hoops concerning Paisapal. Ebay India doesn't use Paypal, they use a system called Paisapal which wanted me to take a photo of my credit card and email it to them. That's a bit scary as we're relying on security through obscurity. When it appeared the request was legitimate I proceeded to take the photo of only the front, mask out the date and put it in a PDF.  This way it was a bit harder to find and thieves didn't have my CCV or expiration date. Still felt weird. 

A couple of days later the $81 for the phone and $20 for shipping were debited and a week after that I was the proud owner of a new Sailfish OS phone! 

I've had my Jolla Other Half for a couple of months but I've held off on using it as my main phone due to my Nokia N9 still working fine and the Jolla is super slippery. Yes, the phoneback might as well be made of ice. I'm fairly sure that if I carried it that way it would last all of a week so I set out to do something about it.

Introducing what the guys at work call my "hipster phone" - a faux leather covered Jolla Other Half! It turned out pretty good and I hope to put up my pattern if anyone else wants to do this but it will have to wait until I have time to finish it.

I've never had a phone that got so much attention as the Jolla and that was BEFORE I skinned it. To me it looks like a big flat rectangle, not that exciting but for some reason people are drawn to it and people ask me several times a week what kind of phone it is. It goes something like this

Me: It's a Jolla

Them: A what?

Me: A Jolla, it's a Finnish company

Them: I've never heard of it.

Me: It's new, they just started making them last November and they became available in Europe in January.

Them: I've never seen one before.

Me: They're not sold here yet.

Them: Is it Android?

Me: No, it's SailfishOS but it can run Android apps

Them: <confused look followed by silence>

That's pretty much how it goes. A couple of times I've gotten so far as explaining that a bunch of folks from Nokia started a new company called Jolla. Twice I got that it was Linux based out and once I got to show them how the back comes off and that it's modular who which they exclaimed "That's flippin' cool!". Yes, yes it is but currently it's more of a gimmick than anything as there's not much to plug into it.

I got my Jolla TOH (The Other Half) a couple of weeks ago and I'm still not using it as my main phone for a couple of reasons - 1. It's so very slippery 2. It has no screen protector. Yes, it has Gorilla Glass 2 and people in the Jolla forums keep saying you don't need a screen protector but that's what they said about my Nokia n9 too and I managed to scratch that screen. To put my mind at ease I wanted to put a screen protector on my Jolla but currently nobody makes one. I imagine since the phone still isn't available in the States it will be quite some time before there's accessories for it. With that in mind I went looking for an alternative.

Most screen protectors for other phones have cutouts for front facing cameras, buttons and microphones all in the wrong places or their screen is a completely different size. The Jolla has a 4.5 inch screen but the glass area is closer to 4.9 inches. One one end the front facing camera and microphone take up a bit of space so ideally I need a protector 4.7 inches long with no cutouts. The HTC One ended up being my best chance so I ordered a three pack of plastic screen protectors for the HTC One and boy do they fit the Jolla. I'd say there's NO room side to side as it's a perfect fit. Lengthwise there's about a 1/4 of an inch or less of uncovered space where the camera and mic are. I couldn't imagine a better fit from a screen protector that isn't designed for the Jolla.

With that I installed it and am very happy with the fit. However, what I really want is a tempered glass screen protector which Amazon has for $25. Now that I know the HTC One protectors are perfect I'll probably order one. Stay tuned.