Jolla Pushes Out Sailfish OS 2.1.4 Into Early Access

[DrYak]

Okay, thanks for the explanation (yup, I see what you mean by stand alone GPS' night mode)

Under Sailfish, as mentioned by others above, you have "ambiances" which let you theme you phone. Each ambience can have it's own set of settings, sound theme, etc. in addition to background picture.

Lots of people use Situations which let you write rules and change settings (including ambiences) based on them. You could switch easily between a day and night ambience based on a clock, but currently there's no way to easily detect a dark room. you'd have to detect "indoor" condition indirectly (e.g.: GPS position, visible Wifi networks, Cell towers, etc.)

Given that the Xperia X screen is an IPS LCD, a theme won't change the power use much except by lowering the screen brightness.
(unlike OLED screens, there's no big difference between white and dark pixels on small-sized LCD).

[Nille_kungen]

I can't manage to find information about Night mode. Is that some screen backlight auto setting for when using in a dark room/setting ?

If you ever used an dedicated GPS in your car, the ones that was very common before the smartphones, then you also know that when the night came it changed theme an everything was dark no mater what you did or what application you used then you know what the "new" night mode is.
It's not something new and personally i like to use dark themes all the time like the Nokia N9 had by default and it also saves battery.
Some night modes only makes the screen a little darker like if you lower the brightness on your laptop.

[GraysonPeddie]

Twilight changes the color temperature by removing the blue component of the screen depending in the intensity (where low intensity removes a bit of blue while full intensity removes blue completely, making it look yellow or red depending in color temperature). Dimming a screen does not remove the blue component of the screen. Ever tried Night mode in GNOME 3.26+ and Night mode in Windows 10?

And yes, I use my smartphone as an electronic magnifier. There are Android apps out there that can do that, although most of the apps contain ads. There are magnifying apps that can let you turn on the LED light. This makes it very useful if I don't carry a separate magnifier, as I'd like to have a 5.5"+ screen. Even better, 6" at 16:9, but most people don't like carrying large phablets for one-handed operation. I do not have sources to back up my claim, as there are not that many smartphones that have 6"+ with a 16:9 display. Sure, there are 6" 18:9 phones out there, but height in landscape mode is more important to me and width in portrait mode. I could settle for 5.5" screen for Purism Librem 5, though.

[DrYak]

Are there any budget smartphones that will allow me to install Sailfish OS as a holdover for when Purism releases Librem 5 by early 2019?

As others have mentioned, you can find Sony Xperia X at discounted prices, now that it's not Sony's Flagship anymore.
It's not a *budget* phone per se, but it's something that you're going to find more discounted in the future, as vendors will look to put more recent Sony Xperia phones on the shelves.

(And given how Sailfish OS is lightweight, it's still a very responsive phone).

I downgraded my Android smartphone from Oreo to Nougat because night mode is exclusive to Pixel smartphones {...} Anyway, does Sailfish have a night mode feature similar to GNOME?

I can't manage to find information about Night mode. Is that some screen backlight auto setting for when using in a dark room/setting ?
(Sailfish handles some automatic light detection and screen brightness adjustments
There information in forums and 3rd party patches/utils about how to tweak it.
Out of the box I find the brightness a bit erratic)

and I do not like the new quick settings in Oreo. Plus, I get double notification sound from Twitter in Oreo versus one in Nougat.

Keep in mind that although Sony *is* encouraging experimenting with 3rd party OSes on their Xperia devices (there's this open device program they're having) so it's definitely not an unofficial OS - Jolla and Sony are collaborating a bit on this one - BUT it's still very early versions.
They're bound to be a few hiccups, so if you don't like Oreo because not everything is perfect, then I wouldn't recommend counting on either Sailfish X for now, nor on Purism's Librem 5 during its first year or so.

(Though I can't vouch for this early release version 2.1.4 - I'm waiting for the final public release before updating my Xperia and keeping on 2.1.3 for now).

but as I want control over my smartphone and tinker what's in it, I'll be waiting for Librem 5 which I can have GNOME in my smartphone I want freedom and whatever changes Google makes to Android that I'm not satisfied, I could care less about buying new smartphone that would come with Android 9.0 or later,

I totally understand the "I want control". It's the reason for my preference toward GNU/Linux running phones.

Fairphone is exclusive to Europe and I'm in the US.

Hopefully, one day, cell phone radio standards will converge to the point where phone work world-wide with full features.

Xperia X at less than $300 in Amazon is small at 5", as I want more real-estate for reading web pages (Firefox) and viewing restaurant menus using the camera.

You mean using your smartphone as an electronic magnifier/reading glasses ?

[GraysonPeddie]

The Fairphone 2's (Android 6 with monthly security updates + LineageOS officially available) integrated Night Mode even overlays the navigation bar (but can't modify color temperature). In F-Droid there's the Red Moon app which may be worth a try regarding overlaying the notification area.

Fairphone is exclusive to Europe and I'm in the US. However, a smartphone with a removable battery is very important to me. Plus, a Fairphone that is open and ethical is also a bonus to me if only I were in Europe (Netherlands is my favorite country for the biking/transportation infrastructure). The only downside is a 5" screen, which I'm used to a 5.7" 16:9 display.

And I'd hope the Librem5 would not become a vaporware, as I am going to keep an eye in them, especially in Twitter and around the Internet.

Xperia X at less than $300 in Amazon is small at 5", as I want more real-estate for reading web pages (Firefox) and viewing restaurant menus using the camera.

Anyway, thanks guys. I will keep my Nexus 6P and stay with Nougat for the time being until 2019. I hope my battery in my smartphone can last for a while given the tweets about battery problems. I once had my smartphone shutdown while waiting for Uber driver to take me back to the campus a couple of months ago and it left me stranded, so I have a battery pack to keep my smartphone alive.

https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%23nexus6p%20battery&src=typd

Anyway, it's not my place to go off-topic.

[deant]

I have night mode on my huawei p9 android 7.

[Nille_kungen]

I have used Jolla1 for ~6 years as my daily phone, now I'm back on Android LineageOS and Xiaomi MI5s

Oh you had an pre-release phone coder?
Late 2013 is when i bought mine the JP-1301 (i read the model like Jolla Phone, year (20)13, model 01).
Or did you suffer of the technology years where times goes faster, it happens to me every now an then and i need to double check.

[luca247]

What an exciting shiny new update that is 100% useless to me.

Since they have not been honorable and delivered on their open source promise I hope their company bursts into flames and ceases to exist.

May KDE & UBports bury them with shame and outdo them in evert way possible.

at this moment kde plasma can't even open the camera app, and ubports are working really really slow (much more than jolla)...yep i can really see them burning sailfish...sure...

[Girolamo_Cavazzoni]

I downgraded my Android smartphone from Oreo to Nougat because night mode is exclusive to Pixel smartphones and I do not like the new quick settings in Oreo. Plus, I get double notification sound from Twitter in Oreo versus one in Nougat. As for night mode, I tried Twilight that changes the color temperature of the screen but it does not overlay the notification/quick settings tray, making them white which blinded my eyes, so I quit using my smartphone during night time. But once I downgrade to Nougat and installed Twilight, Twilight overlays the entire screen except for navigation keys which do not blind my eyes that much as I focus on the screen.

The Fairphone 2's (Android 6 with monthly security updates + LineageOS officially available) integrated Night Mode even overlays the navigation bar (but can't modify color temperature). In F-Droid there's the Red Moon app which may be worth a try regarding overlaying the notification area.

[coder111]

Hi,

Unofficial ports are available on following devices:

https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Adaptations/libhybris

Unofficial ports will NOT include Android support (aliendalvik), but there are some anbox based projects in alpha stages to get android apps to run.

I think you will find best support for OnePlus, Xiaomi, Nexus or Sony Xperia X devices. Keep in mind that OnePlus is preloaded with spyware with stock roms.

Also, I have NOT attempted to install any unofficial port, so I cannot advise whether it is difficult or easy to do or how broken the whole thing is. I have used Jolla1 for ~6 years as my daily phone, now I'm back on Android LineageOS and Xiaomi MI5s

With regards to night mode- Sailfish has ambiances, which can turn the whole phone light or dark. It's mostly darkish by default, I mean colour scheme is mostly white on black.

--Coder

Are there any budget smartphones that will allow me to install Sailfish OS as a holdover for when Purism releases Librem 5 by early 2019?
Anyway, does Sailfish have a night mode feature similar to GNOME?