- Solana revealed details surrounding its upcoming mobile dApp store, highlighting the lack of fees to promote developer adoption.
- Solana Labs is dedicating a large portion of its team to building its mobile effort, known as the Solana Mobile Stack (SMS) initiative.
- Solana has partnered with smartphone maker OSOM, founded by the former head of iPad architecture Jason Keats, to deliver on the ambitious plan for the Saga phone.
Solana Labs, the company behind the Solana blockchain, is making a big push into the mobile space with its Solana Mobile Stack (SMS) initiative. According to Austin Federa, the head of communications at Solana Labs, the company currently has “about” 10 people working on SMS, representing a significant portion of its 71 full-time employees.
This move into mobile is a big undertaking for Solana Labs, as it aims to bring the world of crypto to mobile devices in a secure and user-friendly way. This is a challenge that other companies, such as Sirin Labs and PundiX, have attempted with limited success. However, Solana Labs is confident it can succeed where others have failed.
The Solana dApp Store
One of the critical components of SMS is the Solana dApp store, which is set to be a significant point of focus for the company. The dApp store will be pre-installed on the upcoming Solana phone, called Saga, and will provide users with a wide range of decentralized applications (dApps) that they can use on their mobile devices. These dApps will cover a variety of use cases, such as gaming, finance, and social media. They will be designed to take full advantage of the capabilities of the Solana blockchain.
The Solana dApp store will also be open-source so that other phone manufacturers can integrate the code into their own devices. This will help to expand the reach of the Solana dApp store and provide more people with access to the world of crypto on their mobile devices. A key component is the lack of fees from dApp revenue generated on the store, a point of contention many developers have with Apple’s app store.
OSOM Partnership
To deliver on the ambitious plan of creating a mobile phone that would make it easier for users to access web3, Solana Labs has partnered with OSOM. OSOM is a smartphone maker founded by the former head of iPad architecture Jason Keats. According to Federa, Solana would only have attempted to launch the Saga with Keats’ expertise.
The Saga phone will use a modified version of Google’s operating system. It will come with the entire Google Mobile Suite, including the Google Play Store, and a host of APIs developed by Google for Android. This will ensure that users have access to all the apps and services they are accustomed to using on their mobile devices.
Private Key Security
More importantly, for its crypto focus, the phone will come with a critical custody mechanism, which will help to keep users’ private keys secure. The phone will also be pre-loaded with the Solana dApp store, Solana Pay for Android, and the so-called Mobile Wallet Adapter, which connects wallets and apps and allows for transactions to be signed.
One of the critical features of the Saga phone is its security. The phone will store users’ private keys in the same component where biometric data like fingerprints are stored, which is a first in the crypto space. According to Federa, Solana will not have access to that information, which will help to ensure that users’ private keys are safe and secure.
While Federa acknowledged that the security of the Saga phone might not be as robust as a hardware wallet, he stated that the phone’s architecture is more secure than a software wallet. This is a significant step forward in mobile crypto security and could pave the way for more widespread crypto adoption on mobile devices.
