Russian device maker Yota sells dual-screen phones

Jun 30, 2015 07:33 GMT  ·  By

A few months ago, a report came in highlighting Russia’s growing uneasiness with the dominant mobile platforms on the market, Android and iOS.

In an attempt to break free from this dominance, Russian Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov revealed that official discussions had been initiated with Finnish company Jolla about the possible development of an “independent” smartphone OS that was supposedly going to be based on Sailfish OS.

Well, it seems that not only the government is pushing towards alternate mobile OSes but also device makers in the country, as many of them seem to be on the same page.

It’s the case of Yota, the maker of the first smartphone to come with dual displays (one regular and an e-Ink one). The startup’s current product, the YotaPhone 2, is shipping out to customers with Android OS on board. But according to a new report coming out of Hi-Tech.Mail (via GSM Dome), YotaPhone might soon renounce the services of Android and turn towards Sailfish OS instead.

New YotaPhones coming with Sailfish OS

Initially, Samsung’s Tizen OS was taken into consideration, but in the end, Jolla was deemed to be the worthier platform. According to the information we have on our hands, Jolla representatives met with Russian partners in order to come up with the terms of the partnership.

Still, at the moment, we’re not being told exactly whether Android will be removed from current models like the YotaPhone 2 or from future units.

Actually, the startup is prepping two upcoming models that are bound to make it out on the market sometime before the end of the year.

Yota’s Managing Director for the Americas confirmed a while ago that the next products slated for release were YotaPhone 3 and YotaPhone 2c. So these could actually be the first models offered by the Russian company with Sailfish OS out of the box.

Apparently, a YotaPhone prototype running on the Sailfish OS platform is already available and Russia’s Minister of Communication was able to play with it a little and he noted the device ran just fine.

We’re also told that the development and evolution of Sailfish in Russia will be strictly dictated by Russian companies (and therefore the government).