Solana To Venture Into Smartphones With a Focus on Web3 Mobile Apps

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Summary:

  • Solana developers have unveiled a flagship Android smartphone dubbed Saga.
  • The phone will be available for pre-orders immediately and delivery in early 2023.
  • Saga will also feature unique Solana functionality integrated within.
  • Solana developers also debuted Solana Mobile Stack, an open-source SDK for Android enabling Web3 apps on Solana.

Solana developers are venturing into the telecoms industry by launching a flagship Android smartphone dubbed Saga. The smartphone is the first product of Solana’s new subsidiary, Solana Mobile.

According to the official Saga website, the smartphone will feature a 6.67″ OLED display, 512 GB storage, and the latest flagship Snapdragon® 8+ Gen 1 Mobile Platform. The latter’s security features will enable the Solana Mobile Stack’s seed vault and an additional Secure Element built into the device, which keeps private keys, seed phrases, and secrets ‘separated from the application layer yet still capable of interacting with apps running on the device or in a mobile browser.’

$100 for Saga Pre-orders, Applied to the Anticipated Final Cost of $1,000.

Saga will also be explicitly built for Web3 functionality such as decentralized exchanges, NFT marketplaces, and much more. The Saga smartphone will be available immediately for pre-order, with deliveries estimated to be fulfilled in early 2023.

The team at Solana has also provided a refundable $100 pre-order fee which will be applied to the final anticipated cost of $1,000. However, developers will be given priority during the delivery of the smartphone to test the Solana Mobile Stack and Saga.

Smartphones are Pivotal to Web3 Adoption.

Raj Gokal, the co-founder of Solana, explained that mobile devices such as Saga were pivotal to Web3 adoption. He said:

We chose the Saga name because the story of crypto is still being written. This is the next chapter of this narrative and we believe opening up crypto to mobile will lead to greater adoption, better understanding, and more opportunities.

OSOM will carry out Saga’s design and manufacturing. It is a leading Android development company with a vast background in building computing hardware for Google, Apple, Intel, and others.

Jason Keats, co-founder, and CEO of OSOM, further reiterated the importance of mobile devices in boosting Web3 adoption. He explained:

Saga starts from first principles to create a mobile experience for individuals, developers, and ecosystem participants that opens a new era of mobility.

The world needs novel hardware to embrace the future that is web3, and building out an ecosystem that looks to the future without being burdened by past legacy ecosystems is hugely exciting for us.

Solana Also Launches Solana Mobile Stack.

Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko made Saga’s unveiling during an event in New York City, where he also provided further details of the earlier mentioned Solana Mobile Stack: an Android framework that allows developers ‘to create rich mobile experiences for wallets and apps on Solana and create a Secure Element for private key management.’

The Solana Mobile Stack (SMS) is an open-source software development kit optimized for Web3 and easy to use. It also has a new set of libraries for wallets and apps, thus providing developers the foundations to create rich dApp experiences on Solana.

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