Jolla shows Sailfish OS on circular smartwatch

Finnish software maker Jolla has shown for the first time a variant of its mobile operating system Sailfish OS that runs on a watch. It is still unknown if and when the Sailfish variant for wearables will be released, but it is clear that Jolla is working on it.

Jolla showed the watch at the start-up meeting Slush in the Finnish capital Helsinki. The Finnish newspaper Ilta Sanomat published a video of the watch an article about the subject. Presumably, Jolla makes the wearable version of Sailfish for hardware manufacturers to use for their own products. Sailfish would thus become a competitor for Android Wear, for example.

The operation of the watch seems similar to that of Android Wear. The prototype shown has a round screen and works with input via the touchscreen. A button is visible on the side, but its operation is unknown. A swipe to the right seems to lead to notifications, while a swipe to the left shows widgets like a pedometer. A swipe up on the screen reveals a main menu of apps.

On Wednesday, Jolla announced that it had signed a deal with the Russian government, whereby government bodies and state-owned companies in the country will only provide their employees with smartphones with Sailfish OS in the future. Jolla sees its future in licensing its software and not selling products to consumers, as it did with the Jolla and Jolla Tablet in recent years. The Finnish company is seen as a continuation of Nokia’s efforts in Linux distros, such as Maemo and MeeGo.

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