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Introduction
Back in 2023, I tracked down a new, boxed Sony Xperia 10 III: the latest phone that was officially supported by Jolla for use with their Sailfish OS.
The Sailfish OS is a beautiful thing but there are a few frustrations around Sony's open device program that provides drivers for their phones for us with OSes other than android.
Additionally, there were quite a few issues and limitations at the time around the OS that couldn't be resolved.
In the end, I found that I didn't have the time or patience to persevere with Sailfish and, in summer of 2024, I went back to using Windows Mobile on my Lumia 950, which worked as a fantastic escapism phone. It has a superb camera and a lack of intrusive surveillance on the part of the OS vendor.
More recently, the age of Windows Mobile, which ceased to receive new features long before it was officially unsupported in 2020, started limiting its usefulness.
One of the first problems was that Onedrive couldn't be used after I needed to disable/re-enable it for troubleshooting.
The OAuth2 security theatre was never implemented in Windows Mobile, meaning that Hotmail, which I sadly still have to rely on sometimes, can no longer be used.
When I added the AnubisBB plugin to the SFXB Forum, the browser was no longer able to log in after I had to clear the browser's cookies.
I took the last point as a nudge to have another try with Sailfish.
In summer of 2026, I tried to resuscitate the 10 III that had sat in a drawer for 2 years.
Nomatter which power adapter I used, I couldn't get the device to power on until I suddenly needed to get some data from it and plugged it into my ASUS monitor to charge.
At that point, it decided to co-operate.
I got the data that I needed and updated the OS from 4.6.0.x to 5.1.0.11 and began to find that a lot of the issues that I'd been having had been resolved.
With a little bit more time on my hands, I was able to properly investigate the remainder of the issues and fix them.
General
I've found with a lot of phones, you just have to sync your contacts in whatever way the phone lets you.
With Windows Mobile, the only effective way was to use a Hotmail/Live.com/Outlook.com Exchange account.
In an effort to unplug from Microsoft services, I tried to get Calendar/Contacts syncing over xbomber.co.uk using CalDAV/CardDAV, but the Sailfish implementation of those protocols is a bit broken.
I read that the Sailfish developers mainly test Sailfish with fruux and Yahoo.
Fruux is an open-source syncing service that is free for personal use, and it works perfectly on Sailfish.
USB
When connecting the phone to a PC over USB (which is important for my policy of never uploading personal data to a cloud service) the phone's storage will appear in "This PC" momentarily and then unmount itself.
Set the default USB mode in Sailfish's settings to "Always ask" and then select "MTP mode" from the notification when the phone connects.
That way, the phone presents its storage to the host PC reliably every time.
Camera
With the Xperia 10 III, the on-board camera app (and others) will not trigger the shutter until the rate of change in the image is below a certain level.
If the subject is moving or the camera is panning after it, the shutter release can be severely delayed.
The fix for this is to install Open Camera via the Aptoide store and set the API level to "Original API", rather than "API 2" in Open Camera's settings.
Otherwise, the captured images are over-exposed.
The utility below enables all three back cameras on the Xperia 10 III for SFOS.
The utility presents the three back cameras to native Sailfish apps such as the built-in camera app or Advanced Camera, but not android apps running inside AppSupport, such as Open Camera.
Note: Once triple camera has been enabled by the utility, android camera apps will not be able to access and of the device's cameras until the utility is switched back to "front camera" and the device is rebooted.
X10III Triple Camera Toggle — SailfishOS:Chum, a Sailfish OS software repository by the community
Bluetooth in AppSupport
For a long time, android apps running in AppSupport were unable to access a Sailfish device's bluetooth hardware.
The Fluval light in the aquarium is configured via the app, so that it illuminates the tank at the right level according to the time of day.
The only way of connecting to it is via Bluetooth and recently, a (beta) plugin has become available to allow android apps to access Bluetooth from AppSupport.
This can be installed from the Jolla store on the phone and the Fluval app connects right away with that plugin installed.
In time, this functionality will presumably be built into AppSupport without it needing to be added separately.
MicroG
The last thing I was missing was my banking app, which can be handy for paying contractors.
The banking apps can be obtained over the Aurora store.
They tend to need microG, which can be obtained through the F-Droid store.
Jolla have a clear and comprehensive guide to Installing microG on Sailfish OS.
Once microG is available and configured in the way shown above, you have to enable it in Settings > AppSupport.
After that, the banking app, which originally refused to run at all, ran just fine.
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