First Real Alternative to iPhone and Android

Sailfish (Photo credit: Brian Auer)

Mashable reports that a First Real Alternative to iPhone and Android is emerging. Jolla, a Finnish startup, launched a new mobile OS called Sailfish, which the company believes will become a legitimate alternative to the Coke and Pepsi of smartphone platforms: Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

While the user interface is critical for a new mobile operating system, getting developers on-board is just as important. Jolla has been building its SDK to support smartphones, which consists of Mer Core’s tools, Qt Creator, Jolla UI components, Sailfish UI framework and Sailfish handset application interfaces.

If contributors wish to add support to open standards, they are encouraged to share it with the community to help build the Sailfish OS.

Sailfish’s open nature will ensure that it can support Android applications. Jolla explains:

Many Android applications will run on Jolla devices unchanged. If you want to take advantage of all UI and other features of Sailfish OS and make yourapplications fast, you can port your applications to native QT/QML.

It’s a good start for Jolla, now it has to deliver.

Apple Rejects Claim About FBI Collaboration for unique device identifiers (UDID)

Hacking group Antisec are claiming to have obtained 12 million UDID (unique device identifier) records and related personal information. The 40 character UDID code Devworx-AntiSec has published more than 1 million devices and claims that it was stolen from an FBI laptop.

In the wake of such unsettling news, a number of questions and concerns have mounted with regard to how the information was procured and why it was in possession of the feds. It should be noted that the FBI is denying all claims and maintains that “at this time there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data.”

Apple isn’t saying much either, except that the iDevice maker isn’t working with the FBI on a covert operation of any sort. “The FBI has not requested this information from Apple, nor have we provided it to the FBI or any organization. Additionally, with iOS 6 we introduced a new set of APIs meant to replace the use of the UDID and will soon be banning the use of UDID,” Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris told All Things D on Wednesday.

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