14 DAY TRIAL // Today, Jolla announced new partnerships aimed at expanding the services and applications ecosystem available for its Sailfish operating system, aimed at providing users with access to HERE Maps and Android apps.
As part of an agreement with HERE, the company will deliver HERE’s mapping and positioning technology to all those who purchase a Jolla phone.
Additionally, the handset vendor announced that its customers would enjoy access to Android applications through the Yandex.Store, an app store for Android.
Courtesy of the aforementioned partnership with HERE, Jolla will make yet another step towards offering a fully equipped mobile operating system, as mapping services are an integral part of a complete user experience.
“We are excited that HERE is providing its leading positioning services for Sailfish OS and that our maps application will be powered by HERE cloud services. This will help us deliver the optimal mobile maps experience to our customers,” says Jolla CEO Tomi Pienimäki.
The availability of Yandex.Store’s Android app store on Jolla’s phones will allow users to download and install thousands of highly popular pieces of software.
Android apps will be compatible with the Sailfish OS courtesy of a runtime that has been developed in collaboration with Myriad AG, Jolla also announced.
The Yandex.Store currently includes over 85,000 apps in 17 categories, enabling users to tap into the capabilities of software such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Skype, Viber, Angry Birds, and many more. Yandex.Store also delivers in-app purchase options to users, and is available in 37 languages.
“Jolla's strategy is always to work with the most respectable service partners in specific markets and create long - term strategic partnerships,” Jolla’s CEO said.
“We analyzed a number of alternative Android app stores to use for our first markets in Europe, and quickly found out that Yandex's offer is very competitive and that they are very interested in developing their app store together with us for the needs of Sailfish customers.”
Furthermore, the company announced that developers interested in publishing in the Jolla Store could bring along both Sailfish and Android applications.
They can grab the free Sailfish SDK to start building software for the platform, and can submit their creations to Jolla Harbour at harbour.jolla.com, an open, free-of-charge application publishing portal.