A brand new Company called Jolla is set to start selling a new smartphone that comes with an operating system called Sailfish.
Run by former Nokia employees, the Sailfish OS has been developed around the remnants of MeeGo, a project that was dumped by Nokia in 2011 in favour of the struggling Windows Phone OS.
The new Jolla smartphone will only be sold online.
“For a couple of years we haven’t had anything really interesting in the mobile phone market,” said Antti Saarnio, chairman and co-founder of Jolla.
“This creates opportunities for newcomers to come in. It’s different, but it’s purposefully different.”
The BBC says the phone has a 4.5-inch screen, with an 8MP camera. It supports 4G and is compatible with apps made for Google’s Android.
Among the handset’s other features is what the company has called “The Other Half.”
The coloured back of the phone is interchangeable – and the operating system’s interface will change depending on what type of cover you have.
These changes could include, for example, team colours for a football team.
Antti Saarnio Chairman, of Jolla told the BBC: “You connect it to the phone, and the user interface reflects the players and colours of the team. It’s an interesting way to show you ‘belong’ with something.”
He would not confirm how exactly this feature works – but many speculate the use of near-field communication (NFC) technology.
Mr Saarnio left Nokia in 2011, along with several other employees who had been working on a joint Nokia-IBM project to create a new mobile operating system to rival the likes of Apple’s iOS and Google Android.
