Ex-Nokia employees who founded the company Jolla Mobile are working on a new operating system for smartphones.
The new mobile OS, about which the first information appeared on the web a month ago, is based on MeeGo, and may be named Jolla OS. According to Jussi Hurmola, CEO of Jolla Mobile, “The OS will be created on the basis of Linux. It will inherit multitasking, HTML5 support and the Webkit engine from MeeGo and the related Mer project. Developers will be able to write applications for Jolla OS in Qt, C++, QML and HTML5.”
It is planned that the OS interface “will be radically different from the Android and iOS user interfaces,” and hence from the Swipe UI, which was used in one of the latest versions of MeeGo and was largely based on the developments of its more successful competitors. Interestingly, the developers of Jolla are not going to make an operating system “for themselves”:
Any manufacturer will be able to produce devices based on Jolla OS.
But these are bright plans for the future. At the moment, the prospects for Jolla OS are vague. The point is in a number of difficulties that the company has already faced: this includes a small staff (50 people), a lack of support from large companies, and a limited budget.
So, there are opinions that the maximum that it can claim is the position of a niche product, both in terms of users and geographical location (so far Jolla has agreed to sell the devices only with the Chinese retail chain D.Phone Group).
But the company is still satisfied with such prospects, according to Jussi Hurmola, “it is unlikely that anyone will make claims to a company with a meager market share.”
It is planned that the first smartphones based on Jolla OS will appear on the market in a year.