Q&A regarding Sailfish OS on Sony Xperia devices

This is an unofficial summary of questions asked by community members in Sailfish OS, Open Source, Collaboration Meeting #mer-meeting 22nd March 2017 (source & full log).

Answers were given by Jolla's Juhani Lassila, Head of Communications and Vesa-Matti Hartikainen, Program Manager.

Question: To what extent are Sony involved? Are they simply allowing their hardware to be ported onto, or are they looking at becoming an official partner? In essence could we buy a Sony device running SFOS in the future?

Lassila: This is a collaboration between Jolla and Sony Open Devices Program. The future regarding "buying a Sony device with Sailfish OS" is under discussion and will be announced when we know more.

Q: Press conference (MWC 2017) slides stated, that Sailfish OS will be supported on a range of Xperia devices. Will those devices be available from the Jolla Store or will it be possible to buy them from any vendor and then install Sailfish OS afterwards?

Lassila: So basically, the practical side of things, i.e. how a user gets the Xperia Sailfish device are not fully agreed on yet. So unfortunately we will need to come back to this at a later stage.

Q: How will the warranty be handled?

Lassila: It hasn‘t been agreed on yet how warranty will be handled.

Q: When can we expect the first Xperia phones running with Sailfish OS? In case the user has to install the OS, will there be a clear, step-by-step process to help Jolla fans who don't have great tech knowledge?

Lassila: We target to have something to offer at the end of Q2. And yes, our aim is to make it as easy as possible.

Q: Will Xperia dual SIM models be supported if the single SIM devices are going to receive Sailfish OS? Does the cooperation also include Xperia tablets?

Lassila: Our first project is with the Xperia X device, further devices are still to be agreed on and announced. Aim is to support several Xperia series devices. 

Q: Which model of Xperia X? Will there be support for dual sim version?

Hartikainen: We start with single SIM version, model F5121. 

Q: Does this mean we should run out and buy an Xperia X with Android today and get Sailfish OS on it after Q2 2017?

Lassila: We should have answers relatively soon, so I'd not run to a store today. Of course that‘s up to you.

Q: Will Alien Dalvik be available on official Xperia port?

Lassila: The answer for the Alien Dalvik support is yes. 

Q: Will the devices be pure Sailfish OS (single boot) or dual boot?

Hartikainen: Practicalities are undecided, but we are considering both options, single and dual boot.

Q: Will Sony give Jolla access to the software that powers its really good cameras, so Sailfish OS can fully exploit them?

Hartikainen: We cannot yet promise that all the features of the camera are supported, but we are working on it and think that we are going to get great quality pictures out of the camera.

Sony camera app on Android has a bunch of stuff like filters, effects etc. in there. We don’t have those. For the camera driver, we are not yet 100% sure what we can have fully supported, but in any case the picture quality is far better than what we’ve had before.

Q: Sony uses lot of proprietary optimisations to make the picture look better. Will the open-source project get them?

Hartikainen: Sony also have some rather good image processing algorithms that they wipe off the phone when you unlock the boot-loader. It would be awesome to get those.

• Official Press release: Jolla adds support for Sailfish OS on Sony Mobile’s Xperia™ devices
• Info about next Sailfish OS collaboration meeting
• Sailfish OS News Network channel on Telegram