Jolla officially announces early access to Sailfish OS 2.0 for its handsets

Jolla has announced the early access availability of Sailfish OS 2.0, the next generation version of Sailfish OS. Along with the simplified and beautiful new Sailfish OS 2.0 UI comes also a lot of fresh and enhanced features.

Jolla also claimed that Sailfish OS 2.0 now supports both smartphones and tablets, as the first Jolla Tablets powered by Sailfish OS 2.0 are soon shipping to first customers.

What’s new?

• The most notable change is the new and refreshed Sailfish OS 2.0 user interface, which introduces a new and simple mental model of core views, enhancing the flow of the OS dramatically.
• Navigation works simply by swiping left or right between Home and Events, like in a carousel. The App Grid is quickly accessible from anywhere in the UI just by swiping over the bottom edge - a user doesn't need to go to the Home to open a new app.
• Events tool is now richer and smarter by comprising a weather widget with an option to display five-day weather forecast, a calendar widget, as well as grouped and enhanced notification handling.
• Users can now see and do more with notifications directly in Events, whether they are from native apps or Android apps.
• Additional enhancements include  redesigned App covers for Gallery, Notes, and Camera apps, many new animations, and improvements for existing apps like Jolla Store, Calendar and Camera.

Android apps:

• Android apps now use the ‘Chat’ system tone for notifications, and alert with vibration and notification LED
• Android app notifications now wake up the display

Other improvements/features:

• Three finger volume control gesture enabled – hold three fingers on the screen and slide one of the fingers to adjust volume.
• Support for US English language in the OS.
• Supports Lohit Devanagari font (Indian fonts).
• New ambiences based on the selections from the Jolla ambience photo campaign with Jolla tones set as default actions.
• Notes can now be shared as text files.
• Media controls on lock screen for native Media app.