Yota, a Russian manufacturer that produces the dual screen Yotaphone, has announced that it will start using the Sailfish OS on its devices instead of Android. Sailfish is an alternative operating system produced by former Nokia engineers at Jolla and based on the old MeeGo OS. Sailfish was selected after Yota also considered Samsung’s Tizen OS as a replacement for Android on their devices.
Currently Yota is selling their Yotaphone 2 smartphone and it is not clear whether the Sailfish OS will be an option on new Yotaphone 2 devices or whether Yota will make the switch with the next iteration of a dual screen smartphone. When they do make the switch, Sailfish should provide Yota will more flexibility to customize the operating system than what they are able to do with Android. The downside is that the app landscape is much smaller for Sailfish, although most Android apps should work if sideloaded.
The Yotaphone and Yotaphone 2 are unique in the smartphone market in having dual screens. The “front” screen is a typical display with the current Yotaphone 2 getting a 5-inch AMOLED full HD screen. The “back” screen is a 4.7-inch E-Paper Display, similar to Kindle devices, supporting 16 levels of gray. The back display can be configured to show information like clocks, stocks, weather and social media updates or it could display an Android app. By using the back display, battery life can be extended to up to 100 hours.
Using Sailfish will put the Yota devices into a category that comprises only 4% of the market according to IDC – smartphones not using Android or iOS.
source: Yahoo! News
via: Android Authority
Come comment on this article: Yotaphone devices to drop Android for Sailfish OS
Visit TalkAndroid for Android news, Android guides, and much more!
