Today we started offering the Sailfish X Beta software package including the much awaited Android application support. You can get it now for your Sony Xperia XA2, Xperia XA2 Plus, and Xperia XA2 Ultra devices from the Jolla Shop!

The awaited Android application support includes major architectural changes, and upgrades the support from Android 4.4.4 to Android 8.1, significantly improving the Android app compatibility. This is a major upgrade in the Android Runtime in Sailfish OS as it will open up a wide range of additional apps to enjoy in your beloved Sailfish device and, even though still in beta, we’re confident that you’ll enjoy using it to take full advantage of the latest apps – if you prefer to use Android apps on your device of course.

As already stated in our earlier blog post, the now released version of the Android app support is a public beta. At this stage it still has many known issues but we still wanted to make it available, and thus we had to make the call to offer the Android app support part of the package free of charge for the time being until the beta label is removed.

The Sailfish X beta will cost 29,90€ for the time being, and comes with predictive text input, MS Exchange Support, software updates and support, and a free beta option of the updated Android application support. If you purchase Sailfish X Beta for your XA2 range device now, you will get the future updates, removing the beta tag, without any additional costs.

How is Sailfish OS Android 8.1 Apps Support better than the earlier 4.4.4?

Along with this upgrade comes many improvements, and here are a couple of them:

Newer APIs allowing many more apps to work

Many mobile banking apps and apps that require non-rooted devices are compatible

More secure with latest security fixes

Improved memory handling

Improved performance

Better notification integration

Why do we call it Sailfish X Beta?

We’ve seen that many of our community members and Sailfish fans have been eagerly waiting for this update for some time now, and thus we wanted to release it even though it still has some known issues. Here is the list of the main common issues you will face with Sailfish X Beta on your Xperia XA2 range device. More details about these can be found in the Release notes.

1. Mobile data is not detected properly by some Android apps. These issues occur e.g. with Aptoide, Spotify, Messenger, and Twitter. We recommend to use WLAN for setting up Android apps.

2. Recently created files (e.g. photos) are not always detected by Android apps (device restart may be needed)

3. Audio and multimedia are not fully functional in all apps

4. Battery consumption is high when connected to WLAN networks

In addition, please remember that Sailfish OS Android Runtime does not support Google Play services; therefore certain apps requiring those services may not function properly.

Further info on Sailfish X can be found in Jolla.com and to put it simply here is what is currently available:

The non-beta Sailfish X software package is currently available for Sony Xperia X devices only (with the older Android Runtime).

We hope you will enjoy Sailfish X Beta on your preferred Xperia XA2 device! As there are issues with the release, please provide feedback to us at together.jolla.com: report issues, ask questions, help others by providing answers, and comment or vote on the issues. This helps us to prioritize our work to fix most important issues first.

Keep on sailing!

Vesku