It's been a while since we've heard anything from Jolla and its MeeGo-based Sailfish OS smartphone, but today the company announced that it's achieved a major milestone in its development of Sailfish.
Jolla has revealed that its Sailfish OS is now fully compatible with the Android ecosystem. That includes compatibility with Android apps, which the company has previously said would be coming, as well as hardware. This means that Sailfish is able to run on "common hardware" that was made for running Android. Support for both smartphones and tablets are included, and Jolla CEO Tomi Pienimäki. says that it's already in talks with multiple Asian companies about taking advantage of Sailfish's newfound ability to run on devices intended for Android.
On the app side of things, Jolla has enabled Sailfish OS to run Android applications without any modification from the end user. Jolla named Instagram, WhatsApp and Spotify as examples of software that can be used directly in Sailfish. While the company says that its devices won't have official access to Google Play, it does promise that it's working with major third party app storefronts in order to make it easy for users to install Android apps.
Rounding out Jolla's announcements today is news of an additional batch of pre-orders. The company originally took reservations for its first smartphone back in May, and by the time mid-July rolled around, all of the pre-order units had been claimed by customers in 136 countries. Jolla plans to open up another round of pre-orders for its €399 handset later this week that will be aimed at Finnish residents interested in supporting their country's mobile industry, a nod to Microsoft's recent acquisition of Nokia.
So far it looks like development of Sailfish OS and Jolla's first smartphone is coming along nicely. The hardware itself is fairly attractive, and Sailfish's support for Android hardware could help to get more manufacturers to check the OS out. Meanwhile, Android app support is something that may help convince more consumers to pull the trigger on a Sailfish OS-powered handset. Obviously Jolla would prefer developers create native Sailfish apps, but the ability to run Android software could give Sailfish some help to endure the early portion of its mobile life.
Via Jolla (PDF link)
