Thanks for posting this, I think I just found my next phone.

Can anyone comment on what the development story is like? It looks like it's just as complicated as android, but I want to be able to just write c++ code and a makefile in vim and not bother with QtCreator and especially all that qml rubbish.

> Can anyone comment on what the development story is like?

I can. I've developed and released an app for SailfishOS, and am currently in the process of developing a second one.

I do all my app development in emacs, and VirtualBox (running an i486 version of SailfishOS). My app's written in Python. The UI parts are written in QML (basically JS). I have a Makefile that does an assortment of things for me (setup dev env, package application, clean up stuff).

My second app is going to be written in Python and Go, with the UI once again in QML.

It's real Linux underneath, so you can write your application any way you like (as long as it runs on Linux/arm). However, it's easiest to write the UI in QML, as it handles all the input/widgets for you.

Which app is it?

And do you have the source and Makefiles available? I would really love to see that, and maybe even get going there. I am still in doubt if I should learn Qt or Python.

I'd prefer not to disclose the name of the app, as it would tie this account to my real name.

gPodder (https://openrepos.net/content/thp/gpodder) is perhaps the most popular SailfishOS app written in Python and QML.

You can find a lot of FOSS apps (developed in C++, Python, etc.) on OpenRepos (https://openrepos.net/).

Thank you. I will look at this for some inspiration.

Well, technically you can also just use Vim and a Makefile to write C++ code for Android. SDL2 has backends for all the Android stuff, for example, as does Qt5.

With lots of fun writing JNI wrappers, and wrapping Gradle calls into that Makefile.

Google is pretty clear that the NDK is only intended for writing games, high performance audio, or making native code available to Java.