Canonical Puts Ubuntu On Android Smartphones

nk497 writes "Canonical has revealed Ubuntu running on a smartphone — but the open source developer hasn't squashed the full desktop onto a tiny screen. Instead, the Ubuntu for Android system runs both OSes side by side, picking which to surface depending on the form factor. When a device — in the demo, it was a Motorola Atrix — is being used as a smartphone, it uses Android. When it's docked into a laptop or desktop setup, the full version of Ubuntu is used. Files, apps and other functionality such as voice calls and texting are shared between the two — for example, if a text message is sent to the phone when it's docked, the SMS pops up in Ubuntu, while calls can be received or made from the desktop." ZDnet has pictures; ExtremeTech has a story, too, including some words from Canonical CEO Jane Silber.

Comments

Re:So why the push for Unity?

[Barbara, not Barbie]

Care to point out the lies?

Canonical had a goal of "fixing bug #1 - Windows majority market share" back in 2004. Here we are, 2012, and creaky old XP has 20x the market share.

Last year Shuttleworth set a goal of 200 million Ubuntu users by 2015. Since then, he's thrown all the Kubuntu users under the bus, same as he did to the Gnome users.

This latest announcement is old news - others have been running Debian on the same hardware combo since last summer. But seriously, turning a smartphone into a netbook? And one that can't even run Android apps when in "netbook mode"?????!!!!???? No OEM is going to bother with this. Netbooks are dead. And with the higher-res screens coming to tablets, Unity will be sub-optimal. Just like the idea of having to type stuff to run a program (their stupid "Heads-Up Display") is a step backwards for users.

That's okay - Mint was happy to take most of those disaffected Ubuntu users, along with their mindshare, and Fedora, Arch, and a few other distros are also seeing significant upticks. Choice is good, right?