Jolla Tablet

The Jolla Tablet is a product that was the first tablet designed by Jolla running the company's Sailfish OS, a Linux-based OS built around the Mer (a fork of MeeGo) software components.[3]

Jolla Tablet
DeveloperJolla
ManufacturerChinese subcontractor of Jolla
TypeTablet
Release dateJuly 2015[1]
Introductory price$189[2]
DiscontinuedDecember 2015
Operating systemSailfish OS 2.0 based on the MeeGo Linux with Mer core stack middleware, 14 national languages versions included.
CPUZ3735F by Intel, 64-bit, 1.8GHz, Quad-Core
Memory2GB DDR3L-RS RAM + 32 or 64GB EMMC ROM
Storage32  or 64 GB built-in
Removable storageMicro-SD slot (initially up to 32GB, upgraded to support microSDHC cards up to 128GB)[2]
Display7.85" IPS panel, 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution , 330 pixels-per-inch, Capacitive 5 points multi-touch
GraphicsIntel HD Graphics GPU, 2 GB shared RAM
SoundALC5640
Input
Camera5 megapixel rear camera Full HD 1080p@60fps video + 2 megapixel front-facing camera
TouchpadCapacitive touchscreen with 5 points multi-touch,
Connectivity
Powerbattery 3.8V / 4450 mAh
Dimensions
  • Height: 203 mm (8.0 in)
  • Width: 137 mm (5.4 in)
  • Thickness: 8.3 mm (0.33 in)
Mass384 g (0.847 lb)
PredecessorJolla (mobile phone)
WebsiteJolla Tablet (Dec. 2016 snapshot)

In a successfully completed crowdfunding campaign, over US$2.5 million had been raised from 21,633 backers.[2] After multiple issues with production, financing and schedule a small number of devices were shipped in autumn 2015, while the company stated in December 2015 that due to the non-availability of necessary components, that production was to be stopped[4] and the remaining backers should receive a full refund.[5] As of 23 December 2016, Jolla had still not provided a timeline to fully refund backers, stating "we will commence with that [refund] as our financial situation allows."[6]


Prototype awarded

On the 5 March 2015, on the last day of Mobile World Congress 2015, the Jolla Tablet running with Sailfish OS 2.0, the not yet released prototype, was awarded with "The Best Tablet of the whole event" prize by Trusted Reviews. The project was unveiled and introduced during the congress for the first time publicly. It was the introduction of both: the new OS and the new product.[7]

Operating system

The tablet was designed to be a host running Sailfish OS 2.0 by Jolla. This allowed and caused significant development and major updates based on its predecessor, Sailfish OS 1.0. Fixes and upgrades counted in dozens of thousands, including :

  • support for new devices has become much easier
  • default standard is implemented Wayland (display server protocol)
  • adaptations needed for the Intel x86 platform and chipset architecture
  • further developed (upon requests of Jolla mobile users) including more reliable touch gesture based OS navigation and operations
  • homescreen completely rewritten for Sailfish OS 2.0 based on extensive UX prototypes and user studies
  • redesigned Startup Wizard flow for the first-time user experience and make Sailfish OS easier to use
  • higher display resolutions with bigger display dimensions
  • support multiple display sizes and orientations
  • browser architecture revamped for better performance and the fully redesigned interface
  • apps armed with much more sophisticated error handling
  • user hinting and loading indications
  • completed readiness for licensing Sailfish OS to 3rd parties vendors with eventual support for designing new mobile products by 3rd parties.

The new version 2.0 for the tablet was published in November 2015.[8]

Android software support

Built-in Android compatibility layer of Alien Dalvik allows the usage of software in an emulated Android environment on a Jolla Tablet, without changes to the software nor performance slow-down, as Sailfish OS and Android both use the Linux kernel. Sailfish OS multitasking capabilities allows user switching between software, both native and emulated, on the fly.

Developer program

Upon community demands for a developer program, the community beta (cbeta) group was introduced in 2013 as an endeavor to collect feedback from the community. After that, there was an invite-only pilot phase for the Jolla Tablet Developer Device loan program. The aim of this program was to gather feedback in the form of failure reports and suggestions for better process. The developers were hand-picked based on their technical contributions to Sailfish OS. Active community members (including current cbeta members) were to provide appropriate feedback during the pilot phase to serve the program's expansion in the future. A number of loan devices were shipped to selected developers with an early access to the SDK and tablet software release(s), which at that time had not been made public.[9]

Crowdfunding campaign

On 19 November 2014, Jolla started a crowdfunding campaign at Indiegogo to fundraise US$380,000 needed to release the device, with an offer to pre-order devices at a discount if the goal was achieved. The first lot of 1000 tablets, at the price of US$189, sold out within three hours of the campaign's opening. Within less than 24 hours the campaign reached US$1,089,378 and by the closure of the campaign on December 9 reached US$2,571,382 from 21,633 backers.[2] Announced was released in the EU, Norway, Switzerland, USA, India, China, Hong Kong, Russia in July 2015,[1] with a release in other countries to follow. On the third day of the campaign, Australia and Canada were announced as additional countries the device would ship to.[10] China was originally also part of this campaign, but due to undisclosed licensing reasons Jolla had needed to drop China from the list. There were not many backers from China, and they were offered a refund in spring 2015. The company explained, that about half of the crowdfunded money had been spent on Sailfish 2.0 OS software development as required were adaptations to a completely new chipset and hardware platform and it is Sailfish 2.0 performance that makes a device the Jolla Tablet, so in consequence a big part of the project was focused on this.[11]

Release

The original delivery date for the tablet was stated to be May 2015, but had been delayed several times.[2][12][13] Jolla had started preorders for the tablet via its website on 20 August 2015.[14] On 19 November 2014 a crowdfunding campaign started and was completed successfully, raising more than US$2.5 million by December 9.[2] From ordered production batches a few hundreds of devices were shipped in autumn 2015. After issues with both financing and supplier the company stated in December 2015, that the production was cancelled.[4] The remaining Indiegogo backers were to receive a full refund. In total, less than 1000 tablets had been shipped by the company.[5]

Troubles with manufacturing and suppliers

Soon after the Indiegogo campaigns Jolla experienced severe issues with component deliveries and with the display quality. In August–September 2015 as the pre-order campaign for the Jolla Tablet was started, Jolla stated it was confident it could start deliveries according to the revised project schedule. In October, the first batch of 121 tablets shipped to test the order and logistics chain.

Meanwhile, Jolla's supplier had its own issues and had to change factories twice for production, again affecting the schedule. Project delays also had a severe impact on budgets and caused “cycle of events” which led the project into serious trouble.

Jolla entered into company-wide financial trouble as financing round C was unexpectedly delayed in late autumn 2015. The initial impact was that Jolla could not pay subcontractors, causing more delays. The financing delay resulted in a fight for the survival of the whole company, not just only the Tablet Project.

In December 2015, long-awaited financing finally arrived, but at that point the company had already been hit hard and in order to continue had been forced to apply for debt-restructuring in Finland. It temporarily laid off a large part of organization. This further impacted the Jolla Tablet project.

Despite these problems Jolla declared, “This was just one death valley we had to pass through”.

The tight financial situation remained a major constraint and the main factor determining the ultimate outcome. Owing to the delays in the financing round it had become too late to produce all the tablets for the project as the supplier no longer had the necessary components and many of them were no longer available. According to Jolla there was nothing that could be done to change this.[15]

Jolla Tablets in China out of Jolla control

Unpaid devices

When Jolla's financial situation stabilized in December 2015 meanwhile in China, there was a 2nd batch of tablets waiting, already produced but left unpaid. The manufacturer had placed these under forward sales due to delayed payments, since then Jolla had not any official status. When the financial situation allowed, Jolla could buy back 540 devices from the manufacturer, but the factory had already started forwarding tablets precisely from that batch to other retailers. Some had been sold forward already and despite Jolla efforts to repurchase from the manufacturer it was not possible to get back already sold equipment.[15]

Free sale

Jolla Tablets had been sold elsewhere via Taobao with both Sailfish OS and Android operating systems installed. Those 400 devices were initially ordered by Jolla, but after having been sold, Jolla lost control over them. Jolla worked to get these back, but had no agreements directly with the retailers. This also meant the tablets do not have official support or access to Jolla Store. System updates are uncertain depending on what changes have been made to these tablets. Also, sellers were informed they have more devices than mentioned, only 400 of which can be from the legitimate batch manufactured for Jolla. Others can be, or were, produced illegally or with completely different specification. Hence Jolla warned "there are no guarantees if the devices are now similar or not" and stressed Jolla doesn't guarantee these. There is additional risk when buying a look-a-like, e.g. Aigo X86[16] or Ango Tablet with MIUI (android-based) installed or other similar devices with edited UI to look much like Sailfish OS.[17] Despite the risk, there were reportedly devices that worked correctly with installed Sailfish OS 1.0.3.0, not the proper version. Some devices were successfully updated to version 2.0 as Sailfish makes this technically possible. China continuously remains a part of Jolla's BRICS strategy, and Jolla can only adjust future activities to prevent such issues from reoccurring.[15]

Getting closure crowdfunding and efforts for resolving the tablet project situation

Considering the above Antti Sarnio in the name of Jolla has declared they intend to do the following:

  • Ship remaining Tablets to Indiegogo backers: "we will ship 540 units as soon as we can starting from February. (...)"
  • Refund the remaining Indiegogo contributors: Jolla aims to refund the total contribution, including shipping and all accessories. Due to the financial constraints this will happen in two parts: half of the refund will be done during Q1/2016, and the other half within a year, financial situation permitting.

The tablet shipping and refund process was to be started immediately once all the practicalities were in place. Specific to refunding, Jolla wanted to establish and ramp up the refunding process and start refunding during the course of February. Instructions as to what to do were to be sent via mail directly. Some enthusiasts declared they wanted the already made crowdfounding payments for the Jolla Tablet intended to be converted into donations for further Sailfish OS development, instead to be refunded and paid back.[18]

Situation at end of January 2016

The total number of customers with Jolla Tablets running on Sailfish OS will be 661. Additionally, there might be a few introduction/review devices left for demoing purposes. Failure to fully deliver Jolla Tablets was disappointing and seriously damaged Jolla's reputation and trust in the company. Those who received tablets have shared positive opinions. But the lack of delivery of devices, both crowdfunded and ordered via website, caused reasonably critical opinion. Comparing the delivered 661 devices with 21,633 crowdfunding backers allows an estimate of the scale of unsatisfied demand, and the number of customers from many countries who want such devices. Jolla had not declared how they intended to answer this demand in the current situation. It was mentioned that they were going to continue more as a Sailfish OS development, and software licensing for vendors, company, more than a supplier of devices, as those were the current financial limits and as there were other companies specialising in production and supply of devices. Jolla possessed finished and positive validated project of demanded product, but by end of January 2016 had not declared how it could be produced and delivered to expecting markets, whether it would be continued as Jolla brand product or as a 3rd party product. Jolla informed that they were to split to establish a completely new company which would be focused only on hardware and its delivery. Expected was more information at upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona 2016-02-22..25.[18][19]

Jolla Tablet refund online tool

Jolla published instructions and a tool for the refunding process. To receive money back it was necessary to provide confirmation in the tool which was online from "16.March.2016 and Jolla will keep it open at least until 16.April.2016". Jolla stated that it needed all Indiegogo backers to go through these pages in order to receive their refunds. Also those who previously contacted Jolla Service & Support about a Tablet refund must go through this process regardless.[20][21][22]

See also
  • Liquidmorphium Turing Phone – a Sailfish OS device, with built-in pre-installed master and private keys, a hardware solutions for encrypted security communication in e.g. banking, data transfer, communications etc.
  • Aqua Fish (mobile phone) – a Sailfish OS device for India markets
  • Sailfish Alliance – the alliance of companies involved in Sailfish OS
  • Mer core – the core stack of code by merproject.org, one of the main parts of Sailfish OS, free open source software
  • MeeGo – the predecessor of the Linux MeeGo Sailfish OS, developed by partnership of Nokia & Intel

References
  1. "Jolla iteration 4: news about Jolla Tablet shipping schedule and more". blog.jolla.com. blog.jolla.com. Retrieved 4 May 2015.
  2. "Jolla Tablet – world's first crowdsourced tablet". indiegogo.com. indiegogo.com. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  3. "Sailfish License Information". Jolla. Archived from the original on 1 January 2015.
  4. Lassila, Juhani. "New Year's Greetings from Jolla!". Jolla blog. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  5. Saarnio, Antti. "Jolla Tablet: Aiming for Closure". jolla blog. Archived from the original on 6 December 2019. Retrieved 4 February 2016.
  6. Lassila, Juhani. "Season's greetings from the Jolla team!". jolla blog. Retrieved 4 February 2017.
  7. "The Best Tablet at #MWC15 is Jolla Tablet". reviewjolla.blogspot.com. reviewjolla.blogspot.com. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  8. Chen, Carol. "The full transition to Sailfish OS 2.0 is here!". Jolla blog. jolla. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  9. Pylkkä, Iekku. "Jolla Tablet Developer Device loan program starting soon". blog.jolla.com. Jolla. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
  10. team together.jolla.com. "[Jolla Tablet] Which additional countries should we make it available to?". together.jolla.com. together.jolla.com. Retrieved 22 November 2014.
  11. Saarnio, Antti. "Open letter to Jolla community: through the tough times". Jolla blog. jolla. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
  12. Montano, Jay. "Jolla announces indiegogo fundraising campaign to make their Jolla Tablet (Tech Specs Inside)". MyNokiaBlog.com. Retrieved 19 November 2014.
  13. Hurst, Samantha. "Update: Jolla Tablet Scores Over $1M in Two Days on Indiegogo". www.crowdfundinsider.com. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
  14. Lassila, Juhani. "Pre-orders for Jolla Tablet now open!". Jolla blog. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  15. "Jolla Tablets in China". reviewjolla.blogspot.com. Review Jolla. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  16. "Jolla Tablets in China, UPDATE, February 6, 2016". reviewjolla.blogspot.com. Review Jolla. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  17. Temp, Tyler. "Jolla Tablets on Taobao: What's happening?". jolla.comes.today. jolla.comes.today (Unofficial Jolla Chinese Blog). Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  18. Saarnio, Antti. "Jolla Tablet: Aiming for Closure". blog.jolla.com. Jolla (Jolla official blog). Archived from the original on 6 December 2019. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  19. "Jolla Tablet: New shipping schedule". reviewjolla.blogspot.com. Review Jolla. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  20. "Tablet refund". Retrieved 8 April 2016.
  21. Lassila, Juhani. "Jolla Tablet: refund instructions / ohjeet takaisinmaksulle". Jolla. Retrieved 8 April 2016.
  22. "Things to do in order to receive your Tablet refund". Jolla. Retrieved 8 April 2016.
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