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Canonical Developing Ubuntu OS For Tablets
snydeq writes "Canonical is preparing a version of the Ubuntu OS for tablet computers as the company looks to extend its presence in the mobile space, InfoWorld reports. The OS will be a lightweight version of Linux with a simplified, touch-friendly user interface, and tablets with the Ubuntu OS could become available late in winter 2011. The focus will be on developing an OS with a simplified user interface that provides quick access to the most-used applications. Development efforts will also focus on adding on-screen keyboard features and compatibility for multitouch drivers."
AFAIK you can install your own version of Ubuntu onto the Joojoo, which is way cheaper than an iPad but has decent enough hardware specs.. this could be really awesome!
which is totally what she said
What about getting it ON a Tablet? Anybody agreed to or even thinking about putting Ubuntu on their tablet?
I don't see a lot of people wanting to buy a tablet only to replace the existing OS.
Though it'd be nice to get some kind of slate for a cheap price - this should cut down the price by $100, if Ubuntu can get someone on board with it.
When will comapnaies/websites with worldwide audiences wake up and realise that usign terms like 'ready in the winter' is NOT conducive to setting expectations equally? 'Winter' is completely relative to where in the world you are located.
How about using something somewhat universally acepted like '3rd quarter', or even better - state the damned month directly and give youyself an actual target/deadline!
I hope they hire a UI designer who isn't an Apple admirer. We need fresh ideas...
I wonder if anyone over at Canonical is now thinking this:
"Okay, so we're now designing a touch-screen version. Considering how many right-handed people are out there, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to move the window controls to the left-hand side of the screen."
Doesn't seem so ergonomic anymore, now, does it?
No-one gives a shit about tablet computers. Never have.
How we know is more important than what we know.
*sigh*
FIRST of all, tablet PC's are over 10 years old.
Second of all, the reason FOSS always seem to be behind Win/Mac is that when there is a FOSS project which is pioneering something, it is usually not advertised and ignored until one of these companies comes along and claims to have invented it. When MS/Apple pioneer something, they spend millions telling the world about it. It then becomes relevant to people that there is a FOSS version of this famous thing.
So, in summary:
FOSS comes first -> not a big deal until the others do it.
Proprietary comes first -> FOSS are lagging behind.
Mmmkay?
--
Does anyone remember X11 running a 486-100mhz with 16Meg of memory?
Have you actually measured the performance/overhead of rendering on X11?
Then you suggest Android...
Including/excluding modules doesn't constitute a kernel fork or a "different version". That's like saying you rolled your own version of Windows by removing the network driver.
I'm not sure why he got modded troll - he's absolutely correct. TFA summary makes it sound like Linux is an operating system.
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
Wait why exactly is a scroll bar bad? Given sane restrictions on how small the scroller can be, it offers a pretty decent way of getting directly to any vertical or horizontal location when presented with more information than the computer can handle. Yes obviously gestures can be used for relative scrolling (Scroll up from here, down from here, etc.) - the beauty of a scroll bar is the potential for either the "tap and you're there" functionality often associated with playback position for audio/video, sometimes volume level, etc. - as well as a "tap and you've scrolled a great distance" functionality more familiar to say, a word processor or web browser, allowing you to click or tap in one place and quickly scroll to that place, covering pages at a time, and stopping when it reaches your absolute position. It seems to me that, in the case of viewing a substantially large amount of information, the combination between a scroll bar and a gesture for scrolling would in fact be QUITE powerful.
FOSS is more than that, its primary tangible benfit is that it keeps people safe from being milked for every penny they are worth for everyday software that everyone should get the benefit of. Without it there wouldn't be innovation, know that too.
8.04's focus was stability.
9.04's focus was netbooks.
9.10's focus was cloud computing.
10.04's focus was pretty themes (and apparently dyslexia).
10.10's focus is now tablets.
Am I the only one that thinks that a Linux distro should stick with focusing on doing one thing very well? Seems all of these half-baked ideas are just late-night bong-induced dreams that get left at the wayside 6 months later. You just end up getting a bunch of "won't fix" bugs in LP because "the focus is now release+1". /me grows weary of this runaround...
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Who really gives a shit if Ubuntu copies Apple? Apple is the market leader in some areas, like UI for example, but their shit is expensive and non-free. They make locked down shit that I would never purchase (for myself) or use. Canonical makes a distribution of a free operating system that anyone can use, and they are steadily trying to improve it. If Canonical can make something to emulate the market leader in UI design, and their product is also FREE, then what is the problem with that? I can't see how that is NOT a good thing for the average person. Apple may not like it because they are trying to make money, but I don't think we should shed any tears over that.
It's not like you have to use this tablet OS, anyway. You can use the standard Ubuntu UI if you choose to. That's the nice thing about having a choice, and choices are something that Apple will never willingly give you if you buy their products. I, personally, don't care for dumbed-down interfaces. I didn't care for the netbook remix on my netbook so I installed full-blown Ubuntu on it. If I ever get a "tablet" (i.e. a regular netbook with a touchscreen, not any of this faggy no-keyboard ipad crap), then I will most likely run regular GNOME or KDE on that as well. For my grandma, sure, I will give her Ubuntu Tablet Edition or an ipad or whatever. She would benefit from the simplistic UI and lack of options to confuse her. It's nice that the option is there for those who want it, but that doesn't mean I have to use it.
FIRST of all, tablet PC's are over 10 years old.
Sure. But what cool technology ever hits the big time on its first birthday?
PCs were around for 15 years before the web sold them to your grandma's friends.
Tablet PCs before the iPad were clunky and slow computers with weird connectivity and someone trying to pump you up for balky character recognition as their greatest feature.
Now they're big-screen smartphones, and everyone wants one.
Don't think the business model will work. Let's use the iPad as an example. The OS isn't the expensive part of that product. Apple sells the iPad for $499 with the understanding that the purchaser will likely buy several apps and many movies through iTunes. You put Ubuntu on there, and the user can apt-get to bypass the App store. Same with movies.
The other problem is that tablets are media consumption devices, and Netflix doesn't work on Ubuntu.
Using Linux isn't going to save any hardware manufacturer a significant component cost. And since Android is there for free, there's not a good business argument for bundling Ubuntu.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Indeed, the winters in Ecuador sure are cold.
http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-for-mobile-internet-devices
TAIPEI, Taiwan, June 7, 2007 - Canonical Ltd., the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, announced more details on Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded Edition at Computex 2007 in Taipei.
This is where you get into scaring away real users with semantics arguments like this. This is where the year of the Linux desktop never comes around.
All of your arguments rely on the concept that if something is marketed or pushed onto the population, it should be disqualified from the success race. It ignores that fact that this is exactly why anything would succeed; that and the fact that they made it to an already popular design (the iPhone). It combined two things; a device that already is similar enough to something already used by customers and hype. Apple has succeeded more than any other company in popularizing and selling a tablet. Because of it's popularity, others are now trying to piggy back off Apple's success now that they have paved the way for it with advertising. You really don't have a coherent argument here; at the end of your post you say "see I can do that" and replace Apple with Ubuntu in a quote I had in which I say everyone is now just playing catchup to Apple. The fact is, people aren't playing catch up to Ubuntu, creator of the uPad, so I don't quite understand your point. If Ubuntu and some hardware developer released an extremely successful tablet (let's say Asus built it) and then Apple rushed in with the iPad shortly afterwards, then Ubuntu would have paved the trail.
There may have been other tablets before the iPad, but none of them had such widespread hype. You even agree to this. But seeing as how that is my point, I don't know why you are arguing. Apple hyped up the iPad a lot. Apple sold millions of iPads within months of launch. Now everyone else wants to compete. This is fact. Any other tablets from X years ago are obsolete. They may have seen moderate success when they came out but where are they now and what did they do to really strongarm the market into competing with them? Why didn't Ubuntu come out with a tablet OS then?
Furthermore, Apple is important in the mobile world too. I know other companies are also important and the shift to mobile computing has been going on for a while, but Apple has forced ATT to expand their infrastructure and the iPhone and now iPad userbase has redefined mobile user in the sense that they use the most data out of any smart phone user out their. I know they are singlehandedly redefining mobile computing, but they have managed to strongarm American cellular providers, directly with ATT and by extension the rest of them because of the change in the marketplace. This is a great direction because it means that infrastructures will be built and artificial prices will drop for data transfer in the long run, leading to a world where mobile computing is faster, easier and less expensive in general.